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Hacking Vodka
enrico_suave writes "A group of geeks aimed to find out whether running cheap vodka through a brita water filter would make it drinkable. They claim after several passes through the filter the cheap vodka surpassed the premium Ketel One in drinkability tests. I think they should have done the test 'double blind' although drinking Vladmir Vodka probably could make you go blind anyways... =)"
Hmm.. this sounds quite a bit like the Gray Kangaroo filtration system that you can buy on the internet.
They want $41 for it, which is too expensive for me. But in my undergraduate days, I would definitely have considered it. Though you can probably use a Brita filter like these folks have and save a few bucks.
I hope you know that's a man in the middle of that picture.
Also, those pills are no fun. Lithium (for bipolar disorder.)
How do you get $30 for one filter?
A three pack of filters is around $17.
Heck, the pitchers themselves are only around $10....
Seems like a good deal to me, especially if you could use the filter more than once (likely two times at least, if you only filter four passes, possibly three times or more).
Dude, that isn't a chick.
I do belive drinking gasoline will still give you stomach cancer not matter how may times you run it through a filter. Just incase anyoen was thinking of trying it.
Let's see... It still makes sense when you consider you can use the same filter several times. Most are rated in the gallons filtered before they need a change* whereas your "good" vodka is going to start adding up pretty quickly on a bottle to bottle basis. After the initial expense, I'm saving $20 to every bottle you buy.
*A brita pitcher filter can filter 40 gallons before changing
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Actually, that, unlike most comments related to Soviet Russia, is actually pretty poignant. There was enough vodka per capita in the USSR that the drinker could be considered an impurity in the drink.
Na' Vodka's kids stuff. If you are really serious about drinking yourself blind, get yourself a nice bottle of ARAK, and drink it in one sitting. A good bottle will be up to and around 70-80% alcohol. It's big in the middle east. They drink it on the weekends, the rest of the time... it's Window cleaner.
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About as many times as it takes to split all of the methanol parts into H-OH + HCH and for them to magically and completely recombine into ethanol and some excess water. Up until that point, it will kill you. Good luck!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
For a vodkaphile on a budget nothing beats pearl vodka, it's smoother than Grey Goose and costs only ~$20/750ml. Hell I'm not on a budget anymore but I still see no reason to waste $30 per bottle =) Itgoest through A "five-time distillation and six-time filtration process" which makes it exceptionally smooth.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Wow, I would highly unrecommend drinking anhydrous alcohol, due to the benzine in it. Distillation alone will not remove all the water from the alcohol, so benzine is typically used to get rid of the rest (don't ask me how, I have no idea what the chemistry behind it is).
Benzine is an awful toxin and carcinogen...not so much something you want to ingest.
190 proof grain alcohol is pretty cheap...and you're really not gonna notice a difference, in either taste (they both taste like...burning) or in effect (that last 5% makes almost no difference).
You might want those taste buds later on in life anyway...
Everclear.
190 proof corn ethanol (95%)
2 shots in an 8 oz glass.
fill glass with Gateraid.
drink.
you will be drunk befor the glass is gone.
at the end of the glass you've had about 5 shots of regular booze.
-nB
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Remind me of a shirt that read "I fucked the girl in Hanson."
:)
You used to be able to get it from tshirthell.com, but they discontinued it. They have a lot of other very nicely offensive shirts though.
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Actually, as it's just activated carbon the one thing you don't want to run through it is any sizeable amount of bleach. Granular Activated Carbon filtration will remove some small amount of hardness from water, as well as nasty odors and other impurities.
What might be good, would be to use what's known as an "Extruded" carbon cartridge like the ones you get in the water treatment industry. Essentially a porous solid block that has 5 micron holes in it. Hacking one of these together might be a good idea for a college project. Hmm.
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Ahhhh!!!!!111oneone This is the exact same annoying thing as people thinking asians say "lice" instead of "rice"!
Now that I've calmed myself, I must inform as many as possible that it is the exact opposite. The Russian language does NOT have a true W sound, and they would NOT pronounce it "wadka". "Vodka" is exactly how it is truly pronounced.
I have no problem with people making fun of different countries' customs, but please, at least do it correctly.
"I could have sworn sulfuric acid was what is in your stomach, not hydrochloric."
;)
Well, if it was, you'd probably burp a smell of rotten eggs.
I think natural selection took care of eliminating the species that developed sulfuric-acid-based gastric fluids
Spiked with Methanol,that is, which makes you go blind. One thing I know from working in Chemistry labs is that you should never touch alcohol coming from a lab. (If you don't believe me, squirt a bit into a Gas Chromatography column, and notice that there are two peaks, not one.)
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
A company called gray kangaroo makes alcohol filters that do precisely what is being described here. Take this with a grain of salt, since the source is biased (they are trying to sell filters), but their FAQ claims the following:
How is the Gray Kangaroo different than a commercially available water filter?
GK uses more filter material than a standard personal water filter. It also uses filter material which is optimized for liquor. Water filters use a variety of filter materials, some of them improve liquor while others (which eliminate chlorine, lead and other hazards in tap water) do nothing for liquor and only waste space. Also some filters use plastics which are dissolved by hard liquor and end up making your drink taste like crazy glue. Most importantly the GK is designed to easily filter liquor multiple times and built to be rugged enough to be used by a group of heavy drinkers.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Huh. I used the name Benzine for one of my DnD characters. I got it off the soda I was drinking.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
My chemistry professor said he once had some students break into the lab and distill some ethanol that was sitting on the shelf. The students failed to realize that what they were distilling was not just ethanol, but denatured ethanol. The denaturing agent was methanol--the shit that fucks you up. One student died and the other student went blind from their stupidness.
[ ]
Initially I was very doubtful of the mixture. It was concentrated from a "vegtable peelings mash" by means of fractional freezing. They concentrated the alcohol by means repeated freezing and thawing. Concentration was done by fractional freezing. Basically they placed the mash outside (where it was -60C or worse) to let the ice freeze, brought it back inside and removed the ice that has formed on the top ... or so
I was told.
So speaking of blindness, I was initially hesitant to sample their finished product. Someone informed me that to refuse a sample would be an insult. I didn't want to offend our hosts so I finally agreed to have a shot. When I was served, I noticed that they poured the vodka out of a Brita water filter. When I inquired about the reason I was told that it made the finished product "better". Apparently they have been doing vodka water filtration for years "in the land way down under''.
The Vostok Vodka was excellent. It was a bit hyper concentrated (beyond the normal Vodka proof), but very fine none the less. The next time you find yourself in Vostok Antarctica you should give their vodka a try! :-)
why?
just take ye olde college issue hotplate, one deep bowl, a stainless steel or copper bowl that fist over the top of the bigger one in a tight-ish seal, an even smaller bowl that will fit inside the first one inverted with room to spare between it and the second one, and a cup.
first bowl goes on the hot plate.
third one is inverted on the bottom of it.
buy cheap booze and pour into bottom of first bowl.
set cup on top of inverted second bowl
cover with the second bowl and add ice to it.
turn on heat and wait.
the cheap beer/wine/vodka will give up the precious which will condense on the cover and drip into the cup.
If you want to filter it for smoothness you can tweak a small fish tank (NEW) as the holding tank and use a large tanks charcoal filtering unit to cycle the contents a few times.
But mostly noone will do that so I suggest you take the now improved booze and add it directly to koolaid mix or tang
What a wacky coincidence. I saw this experiment posted up on a message board and just tried it with some friends this evening. They left not 10 minutes ago.
Started off with a 750ml bottle of "Medallion Quality". You don't expect much from a bottle that large that costs in the range of $11 Canadian. Needless to say, it was putrid. Bordering undrinkable. You'd have to be drunk to start with to consume the stuff. Smells reminiscent of rubbing alcohol, tastes like turpentine with an aftertaste not unlike a bowling alley shoe. As my buddy described it, "It feels like a clown is raping my mouth."
We were sure to prime the filter first. It ships with some chemicals in the charcoal, so run a few pitchers of water through.
After 3 filters of the vodka, the odour was drastically reduced. Flavour was not hugely improved, but the aftertaste was lessened and it didn't burn as much going down.
6 filters, the odour is down even more. Taste is much improved. Now comparable to a decent cheap vodka, probably a little better than regular Smirnoff. Goes down not too bad, aftertaste still not great.
10 filters. Odour is near gone. Tastes smooth. Would be undetectable mixed with grapefruit juice.
20 filters. SMOOTH. Goes down like water. Zero odour. Perfect. Easily as good as an upper end vodka like Canadian Iceberg, but not as delicate as the really pricy brands. Definitely a good taste. Pleasant enough to drink straight without shooting it.
Of course we kept a control sample. I did not fully appreciate how good the 20-filtered drink was until I tasted the control sample again. It was truly terrible. While I suggest doing this just to try it, I will not again put that stuff in my mouth unfiltered.
I have heard mixed reports about how well different vodkas turn out. Some are better than others, Medallion had tremendous benefit from the filtering. The taste of the original and final product are not even remotely close.
Also heard complaints about murky vodka. Our first filter result was slightly murky and blue/greyish from chemicals left in the filter. Repeated filtering made it disappear again. I can't help but wonder if those chemicals were doing me any physical harm, but they could not possibly be doing any worse than the original vodka anyways. It's all in the name of SCIENCE!
All in all, this experiment was fun and definitely worth trying. It takes long enough that I wouldn't expect it to be a decent timesaving measure. However, it was fun to do and we will probably repeat the experiment again next Friday with that godawful Russian Prince vodka.
Let's see...
50 pounds of sugar $18
Three 5 gallon pails $9
Three packs high test yeast $12
Pot Still ~$25
About $10 per gallon 40% for the first 5 gallons, About $6 per gallon each additional run. The trick is to know what nasties boil at what temperatures, redistilling, then resting the 'shine for a few days with a bit of stone carbon to polish. Not bad.
Obligatory reference
"What's so bad about being drunk"
"Ask a glass of water"
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Methanol makes you go blind and very likely dead (unless you only drink a tiny amount and get treated immediately), Ethanol gives you a hangover.
HAND.
Yeah, when I give people classes in basic survival skills, and they see my water purifier, they always ask if I could piss in it and drink it. This happens every time without fail.
Basically, the guy is spot on. When you are dehydrating, your body gets really stingy with water, and your urine will be only about 5% water. And yes, the other shit in the urine will require more water to process than you get from the processed urine.
and once you get to the emergency room, they will treat you for methanol poisoning of course. The treatment for methanol poisoning is actually 'ethanol therapy', which means getting you really drunk on normal ethanol until the methanol is gone
I used to drink Wild Turkey a few years back, but stopped partially due to how harsh it was. (At least the cheapest version of it)
I found myself wondering if this method would work for that, or if it is better suited for something which is primarily water based, like vodka?
I hate to burst your PC bubble, but sometimes, not only do they say it that way, they also spell it that way. Sorry. There are stereotypes, and then there's reality.
No, you can process methanol in the small amounts that you get it in liquor. Unfortuanetely, it metabolizes to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are among the major factors in hangovers.
6 02/educati on/ed3.htmlp /alt.support. disorders.neurological/messages/4240.html
See, for example:
http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0
http://www.talkaboutsupport.com/grou
it also depends on what vodka you are drinking. If it comes in a plastic bottle, expect to get sick. Good vodka is relatively free of the other little organic molecules that cause most of your problems.
Of course, if you're drinking enough of it then your problem is dehydration. If you have a pain in your side and/or your urine isn't colorless, then your probably need to drink more water, whether you've been drinking alcohol or not.
Some chemistry major friends of mine decided to test a bunch of water filters by passing water with a known contaminant through the filters and testing the filtered water with an atomic absorption spectrometer.
Basically, they found that there was no difference between regular and premium Pur filters. However, they found out that the Brita filters were the best overall. I'd link to the results, but they only exist in dead-tree form.
Oh, a cool thing to do is to crack open one of the filters and look inside. One thing my friends noticed about the cheaper (and usually less effective) filters is that they were mostly full of ion-exchange filler rather than activated carbon.
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
From the guy who brought you the AK-47: Kalashnikov Vodka
a friend of mine recently put up a discussion of vodka on his lj, and it's worth a look
Vodka 101
Here's the short version:
1. Don't drink anything that comes in a plastic bottle
2. If you must drink domestic Vodka, make it Skyy
3. Priviet is awesome if you can find it, and not very expensive
Not really, less hydrophilic substances will displace it. This will definitely improve the hangover and drinking properties, because it is the high molecular weight alcohols, ketones and aldehides which are the primary cause of hangover (not methanol as many people think). So adsorbing them out should definitely help. Not that I drink vodka anyway. In fact in Russia only the drunks on the street drink it. Why - see here:httpwwwamazoncomexecobidostgdetail-B0001P29Q2 qid1100944430sr8-6refsr8xsapi6xgl74002-1004512-908 0059vglancesdvdn507846
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
>your urine will be only about 5% water
Urine is almost entirely water, with a little bit of other substances dissolved in it. I doubt it's ever more than 5% solutes by weight, in 95% water.
INsigNIFICANT
Perhaps you mean sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, which are used as preservatives. Benzine is, AFAIK, poisonous.
I'm sorry, but Fat Tire is crap. It tastes like burnt rubber or something. Newcastle Brown is where it's really at.
The U.S. government, which as we all know, is always right, defines vodka in its regulations as "neutral spirits distilled from any material, at or above 190 proof, reduced to not more than 110 proof and not less than 80 proof and after such reduction in proof...(with vegetable charcoal for at least 8 hours)...as to be without distinctive character, aroma, or taste."
In other words, vodka has already been filtered far more effectively than a Brita could manage & there ain't a lick of difference between the cheapest swill on the market and the most expensive imported luxury "little water", other than the fact that the expensive stuff comes in a glass bottle (which I think would be less likely to impart flavor). When liquor comes off a column still that highly fractionated it has no distinctiveness, regardless whether it is made from rye and potatoes or from byproducts of oil refinery or wood pulp (which, BTW, does happen). Generally, at least in the U.S. market, vodka is subsequently cut with distilled water, which also lacks much character. Unless there is something seriously wrong with the manufacturer's equipment (in which case the taste is probably the least of your worries), vodka is vodka.
High end vodkas are a perfect example of a Veblen Good, a commodity whose demand increases as its prices increases because of the band wagon effect, snob appeal and people's erroneous assumption that if something is more expensive it must be better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
Vodka is just an ethanol delivery vehicle. It is best consumed in large gulps straight out of the freezer, as it is in Russia, to minimize the nasty flavor inherent in ethanol and maximize its medicinal properties.
Unlike these folks, I have done double blind tests on repeated occasions with vodka and drinks made with vodka and NO ONE has ever been able to distinguish the Stoly from the 'Park & Shop' vodka. With one exception. We were making vodka & tonics once and a friend accidentally swallowed the lemon wedge in his haste to consume the vodka. He said that particular belt was somewhat less good, even though it was made from the expensive vodka.
Personally, my days of 'drinking-for-effect' are largely numbered (unless my liver enzyme levels decrease), so I stick to single malt Scotch whisky and an occasional Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster to clear the cobwebs out of my skull.
If you wish to survive on urine you must evaporate the water off first.
Dig a large hole.
Piss in said hole or in a small container and place that in the hole.
Place a clean empty contain in the hole. Use this to collect your 'fresh' water.
Cover the hole with polythene; tranparent is best. Weigh it down at the corners to stop it falling in.
Place a small stone in the centre of the polythene to form an angle for the condenced water to run down. Your clean empty container should be under this.
Other green plants can be added to the hole to increase moisure.
I tried this 20 years during a hot sunny day in the UK - hardly desert conditions, I know. I had almost half a cup of water of drinking water at the end of the day. I was was not brave enough to try it without water purification tablets though.
It would buy you an extra day or so and better than drinking your own piss without doubt.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Urine is almost entirely water, with a little bit of other substances dissolved in it. I doubt it's ever more than 5% solutes by weight, in 95% water.
Close. As one would expect, it's variable, but urine can be up to about 96% water. When you drink an abundance of water, your kidneys are free to pass more diluted urine. When body water is at a premium, the kidneys conserve water by passing concentrated urine, which looks darker and more opaque. Completely transparent urine is sign that you're drinking enough water.
Notice I said it was USP-grade ethanol, meaning the United States Pharmacopeia has certified it to be free of harmful impurities and safe for food or drug usage. Well...technically safe; the safety of consming absolute ethanol is debatable. Incidentally, 95% doesn't have the same weird oily/dessicating characteristics of absolute; it's already got that 5% water it desperately wants so it just burns like hellfire going down.
If you're interested, the chemistry behind it: the benzene forms an azeotrope with water that boils at a lower point than the 95-5 EtOH-water azeotrope, allowing the last traces of water to be distilled off. USP ethanol is usually dried out in other ways, like running it over drying salts or using molecular sieves to absorb the excess water....no benzene allowed.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
No, by percentage of effect, its the impurities that give you the hangover.
Care to back that up? According to this ethanol causes dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and low blood sugar. Further, it states that pure ethanol can cause hangovers, and that it is unknown whether ethanol or the impurities have the greater effect.
That's why they are shooting for 100% pure, in theory no hangover...
Who is they? Care to back this up? You do realize that it's impossible to get 100% pure ethanol, right? Although one could probably produce 99.999% pure ethanol, as soon as the bottle was opened, it would begin absorbing water from the atmosphere until it reached the azeotropic composition, about 95% purity, if I remember correctly.
Skyy Vodka advertises their filtration process:
"Vinquiry, an independent certified lab, concluded that SKYY has the fewest impurities among leading vodkas. Samples of SKYY, Absolut, Stolichnaya, Grey Goose, Smirnoff, Belvedere, and Ketel One were gathered in October 2002 from six major U.S. metropolitan areas. Using a precise Gas Chromatograph, the lab tested for the following impurities found in spirits: Methanol, Acetaldehyde, Ethyl Acetate and Fusel Oils."
http://www.conraddrinks.com/html/skyy_vodka.html
Skyy is pretty tasteless, but very "clean". I don't like it straight, but it's great with a club soda mixer. It might be a psychosomatic effect, but I never feel hungover after drinking Skyy.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
This is a honest question. I really am this dumb when it comes to chemistry.
If I used whiskey or brandy and ran it through a Brita filter, what would I end up with? Would I get a clear colorless liquid or would I get filtered whiskey or brandy?
My brother worked in a bottling company for a short time where they "made" different flavored alcohols. Everything they made was really distilled grain alcohol mixted with various flavorings and water. They made things like peppermint schnapps, blackberry brandy, cheap vodka and so on. The lesson he passed along was that vodka or at least the cheap stuff, is really just grain alcohol and water - it is no longer made from potatoes. The cheap whiskey's aren't aged, just flavored and if you look closely, you will see that it doesn't say aged anywhere on the bottle!