Still up? Fancy a tipple? Atomik is an “artisanal vodka” made by scientists from rye grown IN the #Chernobyl exclusion zone! I had a taste (thanks, @ProfJimTSmith) Its origin story on #bbcnewsten tonight @BBCOne.
(Thanks @barswift for the Atomik cocktails!) pic.twitter.com/cRZKQZM73K— Victoria Gill 🐧🎥🔬 (@Vic_Gill) August 7, 2019
“This is no more radioactive than any other vodka.”
A team of scientists reportedly created an artisanal spirit known as Atomik — which they concocted using grain and water from the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
It’s the very fist consumer product to come out of the nuclear disaster site, according to the BBC.
“It’s the only bottle in existence,” said UK professor Jim Smith, of the University of Portsmouth.
“I tremble when I pick it up.”
Smith and his team worked on the “artisan vodka” for several years before releasing the very first bottle this week. The biggest question they keep getting, obviously, is whether the alcohol is safe to consume.
“This is no more radioactive than any other vodka,” Smith said. “Any chemist will tell you, when you distil something, impurities stay in the waste product. So we took rye that was slightly contaminated and water from the Chernobyl aquifer and we distilled it. We asked our friends at Southampton University, who have an amazing radio-analytical laboratory, to see if they could find any radioactivity. They couldn’t find anything — everything was below their limit of detection.”
Scientists believe the Chernobly liquor could be a sign of things to come.
“We don’t have to just abandon the land,” explained Dr. Hennady Laptev, of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute in Kiev. “We can use it in diverse ways and we can produce something that will be totally clean from the radioactivity.”
Smoth agreed, saying: “After 30 years, I think the most important thing in the area is actually economic development, not the radioactivity.”
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Author: Chris Perez
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