The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

Today in Scary Food: LED Vodka

By Anthony Todd in Food on Nov 12, 2010 8:20PM


Sometimes, new products are fraudulent, and sometimes new products sound disgusting. Other times, they just seem kind of silly. Medea Vodka, a new "ultra-premium" Dutch spirit, is made with the finest winter wheat, distilled with natural artesian water and probably blown on by angels. However, the distinctive feature of Medea is the bottle. It offers the world's first programmable LED bottle. You can program up to 255 characters to display on the side, and the battery lasts for a year and is submersible, for when you're giving customized vodka to sharks and stingrays.

We have absolutely no opinion whatsoever on the vodka. It may be the greatest thing to hit vodka since the days of the Tsar. But, for our money, this packaging concept is completely ridiculous, in a way that perfectly evokes the insanity of the liquor industry. Especially among vodkas, a set of spirits that the average drinker cannot tell apart, branding has become the most important thing - and if you can't put your vodka in a crystal skull, it might as well light up and talk to you.