Slashdot Mirror
Powdered Alcohol Banned In Six States
HughPickens.com writes Rachel Abrams reports at the NYT that six states have passed legislation to ban Palcohol, a freeze-dried, powdered alcohol developed by Mark Phillips who he says was inspired by a love of hiking but a distaste for carrying bottles of adult beverages uphill. "When I hike, kayak, backpack or whatever, I like to have a drink when I reach my destination. And carrying liquid alcohol and mixers to make a margarita for instance was totally impractical," says Phillips, who hopes to have Palcohol on store shelves by the summer. One packet of Palcohol equals one shot with each packet weighing 1 ounce and turning into liquid when mixed with 6 ounces of water. Phillips has vigorously defended his product, called Palcohol, saying it is no more dangerous than the liquid version sold in liquor stores and plans to release five flavors: vodka, rum, cosmopolitan, powderita (which is like a margarita) and lemon drop.
Critics are concerned people may try to snort the powder or mix it with alcohol to make it even stronger or spike a drink. "It's very easy to put a couple packets into a glass and have super-concentrated alcohol," says Frank Lovecchio. Amy George, a spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said MADD did not typically take a stand on the dangers of specific alcohol products, but MADD is concerned about the colorful or playful packaging of such products that can sometimes appeal to children. Phillips dismisses concerns saying that they don't make sense if you think it through. "People unfortunately use alcohol irresponsibly. But I don't see any movement to ban liquid alcohol. You don't ban something because a few irresponsible people use it improperly," says Phillips. "They can snort black pepper. Do you ban black pepper?"
Critics are concerned people may try to snort the powder or mix it with alcohol to make it even stronger or spike a drink. "It's very easy to put a couple packets into a glass and have super-concentrated alcohol," says Frank Lovecchio. Amy George, a spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said MADD did not typically take a stand on the dangers of specific alcohol products, but MADD is concerned about the colorful or playful packaging of such products that can sometimes appeal to children. Phillips dismisses concerns saying that they don't make sense if you think it through. "People unfortunately use alcohol irresponsibly. But I don't see any movement to ban liquid alcohol. You don't ban something because a few irresponsible people use it improperly," says Phillips. "They can snort black pepper. Do you ban black pepper?"
The states are: Alaska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Virginia
Not sure why this couldn't be in the summary.
You cannot "freeze dry" alcohol because alcohol is a pure liquid at room temperature and to make it solid you would need a temperature of -78C which is a little on the cold side for anyone not Canadian. Powdered alcohol is actually alcohol absorbed by something else as desribed here and if you want to make it yourself the instructions are here... just don't do this if you happen to live somewhere where you are now not allowed to do it anymore!
It's not actually a bad idea. I've taken alcohol backpacking before, but it's as he mentions, it's somewhat impractical, esp. stopping links and carrying around big containers that will average being half empty, which you can't refill with their target contents on the way like you can with water bottles. And in my experience it usually leaks sooner or later. And since it only makes sense to carry the most concentrated stuff you can buy...yeah.
Concentrated alcohol is great stuff to be with - and not just for "getting drunk in the woods". Or even the social aspect - being out in the middle of nowhere with alcohol and meeting up with other travelers can make you pretty popular ;) But it's also 7 calories per gram - only fat is higher, at 9, while carbs and proteins are 4, so it's a nice weight ratio, and it never spoils. It doubles as a disinfectant, both for first aid, and for water. And it can be burned as a stove fuel.
That said, I don't know how many of the benefits would carry over to this powdered variety. The sorbent is going to significantly reduce weight per calorie, you probably can no longer burn it as stove fuel at any dilution, etc.
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
I wonder how much of this objection has nothing to do with the vasty overstated risks but instead is of a commercial nature. Alcoholic beverages are extremely expensive in a lot of places (stadiums, bars, restaurants, events) and sneaking your own in is inconvenient or impossible.
I woner if the real opponents of this aren't people who make money charging $10 for cocktails to captive audiences. How much money do they stand to lose when people start bringing a half-dozen packets to the big game?
How is the drinking control regime threatened when you can't restrict alcohol because of its bulk and liquid nature?
Some idiots will no doubt overconsume it, but they are probably the same idiots that do it now.
Anyone that thinks this stuff makes any sense at all is merely ignorant.
Here is the thing, alcohol is a liquid. The most compact state for alcohol to be in is a liquid. The only way to have powdered alcohol without adding a lot of filler to it that will make it take up MORE space and more weight would be to freeze it and then smash up the frozen alcohol into a powder and then keep that at freezing temperatures.
Sound practical? Me neither.
What they're obviously doing is adding a chemical, probably a sugar of some description, and allowing that substance to absorb the alcohol.
while you CAN do that, why would you want to do that? It will take up MORE space and weigh MORE per unit of weight or volume.
So what the fuck is the point? People keep talking about powdered alcohol like people are going to be able to compress 2 liter vodka bottles into little pouches where you just add water and you get a strong alcoholic drink.
You won't though... unless you have something like 10 liters of powder to dissolve in the water.
the amount of alcohol you'll actually be able to store in any sugar crystal going to be miniscule. And sugar molecules are often quite large... so you're talking about a lot of mass invested into containing a very small amount of alcohol. Why?
Get yourself some 200 proof booze, put it in a flask, and if you want drink, then mix that with some amount of water because you really don't want to drink 200 proof booze straight unless you're completely crazy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Perhaps you didn't see the states involved:
Alaska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Virginia
Only ONE of those states "might" be considered anything "lefty" The other 5 are rather conservative. So if anything it is "righty-totalitarian".
Two thermoses of Everclear!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Talk with them. It's YOUR kids. Don't put the burden of raising your kids on society!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's getting hard to say with prohibition groups these days (MADD is simply a "ban all alcohol" group). Such groups used to find common cause with the right, and perhaps still do, but that spirit is aging out of the right with the Boomers, and increasingly it's the left on a jihad to "control all the things!" People Against Fun are increasing flipping left now. From banning video games to banning frat parties, it's a left thing now, and the "yes means yes" laws are one step away from outlawing premarital sex (and the right has been laughing quietly at that irony).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You can measure how authoritarian a government is by the % of GDP they spend/waste. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
Also gun control proves you wrong on the face of your claim.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
source
100g of powder with 25cl (250ml) of water gives you 4.8%. i.e.: the content of a small can of a rather weak beer (by European standard).
Which is 12ml of pure ethanol (less than a 2cl shot). Which weights ~10g. So you need to transport a power 10x as heavy as the ethanol it self. It one of the least efficient form for transporting ethanol. And is therefore COMPLETELY STUPID.
You're better off transporting a small flask vial of pure ethanol. For reference to another item that you would probably be carrying in your backpack: an AA battery is ~8cm^3, so you need the same volume as about 1 and a half battery of pure ethanol to mix your weak-beer-like beverage small can. So the actual volume is negligible.
Whereas if you pack them with ~90mg of extra powdered sugar cyclic polymer, you'll probably need a space around roughly ~130cm^3 - that's about the volume of 1 and half deck of cards that you need to transport as extra sugar in addition to the ethanol itself, just for the small advantage to keep the ethanol trapped in a powder instead of carrying it in a small plastic liquid container.
(it's an estimation. I don't know the exact density of the specific types of powdered cycle of sugars used in palcohol, I'm doing a rough estimation using starch as a starting point).
You can't beat pure ethanol. It's a liquid. That's as densely as you can pack it at room temperature.
That's the form of pure alcohol, once you remove all the water out of it. Dried alcohol isn't a powder. It's still a liquid (just a liquid that contains no molecule of water, only ethanol). It's not like for example salt nor sugar (salt or sugar diluted in water is a liquid. Dry it, remove all the water and you get powder of NaCl or of glucose. Or crystals of them if you do the drying correctly).
Palcohol is, basically, adding huge sugar cyclic polymer to trap it into a powder. It's a huge waste of space. It's not *concentrated* alcohol (as, I presume, all the people who buy into these stupidity are thinking - by analogy of sugar or salt). It's alcohol cut with heavy space consuming sugar.
The only thing is that, getting food-grade ethanol (that is pure ethanol, not degraded ethanol) at pure concentration without a drop of water inside is heavily regulated in most countries (to avoid that people use it to make their own housemade liquor and sell these without a proper license).
The sugar-ethanol mix isn't (well in some countries. Sugar and ethanol happens to be regulated in some countries due to alcopops.) so probably some people think it's a handy way to transport alcool without needing to get the necessary license / paper work for pure ethanol ("I want to transport my booze in space convenient matter, not start a liquor factory! The paper work is over kill !") The problem is that even then, packing a water-diluted ethanol solution (strong vodka, etc.) is still more space efficient than the powdered sugar.
As a way to pack alcohol, this poweder is asinine.
As a novelty item, with the funnily simple factor ("Powdered cocktail! Just add water and instant* mojitos!!! [*- with a much weaker alcohol content than an actual mojito]") yup, maybe. (Works, because most of the other ingredients *can* be packed as solids/powder, and they can complex a bit of ethanol, specially the sugars).
But it's nothing more than an adult themed cousin of Sherbet-powder to be drank after adding water.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I really don't understand why "powdered alcohol" is a better solution than carrying grain alcohol. "Powdered alcohol" isn't alcohol somehow transformed into a powder, but ordinary liquid alcohol absorbed/encapsulated in a carrier powder. So you don't save weight over the equivalent amount of Everclear, you add it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.