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Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors. The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros ($1.35-$2). Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.
It also avoids the taxes, here is more information.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 7, 2007 at 10:11 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
How long before this gets banned in America?
Posted by: Christopher Monnier at Jun 7, 2007 11:05:58 AM
I would guess that the alcohol isn't alcohol as sold in Booz2Go, but probably an ester. Upon addition of water, the ester breaks apart and releases the alcohol.
There have been other materials like that in the past, including at least one industrial solvent that the government required to be sold with lead in it so as to prevent people from making it into ethanol and getting around the liquor tax.
Posted by: crimsongirl at Jun 7, 2007 11:18:24 AM
Isn't it possible -- and I'm just talking theoretically here -- to put *more than one* ... perhaps even
three packs into one drink, thus making the alcohol content more than 3%?
Posted by: Person at Jun 7, 2007 1:50:04 PM
When I first saw this, I sort of wondered whether this wasn't a spoof. Alcohol, like water, is a liquid at room temperature, unless the room is Santa's toolshed. Shavings, maybe, but not powder. Crimsongirl may have hit on an explanation, but if so, that still ain't powdered alcohol.
Posted by: kharris at Jun 7, 2007 2:57:34 PM
The trouble with the ester explanation is that a typical ester takes several hours to hydrolyse at room temperature, even at the typically acidic pH's of beverages, won't hydrolyse completely, and the residual ester will impart an overpowering flavor to the beverage. There might be some exceptionally labile esters that yield food-and-drink safe by-products, but the reaction would have to be really fast for a mix-and-drink beverage.
If I were going to do this, I would (1) use potassium ethoxide. It is highly reactive, and will make alcohol within seconds of hitting the water. Unfortunately, it will also make the water caustic, so (2) use citric acid to buffer out the resulting base. And to prevent these two from reacting in storage, (3) spray-dry one or both of these powders with maltodextrin (or something similar), to encapsulate it from the other. Add some sweetener and fruit flavoring, and you have a mildly alcoholic, just-add-water Gatorade knock-off.
Posted by: Cyrus at Jun 7, 2007 7:00:07 PM
