You can now drink vodka brewed from crops in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

It's radioactivity-free too.

A few months back, mini-series Chernobyl blew everybody away with its emotive, harrowing, and totally necessary telling of the nuclear disaster that changed the world. In 1986, the plant's reactor four exploded, leading to mass evacuations, confusion, and countless lives lost across the Soviet Union. Since the show's debut, interest in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat has grown exponentially, with tourists flocking to the site to truly experience the destruction of the explosion. Without the actual explosion, of course. In fact, people are so interested in Chernobyl these days that they're even willing to drink a vodka that's brewed from the crops inside of the exclusion zone. Apparently the vodka (which is completely safe to drink, by the way) will be a massive stepping stone in helping the region recover financially. According to professor Jim Smith, from the University of Portsmouth, the spirit, called Atomik, is “possibly the most important bottle of spirits in the world because it could help the economic recovery of communities living in and around the abandoned areas." "Many thousands of people are still living in the Zone of Obligatory Resettlement where new investment and use of agricultural land is still forbidden," he told BBC News.  The plan is for the vodka to be brewed commercially through The Chernobyl Spirit Company, with 75 percent of the profits going directly back into the affected community. Smith said that the aim is to give those living just outside the exclusion zone the chance to recover economically. Here, radiation has become less of a health risk as time has gone on, meaning that agriculture could become a possibility again. “We don’t think the main exclusion zone should be extensively used for agriculture as it is now a wildlife reserve but there are other areas where people live but agriculture is still banned," he said. “Thirty-three years on, many abandoned areas could now be used to grow crops safely without the need for distillation." Drink up then so.