Dutch students brew up powdered alcohol hit

Dutch students have developed what might be the ultimate Reg hack survival aid - a powdered alcohol beverage going out at €1-€1.50 for a 20-gram packet, Reuters reports. Just add water to Booz2Go and you get a "bubbly, lime-colored and flavored drink with just three percent alcohol content", ideal for those journalistic Bravo …

[Hugh_Pym]

exempt from booze taxation...

... for about 3 seconds probably.

[Adrian Jones]

Alcoholic Powder?

So what happens if you snort it?

[Anonymous Coward]

SubYou...?

Is this really any different from the old Subyou stuff (released in 2004, I believe).

And I'm still dubious about the claims of tax exemption and that "Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16."

The alcohol *is* liquid -- ethanol is and always will be liquid at room temperature and as Scotty said "ye cannae break the laws of physics". What's happening here is that another ingredient simply acts as a sponge, holding the (liquid) alcohol in place until some water is added to to release it. In the UK the duty is on the physical volume of alcohol, and I believe it is similar on the continent.

So I believe the stuff will be completely covered by existing alcohol legislation.

[Lloyd]

Eh?

"no self-respecting journo would drink anything tasting of lime unless he or she was truly under the cosh"

Are you mad? Margueritas, the greatest drinks on gods earth, especially if made with fresh limes, that's it, I'm off down the local poncey cocktail bar... erm entertaining clients out or summat.

[Jan Buys]

All right!

Remind me of this when they release the Glenfiddich variant :-p

[Gavin Morgan]

Doubles or Trebles (or morebles)

I'm no scientist or anything, but am I right in assuming you can bung two, three or more sachets into the same glass of water to increase the strength?

Sounds good to me :-D Probably tastes like sh*t though :-(

[Tom]

Jeffrey Bernard

"no self-respecting journo would drink anything tasting of lime unless he or she was truly under the cosh"

Vodka, Lime and Soda - offical name a 'Jeffrey Bernard'

Do at least a little research please!

[Steve Glover]

Title

@16:20 - even older than that. Back in the early eighties there was a similar product that used cyclodextrins (rings of six to eight glucose units) to hide away the alcohol.

And yes, the tax claim is about as valid as the one that says you can freeze-concentrate your homebrew and it's legal because you aren't distilling it.

[Tony]

coming next

I can see encapsulating alcohol (which is a liquid) in some sort of tiny umm, tiny things but how do you "powder" it? And if it truly is powdered how does adding water (which is not a component of alcohol) reconstitute said powder?

If all this is true though can powdered water be far behind?(just add what?)

[Austin]

Powder form

So... What would happen if you ate this stuff dry? Or put them in Pixie Stix?

[Dillon Pyron]

Crystal Lite

So while the ever-so-overconcious weight watchers are popping Crystal Lite into their water bottles, I'll just go along with the crowd.

Water drink mixes are popular with the high school set around here. This could get interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent

Can I mix it with skunk and smoke it? More to the point, how long before all the yoot mix it with some crappy plastic filled resin and it's all over the Daily Mail?

NB: Not that I know anything about skunk, shitty resin or anything like that. Come to think of it, what's alcohol?

[Jersh]

Not a sponge

This is probably simple hydrolysis. I'm thinking something along the lines of Diethylpyrocarbonate or something.

So no. Ethanol is probably not a constituent of the product. The ethanol isn't formed until hydrolysis occurs, and that is after purchase.

[Zulon]

Airline

I wonder how the Airlines will take to this... can you now carry booze as its not liquid? (Assuming that the powder is not "white".....)

[Neil Barnes]

Best lime drink?

Away with your Margeuritas and Jeffery Archers: the best lime drink without a doubt is the Caipirihna.

[Robin Cook]

re: Airline

Any long haul flights I've been on have had an open bar. Never even thought about bringing my own.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad

That's all we need, another vehicle to help more hysterical adolescent junkies get their alcohol fix. It would seem that the main interest in this new product is that is contains a popular drug and not that it tastes particularly good. Unsurprising, I suppose, in societies in cultural decline.

[matthew]

future of clubs

Will clubs soon have a water tap on our side of the bar, and a barmaid the other with a scoop and rows of power in jars?

[Chris Elvidge]

Dehydrated beer next?

Make beer. Remove water. Ship to pub. Add water. Watneys!!!!

[Tr0n]

Acohol from water

"And if it truly is powdered how does adding water (which is not a component of alcohol)"

Alcohol is basically:

carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Water is:

hydrogen and oxygen.

This wikipedia page shows the possibility to recreate it from water:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

C2H4 + H2O → CH3CH2OH

Seems close enough to me.

And as such, I believe it /wouldn't/ fall under alcohol laws (as such) since they are NOT selling alcohol but a powder which could be used to create alcohol... Do we need to change any laws now?

[Sam Penny]

Enough with the speculation...

Where's the HOWTO?

Cheers & God bless

Sam "SammyTheSnake" Penny

[Ishkandar]

Re. Adrian Jones

Have you ever had a noseful of fizzy drink ?? I think that's what will happen when you snort it !!

Be aware that you may be taken for a rabies carrier with foam in your face and be put down (humanely, of course )!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethylene is a GAS

C2H4

Melting Point:-169.7 °C

Boiling Point:-103.14 °C

Oh dear. Another Wikivictim.

Alcohol itself has a melting point of -114.3 °C so instead of keeping the sachets cold enough to ethylene, we could just use ethanol crystals.

So it can't be that...

There was a German company selling "powdered alcohol" for drinks (and with suspiciously similar marketing claims to the Dutch students) but their web site went offline some time back. [http://www.subyou.de/]

Seemingly no technical clues there either, even if one uses the waybackmachine.

[Danny Chrastina]

Title

How about an ester of citric acid and ethanol: would that work?

[Demian Phillips]

I shal have to ask you to step outside sir.

The Kamakazi must be defended, right next to the Zombie and Mojito on my list of tasty drinks that involve Lime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Water into Wine

Sounds like the "magic*" of jesus christ : )

* magic = any significantly advanced technology