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Food

Thieves Steal 30,000 Liters of Iceberg Water from Vodka Company

“Jesus, what are they going to do with it?”
iceberg vodka water
Photo: Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Iceberg Vodka is the only vodka that is blended, bottled, and produced entirely in Canada, and that includes the Canada-adjacent icebergs that go into each bottle. Iceberg isn’t just a clever name or a way to troll Titanic stans: The vodka is made from water that is harvested from actual icebergs as they slowly drift past the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador every summer.

Regardless of how many icebergs materialize in Iceberg Alley later this year—yes, that’s a real thing, and yes, you’re going to read the word ‘iceberg’ so many more times—more than 150,000 bottles of Iceberg Vodka aren’t going to be produced, all because someone stole a shitload of iceberg water.

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According to CBC News, an estimated 30,000 liters (7,925 gallons) of iceberg water was somehow nicked from a tank at one of the vodka company’s warehouses in Port Union, Newfoundland. The water levels in each tank are monitored each day from Monday to Friday and, on Monday, workers at the warehouse discovered that one of them was completely empty. (“Jesus, what are they going to do with it?” one worker asked).

Iceberg Vodka CEO David Meyers assumes that some kind of tanker truck was used to steal the water, and the thief (or thieves) was able to get through a locked gate that surrounds the warehouse, and through the locked door to the building.

“We were shocked that we would be missing 30,000 liters of our precious water,” he told the CBC. “Whoever did it, they knew what they were doing."

The frustrating thing for Meyers—other than the entire situation—is that it’s not like he can just go out and get a new iceberg this weekend. Icebergs can only be harvested in Iceberg Alley between Labrador Newfoundland for about six weeks in the late spring and early summer. By the time the icebergs reach Canada, they’ve already been drifting from Greenland for three or four years.

Trying to get water from icebergs can be frustrating at best, dangerous at worst. “You have to give them a lot of respect; they can sink you, they can kill you,” commercial iceberg harvester Ed Kean told MUNCHIES in 2016. “A bunch of fellows drowned out here just a few years ago. They came to get a chunk to get in their drink, they chopped a little chip off and it rolled. The guy drowned.”

The value of the iceberg water is between $9,000-$12,000 CAD ($6,780-$9,042 USD), but it’s the principle of the thing, man. “It’s upsetting for us, that’s for sure,” Meyers admitted to Global News. “I’ve never even considered the possibility of somebody stealing our water. I guess we live in an interesting world.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, (RCMP) the country’s national police force, is investigating the theft. Every worker at the Port Union facility has been interviewed but there are no suspects and, so far, no leads, and no apparent motive. Anyone with information has been asked to call Bonavista RCMP or Crime Stoppers. You probably don’t even have to say the word ‘iceberg’ when you give that anonymous top.