Can vodka help revive Chernobyl?
What can be done with the deserted land in Ukraine after Chernobyl’s catastrophic nuclear disaster? Three decades on, researchers have an idea.
Introducing “Atomik” vodka: a new spirit produced from crops grown in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone.
A team of British scientists worked alongside colleagues in Ukraine to produce the vodka, made with grain and water from the abandoned region, on a farm near the site of the 1986 accident.
But for those interested in consuming the product, one key question lingers: Is it safe?
According to Prof. Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth, the product has been put through aggressive testing and is free of radioactivity: “This is no more radioactive than any other vodka. We’ve checked it,” reassured Smith.
Currently, only one bottle of the vodka exists, but that is likely to change.
The team behind the new beverage hopes to use profits from future sales to help wildlife conservation and communities still affected by the disaster. Smith says there are plans to create “the Chernobyl Spirit Company,” once all outstanding legal inquiries are completed.
“This might just be the most important bottle of vodka in the world. Not for what it is but for what it represents,” Smith said in a video. “Hopefully we can give back 75% of the profits from the enterprise to the local community to support their economic and social development.” Atomik vodka
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But one of the touted remedies has people in a towering rage. And they should be.
Under the deal, if your data was exposed and you