The Science Behind Powdered Alcohol

Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "Last week, the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved Palcohol, a powdered alcohol product that you can either use to turn water into a presumably not-that-delicious marg or to snort if you don't care too much about your brain cells. It's the first time a powdered alcohol product has been approved for sale in the US, but not the first time someone has devised one, and such products have been available in parts of Europe for a few years now. Now you may be wondering, as I was, how the heck do you go about powdering alcohol? As you might expect, there's quite a bit of chemistry involved, but the process doesn't seem overly difficult; we've known how to do it since the early 1970s, when researchers at the General Foods Corporation (now a subsidiary of Kraft) applied for a patent for an 'alcohol-containing powder.'" It turns out the labels were issued in error, so don't expect it to be available soon. But it does appear to be a real thing that someone is trying to have approved.

Re: But is it cheaper?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that unpretentious vodka is pretty much food-grade ethanol and water, plus packaging, distribution, and sin tax, and powdered alcohol would be food grade ethanol, some sort of dextrin, plus packaging, distribution, and sin tax, they'd have to be saving a lot of money on the reduced bulk and weight of the omitted water to do any better.

Given that, and given the obvious utility in alcohol concealment and infiltration scenarios, I suspect that they aren't even going for price parity with either the Not Too Much Methanol(tm) brand vodkas or the Tastes Like Piss And Turns to Piss!(tm) economy beer sector.

Re: But is it cheaper?

[bloodhawk]

I can get 1.75L of decent vodka for about $13/US. That gives me approximately 39 drinks at $0.33 per drink. How much does this stuff cost?

Because, you know, that's all that matters when you're trying to be wasted every day.

Decent Vodka??? please tell me which brand sells decent vodka at that price? (genuinely interested as a vodka lover) and by decent I mean you should be able to tell the difference between it and metho!

Re:Wake up!

[careysub]

Neither is the powdered alcohol solid alcohol. It is all the same.

Re:Boozer backpackers

[Typical Slashdotter]

This is not suitable for water safety, since you can't just drink alcohol to hydrate...