Newsday - Chernobyl's Atomik vodka 'not radioactive' - BBC Sounds

It sounds like a crazy idea: an apple vodka called Atomik has been made in the nuclear fall-out area of Chernobyl.

But the drink has actually been designed by environmental scientists who want to prove that the area can now be used safely for food production. The apples are grown about 60km from the former power station, outside the main exclusion zone.

Trouble is, when the first batch was destined for the UK it was confiscated by the Ukrainian authorities who didn't seem to like the idea. The team aren't sure why that decision was made.

Professor Jim Smith, from the University of Portsmouth studied the exclusion zone before setting up the Chernobyl Spirit Company with Ukrainian colleagues.

"Now, 35 years on... most of the area is pretty radioactively clean... We have a separate project to try and demonstrate that crops can be grown in some areas where there are people living but they're not allowed to use the agricultural land and that's having a big impact not from the radioactivity but from the economic impact on those communities."