Vodka Belt

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The "vodka belt"

The Vodka Belt is an informal term for the territory covered by countries where vodka is historically the most popular alcoholic beverage.

The term appears as early as in 1964 in a Time magazine article about hard drinking in Poland.^[1]

1 Definition
2 Culture
3 Agricultural policy
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Definition

Being an informal term, the "vodka belt" has no established definition. However, the general definition tends to include the following states:

Nordic States ( including Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Greenland, but not Denmark.)^[2]
Lithuania
Latvia
Estonia
Poland^[3]
Belarus
Russia
Ukraine

The few EU countries of the Vodka Belt produce over 70% of the EU's vodka.^[2]

Vodka belt countries generally have cold climates. The southern boundary of the "vodka belt" roughly corresponds to -2 C January isotherm. With the exception of Ukraine and some regions of southern Russia, cultivation of grapes is impossible or very difficult anywhere in the Vodka belt. Wine producing Mediterranean countries and the "vodka belt" are separated by a so-called beer belt, consisting of the British Isles, Denmark, Benelux, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

[edit] Culture

In his book about the Soviet Union^[4], Alex de Jonge elaborates on his concept of "geoalcoholics". In particular, he explains Russian peculiarities by their belonging to the vodka belt and the absence of the beer belt in the Soviet Union. Other than the prevalent hard liquor, the vodka belt is also characteristic of higher occurrence binge drinking pattern compared to the rest of Europe.^[5]

However, in many countries historically belonging to the Vodka Belt, vodka has been supplanted by beer as the alcoholic drink of choice. Residents of Finland and Sweden consume twice as much beer as vodka (in terms of pure alcohol). ^[6] The Polish Beer-Lovers' Party (which won 16 seats in the Sejm in 1991) was founded on the notion of fighting alcoholism by a cultural abandonment of vodka for beer. And in 1998, beer surpassed vodka as the most popular alcoholic drink in Poland.^[7] In Russia, annual consumption of beer has grown from 12 liters per capita in 1995 to 67 liters in 2006 (but still remains lower than consumption of vodka).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Agricultural policy

The term has been generating much buzz since 2006 in relating to the "vodka war"^[8] within the European Union about the standardisation of vodka: the Vodka Belt countries insist that only spirits produced from grains and potato must be allowed to be branded as "vodka", according to the long established traditions of its production, a brand protection similar to the "protected designation of origin". ^[9] ^[2] ^[10] The "Schnellhardt compromise", proposed by Horst Schnellhardt, suggests that vodkas from other than cereals, potatoes and molasses, should be labeled to say "Vodka produced from..."^[8]