Something you never knew that you needed - powdered alcohol

[SimpleDon]

A prime example of Say's law in action?

Innovation and supply creating its own demand?

Economics aside, why?

What are the advantages of powdered alcohol over the liquid type?

No, you can't snort it, it burns the nose and it would take an hour to snort an jigger's worth.

You can't ingest the powder comfortably, it turns into a hard to swallow gel when it hits the moisture in the mouth.

They seem to have covered the obvious misuses of the product. But as Brandon Korman, chief of neuropsychology at Miami Children's Hospital says here,

Although there might be some people who abuse the product, this does not mean it should be banned, Korman argued. "People are going to find ways to abuse pretty much anything," Korman said.

It would be marginally easier to sneak into places. I go to a bluegrass music venue that doesn't allow alcohol with friends who constantly try to sneak alcohol in. Two of them are only one violation away from a lifetime ban. They already have their pictures posted next to the bad checks. (I can recommend Everett's (now Suwanee, but no one calls it that) Music Barn for a wholesome, sober, good time, in the far exburbs of Atlanta, God's country, ~30 miles from downtown. Youtube here, web site here.)

As for the economics this isn't an example of supply creating its own demand, it is an example of innovation creating an alternative product to satisfy part of the existing demand for alcohol.

And no, most things in politics are not ultimately about economics.

Everything in politics is ultimately about economics.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A kid in Ohio died from an overdose of caffeine powder. Yeah, someone makes caffeine powder. Almost any amount snorted will kill you.

Who the fuck needs caffeine powder in the consumer market?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

I don't see how it would save weight over simply carrying something like everclear.

 

[Perspicuo]

A kid in Ohio died from an overdose of caffeine powder. Yeah, someone makes caffeine powder. Almost any amount snorted will kill you.

Who the fuck needs caffeine powder in the consumer market?

Students and people not having enough sleep needing to perform at work. That is a big big big fucking market.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A kid in Ohio died from an overdose of caffeine powder. Yeah, someone makes caffeine powder. Almost any amount snorted will kill you.

Who the fuck needs caffeine powder in the consumer market?

Students and people not having enough sleep needing to perform at work. That is a big big big fucking market.

The potency of the powder was way to high for ingestion. It needed to be seriously diluted.

 

[dismal]

Say's law is a law about aggregates, not individual products.

And if this product has no value to anyone I'm sure no one will want it and there is no problem to see here.

 

[Mageth]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

I don't see how it would save weight over simply carrying something like everclear.

And Everclear can be used as fuel for cooking. (Yay lightweight alcohol stoves!) Two birds with one stone, er, liquid.

(Is this powdered alcohol flammable?)

 

[Axulus]

Thunderf00t did a good analysis of it. Pretty much there's no advantage to it - they are essentially just absorbing alcohol onto a powdered matrix - you might as well just carry the liquid version of it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c0QLaVLhTs[/youtube]

 

[Axulus]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

That's what box wines like Bandit and plastic bottles are for. You don't have any weight to alcohol advantage by having it in powdered form. Also, what are you going to mix it with? If just water, it wouldn't taste very good. You'd have to pack a mixing liquid as well.

 

[dismal]

I don't see how it would save weight over simply carrying something like everclear.

And Everclear can be used as fuel for cooking. (Yay lightweight alcohol stoves!) Two birds with one stone, er, liquid.

(Is this powdered alcohol flammable?)

It seems they are not actually making powdered ethanol but absorbing liquid ethanol into a solid (dextrin of some sort) that maintains powder like properties and dissolves in water.

http://www.google.com/patents/US3795747

So I imagine it would have a) more weight per ethanol amount than grain alcohol and b1) still be flammable; b2) still be inflammable. But probably not much use in stoves.

 

[dismal]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

That's what box wines like Bandit and plastic bottles are for. You don't have any weight to alcohol advantage by having it in powdered form. Also, what are you going to mix it with? If just water, it wouldn't taste very good. You'd have to pack a mixing liquid as well.

You can put awesome kool aid type flavors in the powder too.

The main plus seems to be novelty. And fooling people who are bad at science into thinking they are lugging less weight. And you can bring it through TSA when you're getting on an airplane.

 

[Malintent]

I bought powdered water from the supermarket yesterday.. I have no idea what to add.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

And fooling people who are bad at science into thinking they are lugging less weight.

Or maybe those who are informed when it comes to backpacking know that backpackers often do not carry all the water they are going to use on the trail and filter their water as they need more. They would also know that the many of them also carry dehydrated food to lighten the load they have to carry.

http://www.rei.com/c/water-treatmen...45|pkw|+water++purifiers|pmt|b|google|main|NB

http://www.rei.com/c/freeze-dried-f...4245|pkw|dehydrated+food|pmt|p|google|main|NB

 

[SimpleDon]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

I was a scoutmaster and a Backpacking merit badge counselor for nearly ten years. I was a proponent of carrying all of the water that you need from home. I saw too many failures of water filters and other purification methods. The giardia parasite is no joke.

If you do carry all of your drinking water and boil your cooking\washing water, I use to joke that backpacking was like delivering a baby in the movies, you boil water any time that you can't figure out what to next. We had a running debate whether it was worth the trouble to boil the water because of the extra fuel that you have to carry.

Sorry, I rambled again. Of course, if you do carry your own drinking water powdered and dehydrated whatever doesn't save any weight.

We of course, carried no alcohol or drugs, putting us in a definite minority among backpackers, rock climbers and cavers, spelunkers.

 

[ZiprHead]

What kind of a bluegrass venue bans alcohol. They go together so well.

Up here in mid-Michigan we have a place called Salt River Acres. My wife, brother-in-law and I help the owners out taking tickets, providing security, etc., in exchange for free camping and going to the shows. The venue owner goes down to Alabama every winter and brings back huge quantities of moonshine. The 'shine flows quite a bit. The owner even has slurpee machines and make moonshine slurpees.

Nothing better than bluegrass and moonshine.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

I was a scoutmaster and a Backpacking merit badge counselor for nearly ten years. I was a proponent of carrying all of the water that you need from home. I saw too many failures of water filters and other purification methods. The giardia parasite is no joke.

If you do carry all of your drinking water and boil your cooking\washing water, I use to joke that backpacking was like delivering a baby in the movies, you boil water any time that you can't figure out what to next. We had a running debate whether it was worth the trouble to boil the water because of the extra fuel that you have to carry.

Sorry, I rambled again. Of course, if you do carry your own drinking water powdered and dehydrated whatever doesn't save any weight.

We of course, carried no alcohol or drugs, putting us in a definite minority among backpackers, rock climbers and cavers, spelunkers.

And of course what purifies water? Alcohol!

 

[SimpleDon]

Backpackers have been saying for years someone should invent this. Carrying bottles on the trail can be heavy.

I don't see how it would save weight over simply carrying something like everclear.

I once saw a backpacker carry in about 7 miles to a rock climbing face two approximately four foot tall congo drums, think Ricky Ricardo.

We each were carrying maybe thirty five pounds of climbing gear extra beyond the normal thirty pounds of food, water, sleeping bag, etc. Those drums had to be at least twenty pounds each. They put him close to a hundred pounds on his back. Needless to say, we camped as far away from him as we could.

 

[ZiprHead]

I once saw a backpacker carry in about 7 miles to a rock climbing face two approximately four foot tall congo drums, think Ricky Ricardo... Needless to say, we camped as far away from him as we could.

Where's John Belushi when you need him?

 

[Mageth]

And Everclear can be used as fuel for cooking. (Yay lightweight alcohol stoves!) Two birds with one stone, er, liquid.

(Is this powdered alcohol flammable?)

It seems they are not actually making powdered ethanol but absorbing liquid ethanol into a solid (dextrin of some sort) that maintains powder like properties and dissolves in water.

http://www.google.com/patents/US3795747

So I imagine it would have a) more weight per ethanol amount than grain alcohol and b1) still be flammable; b2) still be inflammable. But probably not much use in stoves.

The "stoves" I was thinking about are simple, homemade, very light weight alcohol stoves, essentially just burners. E.g., the cat can stove, easily made from a Fancy Feast tin (see video below). Can also be made from beer (e.g., Heineken) cans. Lots of different designs and information about these on the Web. I'm guessing that the powder would work in such a stove with a little tweaking, but whether it would put out enough heat to be useful is the question. It would be an interesting (and fun) experiment. However, probably not very practical; Everclear works great, and I can't see this stuff doing anywhere near as well. (But that's just an hypothesis without experimental results!)