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Who would have thought that drinking a delicious vodka could make a positive difference in the world? With Tina’s Vodka, that’s exactly what vodka connoisseurs can do.
Tina’s Vodka is a new organic vodka made in America and sold at a reasonable price. “We only use non-GMO organic corn, and we distill it up to six times using a proprietary filtration that involves organic coconut shells,” said Tina Karras, founder of Tina’s Vodka. “There are only two ingredients in our vodka: purified water and spirit from organic corn.”
The problem with GMOs
According to Karras, the majority of vodkas made in the US rely on GMO grains that were sprayed with glyphosate.. After the distillation process, some also include additives and sugars derived from GMO sources.
What’s wrong with GMOs? “Lots of things,” Karras said. “First of all, GMO crops continue the use of toxic pesticides in our food chain, which depletes the soil and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also think it’s important to educate everyone on what GMOs are. The crops’ DNA was modified to accommodate the pesticide — not the other way around.”
According to Farm Aid, a nonprofit that supports family farming and fair agricultural policy, GMOs have also led to pesticide- and herbicide-resistant “superpests” and “superweeds.” In addition, they have reduced the biodiversity of the food supply, increasing the risk of catastrophic crop failure and subsequent famine.
Karras’s commitment to non-GMO farming goes well beyond the high-quality organic ingredients in Tina’s Vodka, however. She has dedicated herself and her company to helping heal the Earth through regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that calls back to the industry’s early days, before Big Agriculture separated livestock from crops and began using pesticides. Whereas conventional farming leeches nutrients out of the ground and gradually diminishes them over time, regenerative agriculture nourishes the soil and restores its productivity.
If that wasn’t already argument enough for the importance of regenerative agriculture, this farming method actually pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it in the soil. In this way, an industry that has long contributed to global warming and climate change can lead the ecological revolution, transforming fields into carbon sinks.
Karras learned about regenerative agriculture from watching the Netflix documentary “Kiss the Ground” (2020), which has inspired an entire grassroots movement. Soon afterward, she decided to make her business an official partner of the Kiss the Ground organization.
Partnering with Kiss the Ground
When Tina’s Vodka donated 10 percent of sales to Kiss the Ground in 2022, people asked Karras why she gave away such a large slice of her profits. The answer is that her priorities have more to do with a healthy planet than with making a buck. “Our future and our health are the most important things to me,” she explained.
Karras spreads that message as widely as possible, routinely showing the movie’s trailer on sales calls, at staff training sessions, and during tastings. The most rewarding part of partnering with Kiss the Ground, she said, is “sharing the new climate story and seeing the signs of relief from everyone” who sees the trailer.
Relief is a natural reaction. The trailer might only last a little over two minutes, but it packs a big punch. The opening frames show various scenes of devastation related to climate change: smoke belching out of smokestacks, ice shearing off of glaciers, a hurricane blowing trees over, and a fire raging through a forest.
“The truth is, I’ve given up,” narrator Woody Harrelson says.
But while other documentaries on this subject tend to leave viewers disheartened and dejected, the trailer for “Kiss the Ground” promises a different experience. “This is the story of a simple solution, a way to heal our planet,” Harrelson continues.
“To cure our climate, we need to cure our soil,” the trailer reads. It then goes on to explain biosequestration, which is the process of capturing carbon from the air and storing it in plants, trees, and the ground.
By scaling up these biosequestration methods, more and more carbon may be pulled from the sky, where it does only harm, and put back into the earth, where it contributes to fertile farm fields. “We know how to do it,” a source explains. “Over 30 years, we can reverse global warming.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Harrelson concludes the trailer. “I won’t give up, and neither should you.”
Future plans to support non-GMO farming
Karras’s vision extends beyond donating proceeds to Kiss the Ground. “My dream is to use Tina’s Vodka funds for farmers so we can help them buy no-till plows and other tools they need to convert their crops away from pesticide-laden GMOs to regenerative, organic, non-GMO crops,” she said.
This idea also came to her while watching the documentary. “They have a powerful visual of the CO2 released into the atmosphere during tilling season, and they contrast that with another powerful visual during the harvesting season,” she said.
No-till plows avoid churning up the soil and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere while making farming easier and more practical. “The no-till plows keep the CO2 in the ground where it belongs so it can nourish the ground,” Karras explained. “The intelligence of our planet takes over and sends the nutrients where they need to go underneath the soil.”
These plows are expensive, however. “A new no-til plow can cost $50,000 and refurbished ones go for about $35,000,” she said. “The more vodka I sell, the sooner I can make these purchases.” Toward this end, she is expanding sales of Tina’s Vodka into Massachusetts and North Carolina.
Consumers can do their part to help Tina’s Vodka fulfill this mission. “Buying brands like my vodka supports the farmers who are farming in cooperation with the planet instead of poisoning it,” Karras explained.
For a brighter, healthier future, choose Tina’s Vodka.
