The billionaire Russian entrepreneur behind Russia’s biggest vodka maker has paid $3 million to acquire the vodka.com domain, part of a bid to expand into the U.S. market, a broker said on Thursday.

Sedo.com, the Web domain brokering unit that is part of Germany’s United Internet AG, said it had acted as the sales agent in the deal.

Conglomerate Russian Standard Co., controlled by Roustam Tariko, paid $3 million to an undisclosed seller in a deal completed December 4, according to a Sedo.com spokesman. A New York-based spokeswoman for Russian Standard confirmed the $3 million price tag.

Russian Standard entered the U.S. market in September 2005 with its Imperia brand. The recipe for Imperia is said to have been discovered by 19th century Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev, inventor of chemistry’s periodic table of elements.