Product Code Database
Alcohol powder or powdered alcohol or dry alcohol is a powder that becomes an alcoholic drink when water is added. It is made using micro-encapsulation of alcohol (specifically ethanol).
In March 2015 four product labels for specific powdered alcohol products were approved by the United States Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) which opened the doors for legal product sales. However, as of 4 January 2016, the product is not yet available for sale and legalization remains controversial due to public-health and other concerns. Researchers have expressed concern that, should the product go into production, increases in alcohol misuse, alcohol use disorder, and associated physical harm to its consumers could occur above what has been historically associated with liquid alcohol alone.
On 15 January 1974, a practical manufacturing process for alcohol powder was patented by Sato. Sato has food patent the process in 17 countries around the world.
In the 1970s Sato began promoting powdered alcohol in the United States. Test sales began in 1977 under the trade name "SureShot". The product "Palcohol" was announced for future release in the U.S. in 2015.
In Turkey, on November 21, 1973, a former chemist named İsmail Serin invented a powdered version of rakı, a traditional Turkish anise-flavored alcoholic beverage.
In June 1982, Sato started production and sales for the drinking powdered alcohol, as test case. Its name is "powdered cocktail Alcock-Light cocktail" ("粉末カクテル 'アルコック・ライトカクテル' "). At least, during some years, it seems that had continued to test sales.
For the process to encapsulate, a method called spray drying was selected. In this process, a mixture of dextrin and the alcoholic drink is subjected to simultaneous spraying and heating. The spraying converts the liquid to small drops (up to several hundred micrometre (micrometers) in diameter), and the heat causes the hydrous dextrin to form a film. When the film dries, the drop becomes a microcapsule containing a dehydrated alcoholic drink and dextrin.
Drying removes about 90% of the water and 10% of the ethanol from the initial liquid. An explanation for this preferential loss of water over volatile organics like ethanol is called " selective diffusion": a carbohydrate (in this case, maltodextrin) film forms during spray-drying on each droplet. The film allows smaller molecules like water to go through, but not larger ones like ethanol. As a result, more water is lost. The film is formed in about 0.1 second from the creation of the droplet by spraying. There is no time for the internal convection in each drop or capsule to occur.
The end result of spray-drying is large amounts of microcapsules with the appearance of a powder. This is powdered alcohol. According to Sato's web page, powdered alcohol contains 30.5% ethyl alcohol by volume in the state of powder. In addition to the mixture before drying, if necessary, other additives (e.g. extract, sweetener, spices, coloring matter, etc.) may be added. As a result, alcohol powder can be said to be an alcoholic beverage that is " dry". For example, a "dry martini" made from alcohol powder may be referred to as a " dry dry martini" or " dried dry martini".
There are other methods for drying foods, but none are used for making alcohol powder. Typically, when considering the quality of a powdered product such as instant coffee, freeze drying seems to be better than spray drying, but this does not apply to alcohol powder production. In fact, " freeze-dried beer spice" was made by university students for their research. Carbon dioxide, water and alcohol have all been lost. However, due to the higher volatility of alcohol compared to water, time-consuming methods such as freeze drying should not be used. By selective diffusion, loss of alcohol is relatively small.
In this method, the powder is not encapsulated, and also not yet fully dried. Consequently, alcohol continues to evaporate from it very rapidly.
Due to flaws in the powdered alcohol produced by this method, this form of powdered alcohol was said to be unsuitable for drinking, carrying, or preserving.
Any production of powdered alcohol without a license is illegal in Japan, even if it is only for personal use, according to the Liquor Tax Act of Japan.
Powdered alcohol is found in some mass production foods, used in small amounts (as are other additives).
The product was available in four flavors and packed in 65-gram, or possibly 100-gram, sachets. When mixed with 0.25 liters of water, it created a drink with 4.8% alcohol. It was assumed that a German producer manufactured the alcopop powder based on imported raw alcohol powder from the U.S.
Later, Subyou disappeared and its website 'subyou.de' was taken down.
In May 1981, Sato received the first license to produce alcohol powder commercially. In Japan, powdered alcohol is officially called, lit. 'powdered-alcoholic beverage'. Powdered alcohol is defined by law as a "powdery substance that can be dissolved, and can make a beverage containing 1% or more alcohol by volume".
Before the 1981 amendment, powdered alcohol was outside the scope of Liquor Tax, as it is not a liquid.
The product's creators and marketers – Harm van Elderen, Martyn van Nierop, and others at Helicon Vocational Institute in Boxtel – claimed to be aiming at the youth market. They compared the drink to alcopops like Bacardi Breezer and said they expected the relatively low alcohol content would be popular with the young segment.
Because of complexities in Dutch laws, powdered alcohol like Booz2Go would not be subject to the Alcohol and Horeca Code, because it is not literally an alcoholic drink. This means that anybody of any age could buy it legally. However, when dissolved in water, it would be subject to the Code, according to Director Wim van Dalen of the Dutch National Foundation for Alcohol Prevention. Von Dalen commented that while he generally did not support new alcoholic drinks, he doubted the powder would become attractive. A spokesman of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport said they would not undertake any actions against the product, but added that the label would have to contain a warning about any health risks for the consumer, in accordance with other laws. Students make alcohol powder, Het Parool, 25 May 2007 (Dutch)
In 2014, Booz2go is not yet commercially available.
According to one Russian news site, in 2009, a professor at Saint Petersburg Technological University named Yevgeny Moskalev invented and patented a method of creating alcohol powder. This method could make alcohol powder from any kind of alcoholic beverage.
The method was tested on 96% spirit vodka. In this method, melted wax (stearic acid) is stirred, and the alcoholic drink is poured in. The solution dissipates and becomes drops containing alcohol and wax. The drops that solidify constitute alcohol powder.
In Spring 2014, the Arizona-based company Lipsmark LLC announced that it would start marketing powdered alcohol under the name "Palcohol", a portmanteau of powder + alcohol. This caused considerable controversy, after the product was approved by the TTB for sale. This approval was later attributed to a "labeling error", and the manufacturer surrendered the approvals.
In March, 2015, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) approved four powdered alcohol products with the brand name "Palcohol" for sale in the U.S. Under the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, state and territory governments also have substantial regulatory powers over "intoxicating liquors", especially regarding retail sales and sales to minors. Shortly after the TTB approval was announced, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded to inaccurate reports implying that it had approved powdered alcohol as being safe. The FDA clarified that its role was to evaluate the nonalcoholic ingredients and that based on its evaluation of specific powdered alcohol products it had no legal basis to block their entry into the U.S. market.
In 2014, Ohio state legislators introduced legislation that would ban Palcohol and all other powdered alcohol. The following year, Iowa state legislators followed suit.
Sales were legalized in Colorado in March 2015.
On 25 March 2015, alcohol wholesalers and distributors in the state of Maryland announced an agreement to voluntarily ban the distribution and sale of powdered alcohol. Concerns included the potential for misuse by minors, the ease of using the powder to bring alcohol into public events or to spike drinks, and the potential to snort the powder. At the same time, a bill to ban Palcohol for one year was under consideration in the Maryland House of Delegates.
In September 2015, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission banned the sale of Palcohol. "Powdered alcohol banned in New Hampshire", seacoastonline.com, 15 September 2015.
By November 2015, most states had introduced legislation and laws to regulate or ban powdered alcohol. Twenty-seven have banned powdered alcohol, 2 more have placed temporary 1-year bans on the product and 3 have included powdered alcohol under their statutory definitions of alcohol meaning that it is covered by existing alcohol regulations.
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