This was literally my first ever profile photo on Facebook. It says a lot about me. First of all, I drink and therefore I am cool. But also I have impeccable style and at least one friend, who I can physically dominate. I mean look at that navy blue NBA headband and that blue and green striped J Crew polo. Who the fuck wouldn’t want to hang out with me?
I’ve zoomed in on the photo and it appears to be Dark Eyes vodka. I don’t remember it having a profound effect on me, just one of the numerous suitors in the days pre-Kamchatka. Freshman year was a blur of hazing, awkward sexual encounters and drinking lots and lots of Skol in my dorm room before basketball games. I think back then we could get a half gallon bottle for about 7 dollars.
It’s ironic that I drank the piss that I did. Like any self-respecting frat guy, I had an ‘emergency credit card’ in college which acted as an unlimited line of credit that I would never have to pay. I suppose it was just some misplaced solidarity or the need to assimilate that kept me consuming the vile bottom row vodka with my peers. Alas, I started to grow a real fondness for it.
I don’t remember the exact moment Kamchatka entered my life, but it was likely sometime in late 2006 or early 2007. The first photographic evidence I found after a cursory search of my Facebook library points to March 2007, right around the ramp up to Spring Break and Little 500. Alas, this was the flavorless Kamchatka, a slight upgrade over the gasoline that was our traditional swill.
Further research shows the first appearance of flavored Kamchatka as December of 2007. If you look at the man in the far right of this photo and draw a line down from his left elbow you will see it, 35% alcohol, 100% perfection: grape Kamchatka.
There were rumors that it wasn’t even really vodka, that it was some sort of grain alcohol infused with artificial flavors. Some would say that drinking enough of it might render you temporarily blind. We didn’t care. We just knew that by drinking a half a bottle of this we would hit the town with enough inflated confidence to fight a fucking shark.
The grape Kamchatka really hit the mainstream in 2008 and 2009. ‘Twas a staple at every tailgate, every boat trip. By the end of a four-hour session on Lake Monroe the 1.75 liter bottles would be half full of sea water, but we didn’t care. If the alcohol was strong enough to cause blindness surely it could handle a little dirty water.
Unfortunately, I graduated after four years. I moved to Chicago and I lost the family credit card. My Kamchatka consumption would no longer be a luxury but a necessity. Though as hard as I scoured the windy city, I could never find what I sought.
Fortunately, I was still quasi-dating a couple students at IU as fuckboys do. Thus, I could always look forward to my next trip down to campus. A football game, Homecoming, Little 500, a random fucking party in the middle of February that would help me forget about selling computer software.
But one day I arrived at the Big Red liquor store and realized it was gone. No grape Kamchatka. Not even Cherry. Nothing.
Thinking that this surely must be an anomaly I traveled to the other five liquor stores around town and they all told me the same thing.
“It just stopped coming.”
There were of course rumors flying around that Bloomington had ‘banned’ the beverage due to numerous cases of alcohol poisoning; a Four Loko situation all over again.
This story made sense. We drank grape ‘chatch straight and typically without chaser. It would often make me do things like this…
And this…
So I drove down to Bedford. Surely Indiana University would have less influence in neighboring towns, but again I found the same. Grape Kamchatka had disappeared into thin air.
Eventually I moved to California and would think less and less about the elixir of my youth. When I would travel back home I would see that Karkov and some other imitators had attempted to fill the gap left by Kamchatka’s departure, but none of them quite measured up.
Over the years as eCommerce and alcohol delivery improved I would periodically search for a long lost bottle. It would be a huge hit at some sort of reunion, perhaps a fifth exchange. Maybe I would hang it over my bed like a trophy from my youth.
I came close once, finding a listing in Union, NJonly to find out that the bottle was long gone. I would bring up my search to friends from all over the country and started to realize, this may have been a fairly narrow niche from the beginning.
Just today I did a search for “grape Kamchatka.”
There were only three English results.
The first is a girl that clearly went to Indiana and explains how Cherry (not Grape Kamchatka) was instrumental in her dropping out. (Actually you should read her post, it’s really good!)
The second is an Ohio liquor distributer’s ordering guide for 2013.
The third was my friend Jen trying to get all the IU Pi Phis together for a reunion last year. Hi Jen, hope it was fun.
So what ever happened to grape Kamchatka anyway? If you just google “Kamchatka” you will learn that it is (or at least was) one of the highest selling vodkas in America…at least in the Midwest (it was distributed out of Kentucky)
Could it be that Bloomington was just a test market for grape and cherry flavors for a very specific time from 2007-2009? You would be hard pressed to find anyone that studied in Bloomington during that time that doesn’t harbor strong feelings about it one way or the other.
I find myself chasing parts of nostalgia from my youth often. I buy a Four Loko (non-caffeinated – boo) once in a while because it reminds me of going to bars like Gamekeepers in Chicago (RIP) I buy a jager bottle now and again because it reminds me of my absurd pregames in Florence. Shit, I even bought a sixer of Zima last year because it reminded me of the icing craze from a few years back,.
I just want one more bottle of grape Kamchatka so I can remember waking up on a spring Friday in Bloomington, sending out a mass BBM to all my homies in the Greek system and inviting them over for a darty…or leaving the tailgate to keep it going at my house with a DJ that also moonlighted as an accountant, blasting ‘Country Roads,’ showering beers while passersby shook their head, either in total disgust or complete envy.
I don’t know if I’ll ever find that bottle of grape Kamchatka that I’m looking for, but I’ll never stop trying. Perhaps it’s an overarching metaphor for my lost youth. But as long as there is still hope for one bottle out there, I will maintain a purpose.
If you have any info on how to acquire grape Kamchatka (or even cherry) please reach out or let me know in the comments!
