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... =)"

Comments

Common knowledge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this has actually been known for a long time.

Here is the canonical list of the top ten things that taste better once filtered through a Brita pitcher six times, in decreasing order of improvement, according to the Brita FAQ:

• Orange juice
• Coca Cola
• Vodka
• Cooking oil
• Urine
• Gasoline
• Blood
• Vinegar
• Water
• Semen

Surprisingly, pus did not make the list....

Re:Common knowledge?

[miskatonic alumnus]

Where does vomit rank on this scale? At the bottom under "all of the above"?

Re:Common knowledge?

[BlakeLupa]

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.

Re:Common knowledge?

[Rie Beam]

Curious - as to who was the first person to say "This semen would taste better run though a Brita water filter"?

Re:Common knowledge?

[Necrobruiser]

Just incase anyoen was thinking of trying it.

Stop telling people not to drink gasoline. We'll all be better off once the people who would drink gasoline, drink gasoline. ;)

Re:Common knowledge?

[Jason1729]

There is no way gasoline will give you stomach cancer.

It will kill you long before a cancer could develop.

Re:Common knowledge?

[Anonymous Coward]

reminds me of the Sam Kinison quote "What the fuck, How bored was this guy at the party. What, were out of booze, were out of pot, There's no more coke. Wait, doesn't your little brother have a Hamster up in his room. What if we taped him up and shove him in my ass, thats gotta feel different. "

Re:Common knowledge?

[JPriest]

Exactly, hacking vodka is actually pretty common practice the next morning.

Re:Common knowledge?

[runderwo]

I carry a little flask around with me. Sometimes I take a discreet sip when I think nobody is looking.

Re:Common knowledge?

[pturing]

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.

Re:Common knowledge?

[JThundley]

Somebody from CookingWithCum.com would. It's a real web site!

Re:Common knowledge?

[Thomas Miconi]

We'll all be better off once the people who would drink gasoline, drink gasoline

God, now they're trying to slashdot the Darwin Awards !

Thomas-

Re:Common knowledge?

[khrtt]

Sometimes I take a discreet sip when I think nobody is looking.

Are you a small car?

Re:Common knowledge?

[kevingolding2001]

The stuff in vodka that gives you hangovers is fusel oils.

I had to read to this three times before my slightly alcohol-addled brain stopped seeing it as "...that give you hangovers is fossil fuels".

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

no no no

[nocomment]

drinking Vladmir Vodka probably could make you go blind

That's Ffud that made all those hillbillies go blind.

Re:no no no

[cshark]

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.

Re:no no no

[forevermore]

For those who don't know, Arak is the Israeli (and Lebanese and Syrian) word for the anise liquor known in Greece as Uozo and in Turkey as Raki. There are variations of this drink around the world (from South America to India), and though people may argue that one is better than the other, they're all basically the same idea (I hear that Syrian Arak is the best of the bunch). And I agree, much better than vodka. Especially for the science nerd in all of us as we marvel at the totally clear liquid turning milky white as the water from melting ice mixes with the alcoholic beverage.

Old Stuff..

[Klar]

Martin Sargent from Unscrewed did this on his show a while back.. he seemed to enjoy the taste :)

Better than a Volcano

[glowimperial]

Finally a great science project that the kids can do at home.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[pHatidic]

Last year some kids I know 'liberated' a distillation column from the chem labs and took some normal vodka and distilled it into 190 proof "super-vodka". A couple shots of that and I was hallucinating and kept running out of my dorm room every half hour because for some reason I thought my bike was being stolen. I still get that warm tingly feeling in my liver just thinking about it.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[caveat]

Hells bells, if they were ransacking the chem labs, they should have just taken some anhydrous ethanol. Back when I was in school, we used to order it by the 5-gallon tub ($20.99!), and since it was USP-grade, it was technically safe to drink...nobody ever noticed a liter gone here or there.

Of course, since alcohol doesn't really want to exist in that 100% pure state, it had a nasty habit of dehydrating your tender tissues on the way down, as well as having the unholiest burn of any drink I've ever had (it actually had sort of an oily texture/mouth feel, instead of the usual watery sensation), but oh man did it ever fux0r one up. Cheers!

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Better than a Volcano

[networkBoy]

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

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Z4rd0Z]

My old housemate Sasha from Moscow used to take a little ethanol from the lab every now and then. One time he made me a meal of mushrooms he'd gathered, which I was afraid to eat, and to drink there was ethanol diluted with a little water and flavored with a pinch of salt. "Too bad we don't have some glycerin to make it smooth" he lamented. He then told me about a friend back home who collected various liquids from the lab, and when there was enough he distilled them into a concoction. "The effect was very unusual", he added.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[ErikZ]

Huh. I used the name Benzine for one of my DnD characters. I got it off the soda I was drinking.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Gunnery Sgt. Hartman]

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.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[nofx_3]

Everclear is great becuase it burn easliy which means... VAPOR SHOTS!!! Lite a shotglass of everclear on fire, then turn your palm so it faces the ground and shove the glass up onto your palm. The fire will burn up the oxygen and quickly burn out but the glass will stick to your hand, pretty neat party trick. Then you take the shot, and while the shotglass is still warm stick it back against your plam, wait a few seconds and the remaining alcohol coating the inside of the glass will vaporize, now take the vapor shot, the vapor will go straight to your head and really mess you up good, try it its fun.

-kaplanfx

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who has never taught college chemistry.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[prockcore]

Everclear is great becuase it burn easliy which means... VAPOR SHOTS!!! Lite a shotglass of everclear on fire, then turn your palm so it faces the ground and shove the glass up onto your palm.

Here's an alternative that they actually serve at a bar. It's called a Flaming Waterfall.

Put a shot of Bacardi 151 and a shot of Sambuka into a brandy snifter.

Light on fire. Pour burning mixture into a pint glass, be sure to raise the snifter high enough so entire bar can see. Place snifter upside-down onto pint glass, putting out the fire.

Then lift up the snifter, inhale the fumes, and take the shot.

I'm sure many bars have their own version of this, but Malloneys in Tucson, AZ is where I've always had them.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[isometrick]

Perhaps you mean sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, which are used as preservatives. Benzine is, AFAIK, poisonous.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[Imabug]

this will work with many other alcohols too. On a houseboating trip, one of my friends in a fit of inebriated creativity came up with a variant of this trip where he stuck the flaming shot glass to his ass. We called it a "Butt-buca", since the drink it was being done with was Sambuca.

Once, while showing the trick off at a house party, my friend left it on too long an it got stuck to his ass. We were all laughing so hard at him running around yelling "It's stuck! It's stuck! Get it off!" none of us could help him (we were all rolling around on the ground in pain from busting a gut laughing). And those of us who were still able to stand didn't want to get anywhere near his ass to extract the shot glass.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[owenb]

I shudder to remember those nights

You misspelled 'struggle'.

Re:Better than a Volcano

[SamSim]

This is only tangetially related but I thought I'd post it anyway. At the start of (well, a week or so into) every new academic year at my college, all of the current mathematicians (such as me) band together, spend a reasonable proportion of the mathematicians' society's annual budget on vodka and assorted other alcoholic drinks, and have an amicable get-together in somebody's room to welcome the newcomers. In 2002 I was among those newcomers. There were about fifteen of us altogether.

I had the good fortune to retire to my room relatively early that night, because some time later in the evening, I'm told, a second-year called Dom got out a fondue set. The details of what happened after that are a little confused, but basically, somebody else also got out a small lump of greenish cheese which he had bought at the dining hall some weeks previously and never mustered the courage to eat. Alcohol did its sinful work, and the idea arose to melt the cheese. Into half a bottle of vodka.

Apparently (and understandably), nobody was able to manage more than a few sips of this crime against humanity of a drink without dire ill effects. The vast majority of the cheese vodka went undrunk and the bottle sort of hung around for the rest of the term... and the next term... and the next, gradually being handed from person to person as each one tried to get rid of it without actually drinking any of it or sacreligiously throwing it away.

That was in October 2002. Towards the end of June 2003, it was decided that enough was enough. The cheese vodka had had its day. It was buried in what I'm told was a rather tearful ceremony in Botolph Court, being a rather grubby area of grass in the middle of some of our student accommodation. Apparently they emptied some tea over the grave; tea being another major interest of a significant number of mathematicians at our college.

Fast-forward to October 2003 and the next official mathmo drinks. I was now among the second-years welcoming the first-years, and obviously we told them our various anecdotes of years gone by. We got to the cheese vodka story. Alcohol once again did its sinful work, and the idea popped into the collective head to go back to Botolph Court and dig it up again.

Which we did.

It was crawling up the side of the bottle to get out.

It comes pretty close to the all-time Worst Idea In Alcoholic History. Not quite up there with "let's drink Lenin's embalming fluid", but pretty darned close. I think *name removed*, one of the first-years, was the only person who tried any of the one-year-old matured cheese vodka. She managed a record-breaking whole capful. She was alternately paralytic and unpleasantly violent for the rest of the evening. Eventually I was one of the ones who helped carry her back to her room, by which time she was already being seriously considered for that year's Most Drunken Mathmo award, usually given in summer.

The cheese vodka is now missing, presumed poured down a sink somewhere, but I suspect that in the fullness of time it will resurface like an old supervillain.

Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Looks like someone's nine years of freshman chemistry hasn't been a complete waste.

Re:Fantastic!

[Zenmonkeycat]

Nope, just two semesters of freshman chemistry; then you get two semesters of organic chemistry, and two full years of "A History of Russia: Depressing, Frozen Tundra Where Health Goes to Die."

Hey, I often run Vodka through a filtration system

[physicsphairy]

But it sure doesn't make it taste any better.

Re:not surprising...

[Tyndmyr]

Not to mention, killing some of the impurities'll probably help with the hangover. As for myself, Ive progressed to the point where I can occasionally afford vodka from a glass bottle.

Vodka testing?

[TWX]

Sounds like a science experiment that I could actually participate in.

I wonder why they never featured this one on Bill Nye The Science Guy or on Beakman's World. I don't think that Lester, the self-proclaimed, "Man in a Rat Suit" would have been much different, even if he were the hands-on evaluator...

Obligatory Bad Joke

[Zephiris]

In Soviet Russia, Vodka filters you!

Re:Obligatory Bad Joke

[tarunthegreat2]

In Soviet Russia, the lame jokes get fed up of YOU! HA HA!

Re:Obligatory Bad Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Gray Kangaroo

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Some calculations...

[bergeron76]

Let's see:
Cheap vodka: $10 (US assumptions)
Name brand filter: $30
Total vodka purity: $40
As compared to: Good vodka - $34.99

Hrmm, I guess it probably made sense when they did the experiment.

Seriously though, it's neat to see hacks like this. It should also be noted that the chick in the middle of this picture is kinda cute. But does anyone know what the pills are in the bottom left corner of that picture?

Re:Some calculations...

[FunOne]

It should also be noted that the chick in the middle of this picture is kinda cute.

How much vodka have you had tonight?

Re:Some calculations...

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Some calculations...

[harleyb]

Dude, that isn't a chick.

Re:Some calculations...

[cacepi]

It should also be noted that the chick in the middle of is kinda cute.

She is. I know the first thing I look for in a girl is a 5-'O-clock shadow.

That's a dude, dude.

Re:Some calculations...

[spectasaurus]

I'm pretty sure the pills are estrogen. Or testosterone. Either way, I'm pretty sure they're for your sweety in the middle.

Re:Some calculations...

[austad]

Sir. I don't pretend to know what you have been drinking. However, it is reasonable to assume that you have drank it all.

Re:Some calculations...

[goneutt]

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"

Re:Some calculations...

[NitsujTPU]

/. RULES! That comment is "informative."

Re:Some calculations...

[CGP314]

It should also be noted that the chick in the middle of this picture is kinda cute.

I dunno, I think I like the chick from Hanson better.


-Colin

beer too?

[chocolatetrumpet]

What else can be improved using the brita? Beer maybe? Soup even?

I am so curious now :-)

Anyone else want to do trials and report the results? My mom would probably get upset.

Re:beer too?

[Just Some Guy]

Anyone else want to do trials and report the results?

I poured in a Fat Tire and got a Bud Light. The second pass end up like a Corona, and I didn't have the heart to subject it to a third run.

Re:beer too?

[kimanaw]

Please, don't abuse beer in this fashion.

Beer has been attacked from all sides of late, whether its MADD or Atkins. Need I remind you that it was "liquid bread" that built the pyamids, and that modern democracy was born in the pewter mugs of beer swilling patriots ?

As a homebrewer, I beg, nay, demand that you love and care for your beer as it is. There are many good homes where your unfiltered beer would be welcomed. If you are either unable or unwilling to support your beer, please, please send it to a good home with someone who will love and cherish your beer without questioning its color or purity. May I suggest the Hospice of St. Arnolds ?

Re:beer too?

[Pfhor]

As a resident of PA who can only drink Fat Tire when as close as the far east distribution center of new belgium as St. Louis, I sir crie sacrilage at wasting such a precious natural resource as a Fat Tire!

or their tripples, or their wheat ales, or just about anything NBB makes.

Re:beer too?

[Pleione]

I'm sorry, but Fat Tire is crap. It tastes like burnt rubber or something. Newcastle Brown is where it's really at.

Not much of a test

[Genevish]

The question is, did they taste it after each pass through the filter? That would explain the result... ("Thish is farckn great!!")

Try the premium Pur brand

[pgpckt]

They should try it with the premium Brita Pur filters, not just the regular Brtia kind. Those are supposed to get out even more bad stuff, and perhaps in less passes? Maybe a three way test: Brita v. Regular Pur v. Super Pur.

http://www.purwater.com/yourwater/pitchers.shtml

Re:Try the premium Pur brand

[zeromemory]

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.

Double Blind Study

[serutan]

If you really want a double blind study mix Vladimir and Pepe Lopez Gold tequila.

Ladies and Gentlemen

[Adrilla]

I've just become a home scientist.
PS: Science makes the room spin.

Does this work for Rubbing Alcohol?

[dantheman82]

I tried this five times with rubbing alcohol? How many times before I can get it at vodka level of drinkability?

Re:Does this work for Rubbing Alcohol?

[miskatonic alumnus]

I don't know; but, methanol seems to taste better after processing with one of those filters. I ... hey, waitaminute ... someone's been fiddling with the brightness on my monitor. Who turned out the lights???

Re:Does this work for Rubbing Alcohol?

[Just Some Guy]

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!

News?

[SimonShine]

A group of geeks tried to filter alcohol. High school, anyone?

Some [Long Term] calculations...

[Mulletproof]

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

I object!

[gooman]

You kids and your high technology.
Why back in my day we used our kidneys and liver to filter our alcohol and we liked it!

Re:not surprising...

[afidel]

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.

The SloshDot vodka-tasthing proshedure

[davidwr]

Drink glass of expensive vokda. Good stuff!
Drink 1st glasss of cheap vodka. Yuck ptooey!
Filter 2nd glass of crap. Almost tolera*hic*tolerable.
Filter 3rd glass of crap. Filter it again. Barely tolerablable.
Filther 4th glass of the stuff. Filther it again and spill some. Get help to filther it a 3rd time. Drink it. Could be better but gimme some more.
Ask friend to filter next glass a few times and give it back to me. I don't know how many time, just do it. Hey, not bad.
Hand glassh to fr*hic*friend and say do it again. This time more fhilther. Fhilther make junk tathe good. *hic*.
Get glass from friend. Hey, this is great!
Pass out.
Wake up the next day and post on Sloshdot.

I wondered what the hell that stuff was...

[Idarubicin]

From the article:

At $11.09 for 1.75 liter...Vladimir is a steal. It is, however, painful to drink, has a repugnant aftertaste, posesses a bouquet reminiscent of rubbing alcohol.

I was in St. Louis at a conference several months ago; after the closing dinner, a group of us descended on the local blues scene hoping to find some good live music.

We found it--there was a nice patio and a great band. As the evening wore on, we progressed from beer to shooters. A round of vodka seemed a good idea at one point. It smelled like isopropanol (I'm a chemist, I know my alcohols) and tasted as bad as one would expect. To this day, I have wondered what the hell it was we drank, so that I could avoid ever encountering it again. I fear unfamiliar vodkas in unfamiliar bars.

Now, I know it was Vladimir. I can rest easy. Thank you Slashdot!

Now the real question

[Sycraft-fu]

Is it cheaper to do this than buy Finlandia? For those that haven't tried it, Fin is basically tastless. No real taste, no aftertaste. It's probably the best mixing vodka for that reason. It's not as nice to sip as something like Kettle One because the taste of those more expensive Vodkas is one of the reasons to drink them, however it's also not as expensive.

I suppose it would depend on how well the filter held up. If the single filtration kills it, well then it'll be more expensive. If it works for a few times though it could be a fairly cheap alternative.

Something that would be interesting to see a real experiement on is the difference in before/after compositions. Find out what, if anything, is actually getting filtered out. Maybe I should try and talk the chemical engineers at work into trying it. :)

Re:Now the real question

[badasscat]

Is it cheaper to do this than buy Finlandia?

I can't imagine it is, given the prices they quote for Vladimir Vodka, and knowing as I do how much Brita filters cost (about $7 each, or $15 or so for three). Filtering vodka is basically going to ruin your filter; filter vodka six times and you may as well just throw it out. So basically you're paying $20 for a cheap bottle of vodka that you're trying to get to taste good, whereas where I live a bottle of Finlandia, Stoli, or Absolut is around 18 bucks. No, none of those are great vodkas, but they're good enough to drink as is, and as you say, Finlandia's already pretty much like water mixed with alcohol anyway.

I suppose this whole thing falls under the label of "plausible, but impractical". I'm sure you can get rid of the aftertaste in bad vodka by filtering it, but given the total cost and the marketplace alternatives, there's just not much point to it.

Re: Chick

[austad]

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. :)

Re:Brita filters aren't just physical filters

[TellarHK]

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.

Re:Brita filters aren't just physical filters

[mrchaotica]

If that were the case, you'd think there'd be a "don't use this to filter alcohol" warning label...

activated carbon + alcohol beverage = water (?)

[Anonymous Coward]

activated carbon removes organics from water or any solute passed through/over it; that is a fact. a brita filter works mainly on this principle and not a 'physical' filter (like a hepa filter). a brita removes organic carbons (like ethanol), water 'hardness' (carbonate, calcite....) with resin pellets-an electron exchange, chlorine, some heavy metals and of course relatively large particulates (if you are using a brita to filter microbes you are in for some stomach trouble). last i checked ethanol is soluble in both water and gasoline (for example) because of its molecular structure (ie, it is technically an organic molecule but is soluble in water due to it's structure). which means, at least some of the ethanol will affix to the ativated carbon. therefore it should be noted that filtering the vodka would also reduce the alcohol content. i would be interested in an experiment that also tested the alcohol remaining in the vodka. it is quite possible that after 4 passes the carbon had reached it's capacity for adsorbing (not a typo) contaminants (ie ethanol). so long as 'smooth' was not confused with adjectives such as 'water-like' or 'pure', some alcohol probably remained but i do not think you could do this experiment without some reduction. depending on who you are any change in alcohol content might be considered significant! also, once a 'contaminant' is affixed to the carbon pretty much only a whole lot of heat+flame are the only things that would remove/recharge it.

i should also mention that if my typing is off it is because i did not filter my wine before i drank it tonight =)

Re:Wadka!

[spdt]

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.

Rotten eggs?

[totoanihilation]

"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 ;)

Pepsi Green!

[jcuervo]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Pepsi Green!

I was going to mod down that AC troll, but eh, I figured this was more important. ;-)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

those chicks

[rasz]

Have you seen those chicks on the pics ? No wonder they drink vodka.

Speaking of filters...

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

I think this would be a good place to post an email exchange that my best friend had with random representative (whoever answers the emails sent to the help address) at PUR.

> From: Willett, J.R.
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 3:16 PM
> Subject: PUR
>
> Hi
>
> I received a PUR Water Filtration Pitcher (Plus LX, Platinum Edition) as a
> Christmas present, and I have a question about what things it can't
> filter.
>
> I have been very satisfied with its performance in removing chlorine from
> tapwater, however I am wondering what the limits are in its filtering
> capabilities. Could it, for instance, remove ammonia from an ammonia-water
> solution? In other words, could I use it in the desert to recycle urine
> into
> drinking water? The box says a lot about what it can filter, but not much
> about what it can't filter. It only says that the water must be sterile,
> and
> everyone knows that urine is completely sterile on leaving the body. Upon
> leaving the urinary tract, it provides an ideal environment for growing
> bacteria, but it is completely sterile inside you. The reason we don't
> habitually drink our own urine is because the water in our urine carries
> bodily poisons with it, including ammonia. If, however, your pitcher can
> remove these poisons, I can see how my PUR Water Filtration Pitcher could
> come in handy when water is scarce.
>
> Although my roommate has offered to sample my filtered urine, I thought I
> would ask you people first, before I pee in my PUR pitcher.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -J.R. Willett
-----Original Message-----
From: Beckenbach.Mark [mailto:Beckenbach.Mark@purwater.com]
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 9:38 AM
To: 'Willett, J.R.'
Subject: RE: PUR

Hello J.R.,
Gee-Whiz, I must admit that I read your e-mail with some skepticism. Upon
further reflection I came to the conclusion that you could indeed run human
urine through our filters. If you do this it could very well hasten your
way to death, but you can filter urine. We don't normally test urine or the
body's by-products associated with it. Drinking urine is a bit out of the
main stream, if you'll pardon the pun. The filter may have some effect on
the potency of the ammonia. If you're in an emergency situation with out
water, drinking urine will only make your day worse. The ammonia in urine
isn't what's going to ruin an already pisser of a day, its the salts. By
constantly reintroducing those salts into your system, you are increasing
the amount of salt in your system, and decreasing the amount of usable
fluids. This salt will draw water from other tissues in your body, as will
your kidneys. Your kidneys need the extra water to flush the salts out.
It's a viscous circle. As your kidneys are shutting down, the poisons in
your body will increase; thereby playing havoc with your heart. The lack of
electrolytes in your in your brain can cause the synapses to misfire
eventually causing you to get delirious and run screaming into the desert
waving your hands over your head chasing Elvis.
All levity aside, I am not a physician. However I do understand our
products and have a thorough understanding of human physiology. My
recommendation is not to do it. Carry a bladder of water in your trunk.
Being prepared is the best way to keep from having to drink pee.
Mahalo,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Willett, J.R.
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 10:17 AM
Subject: RE: PUR

Mark,

Thankyou for your timely reply in this matter. Not only have you saved us from what could have been a disasterous science experiment, but you have provided a tremendous amount of amusement to several college students with perhaps too much time on their hands to wonder about such things.

I assume that if the filter cannot rem

Re:Speaking of filters...

[wretched22]

Your best friend was the author? Were you by chance the thirsty roommate?

Re:Speaking of filters...

[NanoGator]

"I think this would be a good place to post an email exchange that my best friend had with random representative (whoever answers the emails sent to the help address) at PUR"

You know, in a day and age where companies are way too PC or diplomatic when they respond to emails like these, it's really quite refreshing to read an email like that. Kudos, PUR.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[Dr Reducto]

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.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[jerde]

>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.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[RedBear]

Just FYI, in case you ever go ocean trekking, you actually can buy a hand-operated desalination pump for your survival raft to make fresh water from saltwater. It's considerably more difficult than removing particulates, chemicals and bacteria from fresh water. I can't find a link to where you can actually order one, but I wouldn't be surprised if a desalination pump cost several hundred or even a couple grand. Requires some sort of reverse osmosis, I think.

I work for an organization that does marine safety training, and my boss related to me a story about a couple who survived something like 68 days in a liferaft in the middle of the ocean with nothing but a little food and a hand-operated desalinator. Not sure of the date but it was some years ago, so they've been around for a while.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[Dogtanian]

the other shit in the urine will require more water to process than you get from the processed urine.

Dude, if you have shit in your urine, you should see a doctor *pronto*.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[Inda]

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.

Re:Speaking of filters...

[seven of five]

... after evaporating off the water, THEN you drink the pee?

Re:Speaking of filters...

[mbourgon]

Ya know, I read this exact plan in an old Hardy Boys novel. That being said, I believe it said there was enough moisture in the sand to do this, and nothing about whizzing in the hole.

Anhydrous ethanol is usually spiked

[fejes]

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.)

Beware of certain filters

[LS]

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

Vostok Antarctica Vodka and the Brita

[Anonymous Coward]

While in Vostok Antarctica I had multiple opportunities to sample the Vodka produced by my Russian hosts.

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.

They did this because the use of a traditonal boiler/still was "not allowed" by the bureaucratic powers at the base. The bureaucratic powers claimed it was a waste of base fuel.

BTW: My hosts knew that fractional freezing also cost base fuel, but they got away with it either because the bureaucratic powers didn't understand physics, or because they turned a "blind eye" to whole thing. :-)

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! :-)

Re:Vostok Antarctica Vodka and the Brita

[rich3rd]

let the ice freeze, brought it back inside and removed the ice that has formed on the top

Before prohibition, fractional distillation was also commonly used throughout the U.S. to concentrate fermented cider into "applejack". John Chapman, AKA Johnny Appleseed, was all about the cider. In fact, before modern refrigeration techniques, all cider was alcoholic; the term "hard cider" would have been redundant. As apples are heterozygous, trees grown from seed bear fruit quite unlike like that of the parent tree (varieties prized for their fruit are all cloned from the same original tree). Therefore, most of the trees Chapman planted would have borne "spitters", which are good for little else but cider. This excellent book (Pollan, Michael: The Botany of Desire) covers the whole apples-alcohol-Chapman enigma, as well as a few other plants that have shaped, and been shaped by, humans in their pursuits of various desires.

JUST Finished trying this

[Thai-Pan]

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.

Having done this

[icebattle]

I recently completed my first batch of home distilled vodka and, frankly, it was great. The yield was excellent, and my home made still worked fine. I even have some pics of the rig.

I ran half of the completed product through a carbon filter, and it seemd to improve the smoothness. Maybe. We had a few merry evenings with the stuff, and no nasty hangovers.

I'll be kicking off the next batch soon. Long live SuperYeast!

I can attest to this!

[spin2cool]

After reading this site last week, myself and a couple of friends decided to take the "Brita Challenge". To my complete amazement it worked better than I ever could have hoped.

I hate vodka typically, and the 9-dollar "Kamchakta" vodka that we bought burned like a mofo, and smelled like ass. After filtering it several times, it loses all of those impurities (that some might call 'flavor'), and is much more palatable.

Our findings were that 4 filtrations were plenty, and that it took much less time than the other site claims. We were able to filter a 1.75 L bottle of vodka 6 times in well under an hour.

We surmise that if you stuck 3 or 4 filters together in one long pipe, you could have one hell of a filtration system, and do it quickly too. With a little bit of advertising on collegehumor.com, you could be a thousandare, easy!!

To recap:
1) Filter Cheap Vodka
2) ????
3) Profit!!!

Sorry, but wrong.

[warrax_666]

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.

Re:Sorry, but wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you also know that the proper treatment after drinking a little bit of methanol is to drink a whole lot of ethanol immediately.

IANAMD, so I want to emphasize that this is best done in an hospital.

Re:no no no again...

[pturing]

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

Re:is usually spiked

[deglr6328]

Anhydrous ethanol used for industrial processes may be "spiked" (denatured) with methanol to discourage consumption but this is never the case with reagent grade "absolute" ethanol. When a chemist needs ethanol for an experiment and ONLY ethanol, that better be all that's in the bottle.

Props.

[Grendel Drago]

I note that it's dated nearly five years ago. Good luck getting an actual email to someone working at a company. It's one-way communication, folks, a push medium. Damn kids these days and their outdated unidirectional media paradigms.

Still, props to the company and to the guy working for it for giving an actual response. And a helpful one, at that. Nifty!

--grendel drago

Whiskey?

[petrus4]

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?

Re:Whiskey?

[Engineer Andy]

I was wondering the same, but for scotch. The lower grade stuff is all but undrinkable (for lower grade, read anything that isn't single malt) to me. If I could run a bottle of johnny walker red through it and get anywhere near single malt taste, going through a cartridge for a bottle would be a cheap investment.

Re:Whiskey?

[The-Bus]

That, simply, is impossible. Good Vodka tastes good because it has very little impurities. The best are some of the "cleanest" vodkas.

Scotch, on the other hand, is all ABOUT the impurities. Witness something like the Laphroaig, which (and this is the producer talking) asks you to drink it and "release the pungent, earthy aroma of blue peat smoke" -- Macallan speaks of an "after taste of heavily toasted oak wood" in their 1971 30-yr old run -- clearly, they are not concerned with impurities. Some even produce "unchilfiltered" Scotch which has actual shards of Scotchy goodness floating around in the bottle.

That being said, some blended Scotch is OK, but not anything like single-malt. As much as I enjoy Scotch, I also like to drink JD and Crown Royal, which I'm sure means someone will take my Scotchy badge away from me.

Nope, was right, do your research

[pturing]

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.

See, for example:
http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/06 02/educati on/ed3.html
http://www.talkaboutsupport.com/group /alt.support. disorders.neurological/messages/4240.html

Re:Nope, was right, do your research

[TheLink]

"Unfortuanetely, it metabolizes to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are among the major factors in hangovers."

Not to mention these stuff is what makes you go blind.

So usually they give you something else to metabolize to reduce the creation and thus concentration of the nasties.

Re:Nope, was right, do your research

[say]

In Norway, quite a few people died recently from drinking illegal vodka, which turned out to be methanol. The guy who sold it got quite a few years in the slammer.

Absinthe

[ScottBob]

Especially for the science nerd in all of us as we marvel at the totally clear liquid turning milky white as the water from melting ice mixes with the alcoholic beverage.

And then there's Suisse La Bleue absinthe, which also turns milky white when mixed with water (the milky effect is called louche). Absinthe remains banned in the U.S. due to the persistent myth that the wormwood in absinthe is poisonous and causes hallucinations. It doesn't, wormwood is not, nor ever was on any DEA controlled substance list. It's banned by the FDA, which prohibits the manufacture, import and resale of any foodstuffs that contain wormwood in the U.S. The FDA hangs on to the myth that one of the chemicals in wormwood, called thujone, is bad, nevermind there is thujone in spices such as sage and tarragon. At least the European Union is forward thinking, because as of this year, absinthe is once again legal all across the European Union, with Switzerland and it's much sought after clear absinthe called Suisse La Bleue (once produced in clandestine labs) being the most recent to re-legalize. For more info, go see La Fee Verte Absinthe House.

Here in the U.S., available anise based pastis such as Pernod, Ricard, Herbsaint and Absente all exhibit the same louche effect (albeit green, due to coloring in the liqueur)when mixed with water. The colder the water, the more pronounced the milkiness.

Re:Absinthe

[Dogtanian]

absinthe is once again legal all across the European Union

Off the top of my head (this is Slashdot, I'm damned if I'm going to research my incoherent ramblings- besides which, IIRC I didn't read this online), the absinthes now "legal" in Europe contain only a fraction of the amount of psychoactive substances that the old-school absinthes contained before they were banned.

A few related links...

[pturing]

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

Re:Well...

[arivanov]

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

Re:not surprising...

[GnuAge]

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.

Re:not surprising...

[Trepidity]

just some of the best vodka you have ever tasted

Indeed! I would describe it as having a delightful initial nose of ethanol, a pleasant burning as it goes down, and finishing smoothly with a subtle aftertaste of ethanol punctuated by a complex ethanol-infused bouquet.

Industrial Alcohol == Less Tax for UK Gov

[Dogtanian]

I love how out of puritanical fear that people will get drunk (and probably have sex) we put something that will instead make them blind or dead. What a country.

They do that in Britain too; although here it has a lot more to do with the fact that spirits are taxed to the gills... quote:-

"The excise tax today, literally today, on a 70 cl bottle of Sainsbury's vodka in Aberdeen is 84 per cent."

Needless to say, you don't get charged that if you pop over to B&Q for some luridly-coloured purple alcohol.

PUR Does make a desalinator

[Ebisu_11]

I guess the PUR rep did know a thing or two, since PUR does make a hand pump for desalinating sea water. PUR Desalinator
They mention that a couple lived for 66 days on a liferaft with one of these.

"It feels like a clown is raping my mouth."

[N8F8]

Exactly how does your friend know how it feels to have a clown raping his mouth?

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Thor Ablestar]

No. In Soviet Russia WE filter and drink everything that burns. And the Communist Party and Soviet Government try to stop us - mostly in vain.

Recipe 1. Take a long steel rod, cool it to the temperature -50 deg.C or below and let the purified liquid flow along it Every impurity will be frozen. Even the home freezer can produce up th 40% alcohol from the fermented potato without any distillation (Warning! Distillation was the legally prohibited action in Soviet times and freezing was not. Check your local laws).

Recipe 2. Add some potassium permanganate to the liquid. It will oxidize the most impurities and become a brown goo which can be filtered out. I dislike this method since it gives the bad metal taste. I prefer the more scientific method:

Recipe 3. Use the pressure cooker and about 1 meter of spiral made of copper tube (About 1 cm diameter is ok). There is also cyclone filter made of a glass can between cooker and spiral to catch unwanted foam and a thermometer in it. Connect it all with PVC tubes. Then:

Fill the cooker with a raw product, add some lime (CaO) and distil. Cool the spiral with running water. The theory is that the most impurities in a grain alcohol are ethers and they are converted by alkali to salts and alcohols, and alcohols smell alcohol and can be distilled off. Don't forget that the first 2-5 per cent of product must be discarded since they are mostly acetone, and the last parts must be discarded since they are water and the higher alcohols. The thermometer will help you find the correct proportion.

Then filter the product through the coal filter for water. Distil again. Filter through ANOTHER filter (Use the first filter for the next experiment:-) ). Distil again. You get 95% pure alcohol and may dissolve it to standard 40% if you want.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Amount of water in urine

[base_chakra]

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.

James Bond

[frank249]

As noted byt the Accordian Guy, There are similar tricks with liquor. In the Ian Flemming novels, such as Moonraker James Bond had the habit of shaking pepper into his vodka shots. He'd picked it up from the Russians, who did it as a matter of safety rather than taste; the pepper dragged fusel oils left over from their crude distilling process down to the bottom of the glass.

For wine, apparently just decanting the whole bottle into another container improves the taste.

do you know what USP means?

[caveat]

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.

Re:It is probably to protect the company.

[MindStalker]

Seriously, drinking desalted urine is actually an acceptable method for dealing with a lack of water. And a bit of salt water isn't going to kill you unless you are already dehydrated. And these guys wern't planning on experimenting while dehydrated.

Re:Ethanol

[miskatonic alumnus]

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.

Backup

[nurb432]

Ask any good vodka distiller that goes thru the purification process, why they are doing it...

There will be your answer. Need a name? Try Skye.. The stuff in the blue bottle.. There are more.

And yes I know it cant get to 100%, but 90+ is close enough to call it 100%. This isn't a chem. lab, its real life.

And if you noticed what I said a bit closer, I was talking that in today's percentages of alcohol / impurities its the impurities that are causing the hangover.. and that making it 100%, which isn't practical, but if done, in theory, it would then move any hangover to the responsibility of the remaining alcohol..

Never said it would stop them totally, just what their theory is, relative to the fact that most of the hangover IS caused by impurities..

Skyy advertises this

[Twid]

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.

Question

[gone.fishing]

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!

Re:Question

[StormKrow]

The only time vodka was made with potatos was when there was a shortage of grain, or someone had used all of their vodka ration during the days of the Soviet Union. Potatos were pretty plentiful, so some people made their own homebrew out of potatos. (that's the *real* rotgut vodka you hear about). It was of very poor quality, due to impurities from the person's water supply and equipment. (I mean seriously, how many people in the Soviet Union had enough parts to make a proper still?) "Official" vodka is grain alcohol.

Re:Ethanol

[DavidTC]

I said in biology. In general chemistry, obviously, you'd care if water got into your stuff.

In biology, though, ingesting water is pretty much completely ignored, just like injecting salt water into the blood is ignored. It has no effect, and it's not included in any calculations. You need to know the amount of alcohol, and, once you do, you couldn't care less about the amount of water.

I don't know what you mean by calling chemistry the 'real world'. When you're talking about the effects of alcohol on the body, you're talking biology. Is this some sort of scientific pissing contest I walked into? You don't explain reactions to alcohol with chemistry anymore than you explain circuit diagrams with quantum theory or bridges with the general theory of relativity. And in biology, water is not generally considered an impurity.

And I think it's obvious what I mean by impurities. Impurities in ethanol are things that aren't ethanol. (Or, explicitly stating something that doesn't really need to be stated in biology, water or air, or, heck, carbon dioxide.)

In general, though, when talking about impurities in alcohol, people are talking about the semi-toxic organic compounds that come with it, and are accidently created by the same thing that created the alcohol.

Instead of, oh, added coloring, which is not specific to alcohol, and thus doesn't have anything to do with hangovers, even though it is technically also an impurity. Vodka doesn't have any such additives, though. It's just alcohol. (And, for those playing along at home, water.)

(Ironically, this one of the few cases in biology where the water does matter, because not having any water would make the alcohol pull water out of you. So it is literally impossible to injest pure ethanol...even if you could get it in your mouth, it would have water in it by the time it hit your stomach by pulling it out of your throat. So, in a way, it's an anti-impurity...it's already there, and removing it will cause effects not expected by ethanol.)