By The Associated Press

Liquor baron Sidney Frank, who made his fortune as the creator, importer and marketer of Grey Goose vodka and gave Brown University the largest single gift in its history, died this week. He was 86.

Funeral services were held Friday in New York City for Frank, who passed away Tuesday in San Diego. A spokesman for his importing company declined to specify the cause of death.

Frank grew up on a farm in rural Connecticut and attended Brown for one year before he ran out of tuition money. After his success in the business world, he became a philanthropist and set up a $100 million scholarship endowment to Brown, in addition to a $20 million gift for a building.

“Everything I did in life, I thought big,” Frank said in a 2004 interview with the Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin.

“Through hard work and determination, Mr. Frank led a full life that embodied the American dream and serves as an inspiration to all of us,” Brown President Ruth J. Simmons wrote in an e-mail to students and staff.

Most recently, Frank established a $5 million hurricane relief fund at Brown for students and faculty of colleges affected by Hurricane Katrina, including Xavier and Dillard universities, both in New Orleans, and Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss.

Frank first tasted success in the liquor industry by marketing the German licorice-flavored liquor Jagermeister in the United States. He promoted the brand by paying models to go to bars and persuade college-age students to buy the drink – often by offering free shots administered with a spray gun.

“He’s almost like the Warren Buffett of the spirits industry,” Michael Harrelson, editor of the trade publication Nightclub and Bar, said in 2004. “His choices in the spirits he chose to buy into are very carefully weighed and considered, and he doesn’t just throw something out there to try to attract some interest.”

Frank began promoting Grey Goose in 1997, planting bottles in Hollywood limousines and marketing it as the vodka of the elite. The Wall Street Journal reported that in 1999, sales of Grey Goose totaled about 100,000 cases. Two years later, sales topped 1 million cases.