Jersey brothers Sal and Frank D’Acunto sell American spirit, literally.

They launched their own brand of luxury vodka three years ago, calling it Americana and aiming to compete with high-end beverages from Russia and France.

Their product is sold at 2,500 nightspots and liquor stores throughout the Northeast. The square-cornered bottles stand tall amid the imports, colored red, white and blue and stamped with “Product of USA,” in case anyone misses the nuance.

“I was brought up to always buy American,” says Sal D’Acunto, 50, of Holmdel, father of four and a former Wall Street trader who left his job to start a business with his sibling. Their late father, Vincent, was a New York liquor salesman and local union leader.

“Unfortunately, over the last several decades, more and more jobs are going overseas, and we’re losing our manufacturing capabilities. I am excited with this because I can feed my family and help the country at the same time,” Sal says.

The 80-proof vodka is 100 percent Jersey. It is produced in Scobeyville, in Monmouth County, at Laird & Co., one of the nation’s oldest family distilleries, dating back nearly three centuries and famous for its Applejack brandy. Americana bottles are decorated at a facility in Hillside, Quest Industries.

The company grew out of a conversation about the increasing popularity of vodka, a versatile spirit that can be served on the rocks, mixed in a variety of cocktails or infused with its own flavors. The D’Acunto brothers started the business just as the economy began to tank, but Sal D’Acunto says their industry is “somewhat recession-proof.”

“When people are making a lot of money, they’re going out and drinking and when they’re not making the money, they’re still drinking but instead of going out, they’ll go to a liquor store, buy a bottle and go to a friend’s house,” he says.

Priced around $25 for a 750-millimeter bottle, Americana is made with a fermented blend of corn, wheat, rye and barley. The brothers were seeking perfection when they did an initial taste test at Laird’s, which also produces its own vodka brand. The D’Acuntos weighed their options, trying samples with different ingredients and filtration techniques.

Their choice, then simply called No. 5, was highly processed, filtered repeatedly with charcoal to remove impurities.

“All of us picked Vodka No. 5,” says Frank D’Acunto, 49, of Old Bridge, father of three. “It’s clean, crisp. It’s like water off a mountain.”

Plant manager Ray Murdock has a secret recipe that distinguishes Americana from imports.

“I make the best tasting American vodka on the market,” says Murdock, 37, of New Gretna, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “Chicks dig vodka. Chicks like to drink stuff that doesn’t hurt. My objective was to make sure that girls like our vodka. I don’t care about Russian standards.”

Americana impressed Jim Bailey, president of J.B. International Cellars, an adult beverage broker based near Washington, D.C.

“It’s extremely smooth without a burn that you get with some vodkas,” explains Bailey. “I’ve done blind taste tests with bartenders who said their favorite vodka is Belvedere or Grey Goose. I’ll tell them, ‘Which one do you like the best?’ They’ll pick Americana.”

Bailey sold a thousand cases of the vodka to the Navy, and they were distributed for sale on bases nationwide. He is in the process of pitching Americana to the Army & Air Force Exchange Services, a military retailer that runs an online catalog.

“With that patriotic packaging, it’s perfect,” says Bailey. “The packaging was the first draw for the Navy when I presented it to them.”

The bottle, which could be described as patriotism-meets-pop art, has won prizes for its design. It earned a bronze medal and was the People’s Choice favorite in 2008 at a packaging competition hosted by the National Association of Container Distributors. Frank feels photos don’t do it justice.

“It’s like looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon,” explains Frank. “You look at a picture and go, ‘Oh that’s beautiful.’ But when you’re actually there at the edge of the Grand Canyon overlooking the whole thing, it takes your breath away. It’s almost the same thing with our bottle.”

What’s inside the bottle matters, too. Bloomfield bar owner Banc Pero stopped stocking Absolut months ago and introduced Americana as the house pour.

“I never liked Absolut that much,” says Pero, proprietor of Titillations, a bikini go-go bar and cigar lounge that was featured in the indie film, “Choke.”

Pero continues, “Absolut gives a lot of people headaches the next day. I’m like, ‘So, what are you drinking it for?’ I speak to every single customer who asks what happened to Absolut. I take the Americana bottle over, give them a little explanation, pour them a shot, get them to understand the different vodkas.”

It’s all a matter of taste, according to Pero.

“I feel very strongly that people should get something better when they come by my place,” Pero explains. “Americana is a better vodka. It’s just a bonus that it’s made in America. I’m not going to stock something lousy just because it’s American or made in New Jersey.”

For the moment, sales are concentrated in the tri-state area but the D’Acunto brothers have grand ambitions, for their beverage and for their country.

“We’ve got to get jobs back,” says Sal. “We make things better here, that’s the bottom line. Why can’t we do it with vodka? Americana, it means the culture of America. It gives us the ability to market that to any type of audience, from hip-hop to jazz to the great American pastime, baseball. Americana should be in every ballpark. NASCAR, I would love to see an Americana car riding right next to a Jack Daniels car.”

Lisa Rose: lrose@starledger.com