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Lehrman Beverage Law and SB Nation have articles on a new powdered alcohol product.
First and for a long time, it was just liquid. Then it was whipped, solidified and almost vaporized. And now alcohol is powderized.
I am not astonished that this is a real product — but I am absolutely astonished that this is approved. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) approved seven versions of this powdered alcohol within the past few days. The person that pushed this through must be very patient or lucky and/or good. The product seems highly likely to raise a large number of legal issues and controversies.
The website for the product appears to have been taken down due to the media response surrounding their marketing.
We were caught off guard with the release of some of our labels by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. As a result, people visited this website that we thought was under the radar because we had not made a formal announcement of Palcohol.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 20 2014, @12:50AM
Your remark about liquid volume as a rate limiter for consumption is spot-on, but the consumption of liquid itself is part of the pleasure of consuming alcohol. Whether you're a lawyer drinking single-malt scotch, a thug drinking a forty of Colt.45, or a beer snob drinking that prize Imperial stout; it's the process of drinking itself which is the pleasure*. Even the most classless frat-boy bonging that 18-pack of Bud Light knows this, he just expresses it more differently than the other examples.
Consider this scenario: You've just come home Friday after a hard day's work, you're single (or the wife and kids have magically left to visit Granny without you), and you drink that first sip. It hits your belly with its warmth and comfort, and that's only the first sip. It's like talking to an old friend, and the more you take in the better the conversation gets. In that case you'd take a couple hours, each sip feeling better than the last, with the ever-present and pleasureful anticipation of more to come. The music and the topic of conversation change as a function of consumption over time, and finally you cap off the night having no trouble going to sleep.
Or this scenario: Drinking with friends at a party or other get-together, the mere act of mutual drinking serves as the center bonding ritual. The initial teaser with the anticipation of more exciting times to come is magnified with conversation, grabassin', and cooperative altruism ("I'm gettin' another beer, anybody else want one?). Even late in the night, during or after the culmination of the day's activity, the anticipation and excitement is renewed when a friend not only drops by for a surprise visit, but with a 24-pack of Corona. *sniff* I'm getting all emotional and shit just typing this.
Ethanol and the act of drinking are linked intimately, and in many cases the link with eating is evident with vodka-infused jello shots and vodka. Perhaps the advent of powdered booze is a good thing, as it marks more obviously the classless dope addicts and drunks who want either a quick substitute for blow or prefer their buzz to be an on/off thing rather than an experience to be cherished.
The only good use for powdered ethanol, from the perspective of somebody who takes their drinking pretty seriously, is to sneak alcohol into venues and other places where costs are prohibitive or ethanol is prohibited.
* Assuming you can deal with pissing like a racehorse or a hung over wakeup in jail the next day
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GeminiDomino on Sunday April 20 2014, @01:59AM
That's assuming you're drinking for the pleasurable effects of drinking, and not drinking for the easiest-route-to-completely-pissed effect of alcohol itself. You're overestimating those "classless frat-boys."
Not that I think that should be grounds for preventing it from being sold(though it probably will be).
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 20 2014, @02:17AM
Bonging beer in that manner is not only the easy route for those types, but it is a test of one's machismo.
When your belly is full of beer and your body's telling to you stop drinking, and yet you are able to take more in without puking, then you win. Everybody cheers and high-fives are given all-around. If you puke, that's it, no more for you. Everybody laughs and people keep you outside so you don't further stink up the place. The act of drinking remains intimate with the act of intoxication.
Alternately, instead of bonging beer, people are snorting ethanol like cocaine or swallowing it all with a single gulp of Red Bull. There is no sport in that. They just all sit around sober, and then they all seemingly with a flip of the switch magically and simultaneously become drunk in an instant, and some of those never wake up the next day. They don't even enjoy it, there's no proper "fade." It's because of what edill said above: The rate-limiting factor. And the social aspects of it.
Frat-boys get drunk faster and with less regard to the type of alcohol they're drinking, but the act of drinking itself remains a centerpiece of the ritual.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday April 20 2014, @04:48PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Sunday April 20 2014, @08:17PM
You have far too much faith in humanity if you think that same sort of simpleton won't turn "how many lines can you snort" into the same sort of competition, for the sake of some "ritual" involving a liquid. It just means a lot more of the losers will end up at room temperature, rather than drooling on themselves with penises draw on their faces.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday April 20 2014, @11:12PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Monday April 21 2014, @03:12PM
It was basically a combined response to your post and GPs, I just screwed up my quoting. :)
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 21 2014, @09:54PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bartman12345 on Sunday April 20 2014, @03:55AM
Wow, man, no offence meant here... but you should be in marketing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday April 20 2014, @05:26AM
Funny, I feel the same way about my e-cigs, that first draw after a rough night, the nice warm relaxing feel as the vapor goes rolling out...its damned nice. I personally can't wait until pot is legal so i can have a nice buzz vape for the weekends and the regular vapes for the weekdays. And yes I know they make vaporizers for pot but they are a PITA and they just don't give you the nice relaxing vape like the liquids do, at least for me.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 20 2014, @10:49PM
Try the pinnacle pro. You'd be surprised. Also, check fuckcombustion.com, for a mature forum discussing the pros, cons and some other sides of vamping and different devices to do so (and what to do with the ABV [already been vaped]).
(Score: 1) by Magic Oddball on Sunday April 20 2014, @08:56AM
The scenario with friends could work out just as well with sodas/snacks during a gathering where the center focus is playing games (either the sort played on a screen or around a table/room), watching rented movies, or similar. (That's from many, *many* nights together in college; some of us would have a particularly tasty drink at dinner, but there was no real interest otherwise.)
The other scenario is like a marketing description of an adult alcoholic that has the classic signs of drinking alone and using alcohol to cope with regular life stresses or painful emotions. There were many other little aspects of that piece that set off red flags in the back of my head as well, like the emotional reaction to the alcohol.
I've seen part of the harsh reality through being in a past LTR with somebody that drank just like that, dealt with his alcohol/need-induced mood swings, and was hurt way too much by the kind of things he said or did before, during and after a drinking night. To be honest, thinking about the kind of mental images your passage brought to mind makes me feel sick to my stomach. :-/