Would You Drink the First (New) Chernobyl Vodka?
No, you won't need a hazmat suit to stir your martini, and no, it's not a questionable merch exercise from a recent hit series: But yes, Chernobyl vodka is here. After years of research, rye grain grown on an experimental plot in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where agriculture is otherwise forbidden, has been distilled into a most potent potable.
This isn't some extreme endgame of the fusion (fission?) drinks trend, but rather the result of University of Portsmouth professor Jim Smith's decades-long academic and humanitarian interest in the region around the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. "I began to realize that radioactivity was far from being the biggest problem many people face there," Smith explained to Unfiltered via email. "As a key U.N. 2002 report found, the social, psychological and economic consequences of Chernobyl … were the most serious."
So, Smith decided to find out if less radioactive areas could become agriculturally viable again, using a product Ukranians know and trust. In a research paper published this month, Smith and his team documented their trial and its promising conclusion: a vodka-like "moonshine" called Atomik, from rye grown on a 0.6-acre field in an abandoned area, diluted to 40% ABV with water from a deep aquifer about 6 miles from the reactor site. "The distillation process leaves many heavier elements (in our case the radioactive ones) in the waste," said Smith. The verdict? "Our friends at GAU-Radioanalytical at Southampton University couldn't find any Chernobyl radioactivity in the final product."
Despite (or because of) the off-the-charts reactions to the acclaimed HBO miniseries Chernobyl this year, the vodka could still be a tough sell. “There may be significant public reluctance to consume products viewed as ‘contaminated,’” Smith acknowledged in his study. True to Smith's big-picture goals, his Chernobyl Spirit Company, which plans to market Atomik, aims to donate 75 percent of profits to the still-afflicted community.
https://www.winespectator.com/articles/would-you-drink-the-first-new-chernobyl-vodka-atomik-unfiltered?utm_campaign=Unfiltered081619&utm_source=Unfiltered081619&utm_medium=email&utm_content=06136da64d94599140b32229e92119a4
I wonder if the bottle can double as a flashlight?
= new reply since forum marked as read
ya think???!!!
