Inside Dan Aykroyd's head

IT'S A crisp autumn night, you're at a house party with some friends, and everyone's getting thirsty. There's good music, good food, good people - heck, maybe a couple of wild and crazy guys are making a scene on the dance floor - but the only thing you can find to drink is unrelentingly bad liquor.

Who you gonna call?

Dan Aykroyd.

The Hollywood icon feels your pain, consumer of bad booze. He had some unfortunate encounters in the past with the perfectly awful tequila and vodka sold near his summer home in Canada.

Aykroyd has spent much of the past decade on a mission to bring quality alcoholic beverages to the masses. Ended up building a liquid empire along the way, experiencing the kind of success that would make Mortimer and Randolph Duke - the wealthy villains of his 1983, filmed-in-Philly classic, "Trading Places" - sick with envy.

He'll be back in Philly on Friday at a 20th and Market state store promoting his eye-catching Crystal Head Vodka, which earlier this year won a gold medal for taste at Prodexpo, an international exhibition for food and alcohol, held in Moscow.

"That vindicated it. If the Russians don't know vodka, then I don't know who does," Aykroyd, 61, said during a lengthy interview with the Daily News on Friday.

Aykroyd touched on his memories of Philly, his booze business, and his storied film, television and recording career. (Yes, he knows you're wondering whether there will be a "Ghostbusters 3." You'll just have to keep reading to find out.)

But he mostly talked about what makes Crystal Head the perfect vodka to spend some time with at the end of the day. You know, aside from the fact that it's sold in a glass skull.

So how'd Aykroyd go from singing the blues and busting ghosts to peddling liquor? It started with the summer house parties that he regularly hosted in Canada.

"I like to serve margaritas, but I got tired of working with the lesser products that we had in Canada," Aykroyd said.

He reached out to John Paul DeJoria, founder of Patron tequila, who also happened to be an early investor in the House of Blues clubs, which Aykroyd co-founded.

"Patron had this beautiful, smoky flavor," Aykroyd said, "so I told J.P. that I'd love to get a case of this sent up to my local, government-run liquor store."

DeJoria had a different idea. He granted Aykroyd an importing license to bring Patron to all of Canada. The tequila became wildly popular, and Aykroyd ended up becoming an investor in a local liquor distributor.

From there, he launched a line of wines - chardonnay, merlot, cabernet - all of which bear his name. They, too, became a huge success.

So Aykroyd set his sights next on producing vodka that was better than the citrusy, sugary blends he had grown accustomed to. In 2008, he launched Crystal Head. The vodka is made with water from an aquifer in Newfoundland. It's quadruple distilled, then triple filtered through Herkimer diamonds.

"There are no additives," Aykroyd said. "We left out the glycerin, which makes it a great, clean slate for cocktails."

He and renowned artist John Alexander settled on using a crystal-clear skull to underscore the purity of the vodka. (Plus, it's pretty damn cool to drink vodka out of a skull.)

"The crystal skulls were used by the Mayans and the Aztecs . . . for positivity, for enlightenment of the tribe," he said. "We're selling enlightened drinking, enlightened thinking, and a positive experience."

Crystal Head reached the 1 million-bottle mark faster than any other premium vodka, and has netted plenty of industry awards, including a double gold medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, in 2011.

Aykroyd is no stranger to acclaim. "Briefcase Full of Blues," the album he released in 1978 with his late, great Blues Brother John Belushi, went triple platinum. He won an Emmy for writing on "Saturday Night Live," and was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy."

"All of them pale" next to the accolades Crystal Head has received, Aykroyd said.

Philly still holds a special place in Aykroyd's heart.

"I remember the warmth of the people. It was so pleasant to stay there," he said of his time here filming "Trading Places."

"I remember the creative joy of working with Eddie [Murphy] and [director] John Landis," he said. "I courted my wife [actress Donna Dixon] then, so she hid out with me in the city during those early days."

Aykroyd said that he'll try to see some of the city's sights during his visit later this week.

"I love the Mutter Museum," he said. "It's spectacular, and my oldest daughter really loves it there. I always like to go through Valley Forge. . . . I love American history."

Aykroyd expects that longtime fans will show up for his Crystal Head appearance and pose questions about his other classic films, from "Blues Brothers" to "The Great Outdoors" to - you guessed it - "Ghostbusters."

So, what are the odds that Aykroyd will suit up for a third and final time as Ray Stantz?

"We're closer to where we've ever been on the third one," he said. "We're at the point where we're ready to probably finalize the script."

We'll drink to that.