Spirits powered by the sun
As radioactive material spewed into the air and thousands fled the city of Priypat never to return, nuclear engineer Alex Kirichuk was getting ready to walk right into the thick of it.
On April 26, 1986, a botched safety test of the No.4 nuclear power reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant saw an explosion send a radioactive cloud across Europe.
Kirichuk, a Ukranian national (formerly the USSR) says he was sent in to Chernobyl as an inspector to deal with the aftermath. He would visit the wasteland, 600km from home, three times after the incident.
Chernobyl seems worlds away from where Kirichuk is now, running a gin distillery nestled in the hills of Puhoi, north of Auckland. But for Kirichuk, the two have more to do with each other than meets the eye.
After the incident, up to 600,000 liquidators (civilian and military personnel) were called upon to deal with mitigation activities at the reactor, and within the 30km zone surrounding the reactor, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency.
Hundreds of thousands of recovery operation workers continued to work within the zone for the next few years. Kirichuk says they were only allowed to spend 10 or 15 minutes in the zone at a time.
Kirichuk copped ‘‘quite a heavy dosage’’ of radiation during his visits to Chernobyl, and claims he would not be here today if not for his wife Iryna, a doctor, crediting her herbal tonic made with Ukranian church wine. Now 65, Kirichuk shows no visible sign of illness or of slowing down. He says he uses no medicines and doesn’t have health insurance, he ‘‘doesn’t need it’’.
After immigrating to New Zealand with Iryna and their daughter Victoria in 2002, the Kirichuks wanted to continue the tradition of making home remedies.
Kirichuk is now the founder and owner of Puhoi Organic Distillery, where he has been making organic spirits with his wife and daughter commercially for four years. On a hill behind the town’s iconic Puhoi Pub, up a private gravel road, the family home and distillery are just a few paces from each other.
Kirichuk recently partnered with energy provider solarcity to launch Te Ra¯, touted as New Zealand’s first solely solar-power distilled gin. Te Ra¯, infused with saffron and apple, looks like liquid sunshine in a bottle. They’ve made a limited run of just 400 bottles.
As well as crafting herbal tonics, Kirichuk started making alcohol and within a few years the family was operating a fully licensed operation. They continue to make a version of Iryna’s remedy – a ‘rejuvenating’ red grape tonic – which they sell today from their cellar door.
The indelible impact the Chernobyl disaster continues to have on Ukraine "converted" Kirichuk to a greener way of living. Long before it was trendy, Kirichuk says he and his family started making a conscious effort to do away with anything which could harm the environment.
The distillery and their home have been run by solar power since July 2018, as a move towards being less reliant on traditional grid power.