Huh. The future is here, I suppose…

Powdered Alcohol, Coming to a Liquor Store Near You

Not being one to keep up on alco-news, I was unaware that powdered alcohol even existed. But it’s a for-real substance… a dry powder that releases actual ethyl alcohol when mixed with water. From the Wiki entry on Alcohol Powder:

According to food chemist Udo Pollmer of the European Institute of Food and Nutrition Sciences in Munich, alcohol can be absorbed in cyclodextrines, a sugar derivate. In this way, encapsuled in small capsules, the fluid can be handled as a powder. The cyclodextrines can absorb an estimated 60 percent of their own weight in alcohol.

So, basically… alcohol mixed with sugar. Sorta.

The idea is you add this powder to water, and SHAZAM, you have booze. But you can also add it to food, swallow it directly, or even snort it. This would, of course, be a Bad Idea.

I wonder how it burns. Might make an interesting rocket fuel, added either to solid or hybrid propellants.

Now, if someone would hurry up and produce a hydrogen-rich dry powder that, when exposed to air, creates drinkable water… we can finally get on the road to William Hope Hidgson’s “The Night Land.”