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We covered the story about powdered alcohol when it was first announced, but it ran into problems. It was re-announced in mid March. 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?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @12:55PM
If you're gonna carry that powder with you to not carry bottles of alcohol you still have to carry just as many bottles of water... and the powder. Unless you're gonna use some water you find out in the wild and hope for the best.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Sunday April 05 2015, @04:18PM
https://www.google.com/search?q=camping-filters [google.com]
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday April 05 2015, @05:39PM
This is what didn't make sense about his story to me to. If he didn't want to drag liquids with him. I can understand it from a hiking point of view, you don't want to carry anything you don't have to. But what is he going to mix the powder with? Stream water? Is he going to boil unclean water let it cool and then put in his freeze-dried margarita mix? If he is going to carry the water he might as well just carry a bottle of whatever booze he wants to.
The snorting problems is probably less of an issue. I guess it's the mixing part they might have issue with. But then people already do that with regular alcohol in various ways such as jello-shots etc so that shouldn't really be something to hold against his product. If I wanted stronger booze, sure just add more alcohol or heat it to get rid of excess water and by that make it stronger. The thing most people will find out that is that really strong alcohol taste awful and there is just no way to hide that taste, plus its not going to be cheap at all. If one of his freeze-dried bags of booze was a replacement for one shot of something then you are going to have to mix a lot of those little bags to get buzzed.
Also 'freeze-dried cosmopolitans' and various other cocktails, is that for the outdoorsy-metro-sexual or what?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday April 05 2015, @08:36PM
I reckon if you were camping, powdered toast would be more useful.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].