Sozobe -- That was funny! Good grief, Mr. Cheeseman!
Well, Walter, I've looked around and some of the websites say camel milk (which I admit has a certain eewwwww factor) but others say it was originally goat milk. In any case it is a fresh milk that is fermented.
http://www.liberte.qc.ca/html/kefira.asp
The main point for kefir is the kefir "grains" which are not really grains at all but apparently rather large bacterial colonies that must be strained out before drinking. These are also fairly gross and have a distinct eewwwwww factor. I'm not sure that I'm glad to know so much. The kefir here does not have enough alcohol to qualify as an alcoholic beverage and all the laws that would then pertain to it.
Particularly glad, thankful, and etc. that the kefir we have is NOT made from camel milk... not that camel milk is necessarily icky (though it certainly sounds icky).