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The development of alcoholic beverages designed for weightlessness is an innovative direction in companies producing elite alcohol. In 2018, the French company GH Mumm introduced the first champagne for space tourists, which is able to stay in glasses due to their special design. A new product on the Russian market – “anti-gravity” vodka – has nothing to do with the space industry. Alcoholic drinks in tubes are an original souvenir, convenient primarily for its compactness and ease of transportation.
The history of the appearance of vodka in tubes
Drinking alcohol on board the space station is strictly prohibited, although there have been attempts in history to study the effect of alcohol on the body in zero gravity. In the 1970s in the Soviet Union, cosmonauts were allowed to take a few grams of alcohol before bed, and Georgy Grechko shared a playful recollection of a bottle of cognac found by chance, which was hidden in the tracksuit of one of the foreign astronauts. However, the flight participants could not fully enjoy the drink – when squeezed out of the container, the cognac mixed with air bubbles and turned into foam, which spoiled all the pleasure.
In 2004, the Austrian company Wenger Senf released a vodka devoid of such shortcomings. The manufacturer gave the drink a jelly-like structure and packaged it in aluminum tubes. The company is known in the market for its delicacy Hungarian mustard, and the gel vodka was intended as a marketing ploy to draw attention to the brand. Wenger Senf did not count on contracts with NASA – the product was positioned as a convenient souvenir in transportation and was addressed primarily to travelers.
The novelty was called GO Wodka and attracted the attention of journalists. In just a year, the company managed to conquer the international market and conclude contracts for export to fifteen countries of the world, including the USA, China and Australia. The drink is in demand among young people – it is convenient to bring a compact aluminum tube with you to a party and cool it in a glass with ice, and the unusual shape of the package attracts the attention of others.
Production features
It is difficult to mass-produce such a product at a conventional plant due to the fact that bottling jelly-like vodka requires a special line designed for aluminum tubes. That is why Wenger Senf, which specializes in the production of sauces in tubes, retains leadership in the manufacture of an “anti-gravity” alcoholic product.
The gel structure is achieved by mixing ethyl alcohol and flavors with food additives that act as a thickener. The stability of the consistency depends on the manufacturer – Russian-made craft vodka quickly loses its structure and turns into a liquid in the air.
Types of vodka in tubes
Go Wodka
Vodka in GO tubes quickly became a youth trend due to its bright design and pleasant taste – the line has eight varieties of drinks with the addition of various fruit extracts and liquor.
Types of additives:
- power engineer;
- coffee;
- lemon;
- cherry;
- grapefruit;
- cranberry juice;
- apple and strawberry;
- egg liqueur.
The popularity of the brand is added by the fact that in fact, under the GO Wodka brand, not pure vodka is sold, but a low-alcohol cocktail with a strength of 4 to 11,8 degrees. You can drink it in several ways – mix it in a glass with a small amount of soda, add it to another drink, or simply squeeze it into your mouth from a tube.
Vodka-gel “Antigravity”
Due to the popularity of the product, vodka-gel began to be produced in Russia as well – ads for its sale are often found on the Web. The drink with a strength of 40% with flavors of lemon, apple and cranberry is packaged in souvenir tubes with the image of an astronaut in orbit.
Legality of vodka-gel
When deciding to buy, you must remember that in Russia the sale of alcohol via the Internet is prohibited and strong alcohol is allowed to be poured only into glass containers, and an excise stamp must be present on the bottle.