Raise your glass to this carbon-sucking vodka

Surely James Bond would be stirred by pollution-fighting martini mainstay

(A native of England, Matthew Diebel is a veteran journalist who has worked at NBC News, Time, USA Today and News Corp., among other organizations. Having spent his childhood next to one of the world's fastest bodies of water, he is particularly interested in tidal energy.)

“A vodka martini — shaken, not stirred.” Those words, uttered by Sean Connery in the 1964 James Bond classic “Goldfinger” (as a tall blonde hovers over his shoulder), hardly paint a picture of pollution.

The truth is, though, that emissions from the production of alcohol is something to be shaken up about. First, grains (or vegetables or fruit) are heated (pollution alert!) with water to make a mash. Then the mash, sometimes with sugar added, ferments to produce raw alcohol. Then the liquid is refined and distilled (pollution alert!) in large kettles. The same basic process is used to produce whiskies and other liquors such as gin, rum and tequila.

We doubt 007 would have worried about such things, but his successors don’t have to be shaken at the prospect of downing smog-producing cocktails. Instead, today’s more environmentally aware secret agents can be stirred by the fact that their favorite beverage can be produced by pulling CO₂ out of the air. That and some water and solar energy.

The guilt-free hooch is being produced by the New York City-based Air Company, which sells its concoction for $50 a bottle and claims it uses only renewable power.

“The perfect time to start this company would have been many years ago,” CEO and co-founder Gregory Constantine told Tech Crunch, adding that he hoped “that what we’re doing now can inspire others to go out and try to incite change as well and use technological solutions like ours to help try to reverse climate change.”

Investors have been incited, with the company announcing this week that it had raised $30 million in Series A funding from backers such as Carbon Direct Capital Management, Toyota Ventures, JetBlue Technology Ventures and Parley for the Oceans. 

We’ll drink to that.