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The "Gin Lane" reminded me summer 1992 in a small remote town in Russia. Ask any Russian older than 45 to tell you about alcohol "Royal" (спирт Рояль) or as we
by trhway 3y ago
The "Gin Lane" reminded me summer 1992 in a small remote town in Russia. Ask any Russian older than 45 to tell you about alcohol "Royal" (спирт Рояль) or as we call that time "Summer of Royal" :)
At the beginning of 1992 the market reforms happened, and in particular almost complete alcohol deregulation. Very soon, in the Spring, Russia was flooded with those 1 liter bottles of very cheap, yet safely drinkable, 96% ethanol under trademark "Royal". Everybody was drinking it like a thirsty traveler in a desert coming upon water in a oasis. 1 such bottle of that ethanol with a 1.5 liter bottle of soda was making an equivalent of 5 standard 0.5l bottles of vodka at half the price.
In the Summer i went to work in a small remote town, and that is when the first delivery of "Royal" came into the town's grocery store. Next few days in that town is what the "Gin Lane" reminded me of. The things normalized only when the store ran out of "Royal". When 3 weeks later another delivery of Royal came in, this time double the amount, the situation repeated, only that time it was for almost 2 weeks, again until the store ran out.
The story in dry numbers https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Estimates-of-overall-level-of-alcohol-consumption-in-Russia-between-1980-and-2015_fig1_348572956 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Estimates-of-overall-lev... (in 1995 the regulations were brought back to some degree)
- ben_bai 3y agoSame procedure back then. Get yourself some high proof alcohol. Add Juniper berries, and maybe some other herbs/spices. Water down. And that's Gin.
- arethuza 3y agoLarge scale industrial production of spirits is pretty much like that - manufacture the alcohol and then add different flavourings and colours to produce a variety of drinks. Edit: Obviously there are dedicated manufacturers producing whisky, gin etc. - but they are at a smaller scale.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoIn Romania there is a whole host of cheap liquors where the label will say in tiny print “alcoholic beverage with X flavouring”. For example, the label might show a pirate, leading consumers to think it is rum, but there in tiny print “alcoholic beverage with rum flavouring”. I always imagine a man in a white coat with an eyedropper adding a drop of flavouring essence to what is otherwise industrial ethanol and water. But EU labeling laws for many beverages are strict, so if it doesn’t use the weasel wording, you can trust that you are getting the real deal.
- jiofj 3y agoLidl sells lots of liquors like that. Usually water, alcohol, syrup, and some kind of flavouring. It's disgusting to me because I have always seen alcoholic drinks as something holy - just adding ethanol to water sounds like something deserving of the wrath of the gods.
- walthamstow 3y agoI've had stuff like that at cheap all-inclusive resorts in Egypt or maybe Spain before - really nasty hangovers!
- worklaptopacct 3y agoLooked it up in Google Images and it's funny how they made the label in German to mimic the feel of a luxury product. I guess German things must have been status symbols at the time.
- hnbad 3y ago"They" were a company in Hamburg, so I guess they made the label in German because they produced it in Germany. Their primary foreign market was apparently Russia and Poland, at the time. The significance of 1992 is that Russia became the Russian Federation in December 1991 and the early years of the Russian Federation were defined by a massive market deregulation, massive privatization and extreme corruption but more importantly to this anecdote: an opening of the Russian market for international trade. The "Feinsprit" (or "Primasprit") was safe for human consumption (if watered down at least) but it was essentially a cheap industrial product. It's also noteworthy that a similar product had been available in the GDR (which collapsed in 1990) but was apparently fairly expensive and hard to come by, so likely not produced at scale and for export.
- pjc50 3y agoNot coincidentally, at this time the life expectancy of Russians dropped dramatically.
- rdtsc 3y agoIt was like that in Russian Siberian villages with vodka since forever. The train would deliver vodka and it was payday and the whole town shot down for a few days.