Who says I don't drink? I'd also love to try psychedelics but would have no idea how to get ahold of them.
That's a shame, I can drink like 6 or 7 shots easily. Not a brag or anything, I know it's a problem.
It kind of tastes how ethanol-based hand sanitizer smells, but when you actually drink it it's very strong and bitter.
Vancouver, BC or Portland, Oregon. Or Amsterdam.
Who says I don't drink? I'd also love to try psychedelics but would have no idea how to get ahold of them.
That's a shame, I can drink like 6 or 7 shots easily. Not a brag or anything, I know it's a problem.
It kind of tastes how ethanol-based hand sanitizer smells, but when you actually drink it it's very strong and bitter.
Vodkas can taste different.
Hydrates: These are cage-like structures, with a number of the water molecules surrounding an ethanol molecule. The most common of these hydrate structures in vodka has around 5 water molecules to each ethanol molecule. Researchers discovered that its concentration varied in different brands of vodka.
Both methanol and ethanol behave oddly when mixed with water. I know the effect at small concentrations best because I had expected at a methanol to water as an antifreeze would produce an excellent low-viscosity coolant, but it turns out that each methanol molecule establishes a chain of water molecules and that these chains give the mixture higher viscosity than either methanol or water...
This is also why vodka can turn syrupy in the freezer.
We usually regard 'liquid' as a single phase. But this isn't quite the case. When you have a water-alcohol mixture, you end up with a whole bunch of different ways the water and alcohol molecules can bind to each other. They don't actually mix perfectly, depending on the concentration and temperature, different patterns of water-alcohol binding become favored. Water-alcohol mixtures don't behave like an 'ideal mixture', which is why the bulk properties change in (apparently) unexpected ways when you change the temperature. But the devil is in the details, so to speak. And if you want to describe the
specific properties of a water-alcohol mixture, then basically usually you're going get
various idealizations. But we naturally want to know the properties of
real solutions, not ideal ones. And that's where things get tricky, because non-ideal is more or less per definition behavior that deviates from the mean. That's when you have to start taking into account the fact that the mixture is
not homogeneous and randomly ordered at the microscopic scale, but has a bunch of various local orderings (with corresponding enthalpies and entropies), which it moves between, causing non-ideal behavior.
Regarding smoothness, some of the impurities make things taste smoother (for example, sugars), while many of impurities are harsh.
Pure ethanol with water should be pretty smooth, since it would not have any of the harsh impurities, but it might not be the smoothest of all, since it would lack any smoothing impurities
Methyl alcohol, or methanol, is bad news – highly toxic to mitochondria, and hence it hits energy intensive cells such as in the retina or the brain. Acetaldehyde is also pretty bad stuff – your body produces some as it breaks down ethanol, and it's partially responsible for the hangover feeling.
Some of the higher alcohols are not too toxic in small quantities, and are said to add aroma to things like whiskey and rum.
Acetic acid is not toxic – vinegar is basically dilute acetic acid, and it is good for you in small quantities, although it is not exactly smooth.
Congener is a catch-all term for things generated in distillation that are not ethanol (or water or CO2).
Some impurities could be --
methyl alcohol
acetaldehyde - byproduct of ethanol
acetic acid - byproduct of ethanol
propyl alcohol
Potato vodkas are just typically very creamy with an oily, viscous character and a pronounced palate weight. Potato vodkas aren't always cheaper than regular vodka. There are the top shelf bottles such as Chopin. The oils in potato vodka that contribute to its oily texture are primarily derived from the potatoes themselves. Potatoes naturally contain oils, starches, and other compounds. During the fermentation and distillation process, some of these oils can carry over into the final vodka product, giving it a thicker, more viscous mouthfeel compared to vodka made from grains.
Vodka can of course be made from grapes, rice, sugarcane, molasses, ect.
Rice vodka is often considered to have a purer taste compared to other types of vodka due to its relatively neutral flavor profile. Rice itself is mild in flavor compared to grains like wheat or rye, which can have more pronounced tastes. Additionally, rice vodka tends to undergo multiple distillations, which can further refine and purify the spirit, resulting in a cleaner and smoother taste. The simplicity of rice as an ingredient allows the natural characteristics of the vodka to shine through without the influence of strong flavors from other grains or additives.
Plus, the quality of water used can influence the flavor.
Some of the filtration methods are marketing.
For Dan Aykroyd's Crystal Head Vodka one of the last purification processes after active charcoal filtering is to pour it over Herkimer diamonds (which are not actually diamonds). They're a special quartz. Little semiprecious double-terminated crystals. Aykroydsaid, "Our stones, after a certain number of pours, turn yellow. We either have to bleach them, clean them or replace them."
Oils would stick to the limestone (or even quartz). The heat of distillation would break some larger oily molecules into molecules that would evaporate and be condensed into the final vodka, and no longer be oily enough to stick to the filter mineral.
Quartz = clean mechanical filtration
Silver = kills bacteria, might get metal leaching
Vodka is "Triple Wave Filtered", which is described as, filtered three times with water pressurized to 6,000 pounds per square foot to simulate the power exerted by three 30-foot ocean waves, hence the Triple Wavebranding - "Which has the same smoothing effect on vodka that ocean waves have on stones and shells," reads a press release. And it is filtered through activated carbon from charred coconut shells."
6000 psf is 41.66666666666666 psi. Which is not that much. Depending on the pressure loss across the filters they are bragging about using, this could literally just be the pressure they need to push the liquid through the filter. I think thats the same filtration pressure across the industry.
It's not particulates so much as undesired chemicals-esters, aldehydes and other fusel alcohols that filtering removes. Most branded vodkas are charcoal filtered although I agree with you that a well made vodka won't need it. At a large batch commercial scale filtering makes more sense than producing a top notch product on its own.
Generally vodka filtering involves pouring the spirit down a reservoir filled with activated carbon. Usually gravity can handle the job but I imaging here they're using a hydraulic press with water to power the load so they can legally brand themselves with "wavefiltered".
It's smart from a marketing standpoint. But a total gimmick like they are trying to brand their vodka as being filtered by the waves of the coast.
I don't drink or do drugs, but I drink copious amounts of coffee (and tea). I guess caffeine can be considered a drug. I treat my body as a temple and don't want to consume anything harmful to it, I don't want to kill off any of my brain cells.
Because you're a mormon
Yes, caffeine is a drug. But the word "drug" is thrown around so much in modern parlance.
God is @sserafim's drug
