Bormotukha (Russian бормотуха) and ''chernila'' (literally

ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...

) were colloquial names for cheap

flavored fortified wine Flavored fortified wine or tonic wine is inexpensive fortified wine that typically has an alcohol content between 13% and 20% alcohol by volume (ABV). They are made from various fruits (including grapes and citrus fruits) with added sugar, arti ...

s, commonly named "

port wine Port wine (, ; ), or simply port, is a Portuguese wine, Portuguese fortified wine produced in the Douro, Douro Valley of Norte, Portugal, northern Portugal. It is typically a sweetness of wine, sweet red wine, often served with dessert wine, ...

" or "

vermouth Vermouth (, ) is an Italian aromatized wine, aromatized, fortified wine, flavored with various Botany, botanicals (roots, Bark (botany), barks, flowers, seeds, Herb, herbs, and Spice, spices) and sometimes Food coloring, colored. The modern ve ...

", that were produced in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Examples of bormotukha were ''Agdam'' (named after a city in Azerbaijan) 'Самый убийственный алкоголь в СССР — из алжирского винограда: «Термоядерный удар под названием…» Солнцедар!
Sport24, October 2023 and ' (colloquially called "Three Axes").ВЕЩИ ЭПОХИ : «Три топорика» (портвейн «777»)
During

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

’s anti-alcohol campaign, production of legal bormotukha brands stopped, and the corresponding brands didn't recover. In 2010 a Russian businessman tried to register the trademark "Solntsedar". The application was rejected with the rationale: "The applied designation reproduces the name of a cheap surrogate alcoholic drink, widespread in the USSR from the late 50s to the mid-80s, which received a household name as an image and sign of the

era of stagnation The "Era of Stagnation" (, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Union that began during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964 ...

, and therefore registration of this designation as a trademark will be contrary to public interests." In

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, President

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

declared production of

beer Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...

to be an element of "national food security", because beer "pulls people away from drinking ''bormotukha'' and hard liquors".

References

{{reflist Fortified wine Soviet brands

See also

References