For the Vodka drinkers: Filter your cheap stuff with Brita filter....

[Krome20]

Oh I have to try this...I've got some smirnoff I can experiment with. I just need to get a new filter. If anyone tried it let us know. I'll post some results when they happen.

 

[dc]

a guy i know off irc tried it, says it works.

 

[Praxis]

Also, there is a difference in quality between brands of alcohol- be it beer or liquor, and if you believe it is all marketing hype, you are mistaken in my book.

I would certainly never make that claim about alcoholic products in general, only vodka in specific. There are tremendous differences between good beer and what Americans drink, for instance. Taste, gravity, aroma, color, alcohol levels, you name it.

However if you goal is to minimize hangovers, vodka of any stripe is the right choice. Although the basic cause of hangovers is the dehydration and electrolyte imbalance caused by ethanol's diueretic properties (as well as sleep disturbences, alcohol metabolites, etc.) , the presence of congeners (tannins, flavors, colors, etc.) also exacerbate the syndrome, and white alcohols have far fewer congeners than the fun stuff, like whiskies and brandies.

One study showed that for the same amount of alcohol ingested, 33% of bourbon drinkers suffered hangovers, compared to only 3% of those who drank vodka. Brandy, red wine, tequila and rum are more likely to cause hangover than white wine, vodka and gin.

Vodka, in fact, has no congeners, even cheap vodka.

{RANT-Mode On} Hangovers cost the U.S. economy about $150 billion a year, more than the 2005 spending for the Departments of Education, Health & Human Services, Housing & Urban Development put together. The capitalists who control that so-called "democracy" understand the economic impact of recreational drug use has on their bottom line perfectly well, & even though their experiments with alcohol prohibition failed in the last century, they continue to use the state to wage a War on Personal Choice (er, Drugs) with hammer & tongs, leading to the highest rate of incarceration of any society in human history (including Stalin's gulags and Hitler's KZs). This, despite all the twaddle about how the governing parties are opposed to the intervention of the "nanny state" in private peoples' personal business (what they really mean is they don't want the government to regulate industrial polluters or interfere with the right of corporations to sell you crud that doesn't work with deceptive claims). {/RANT}

Paraxis, you obviously don't drink enough vodka.

I agree, but I'm married these days, so what are you gonna do? When I was a young pup I just drank to get intoxicated, so I did swill my share of vodka, becasue it was cheap and could easily be doctored with OJ to make it easeir to choke down. But after years of drink-drank-drunk a weird thing happened; I developed a taste for alcoholic beverages and lost my interest in ingesting massive quantities of ethyl alcohol. I really like the flavor of certain types of liquor, wine & beer, but am already sufficiently thick-witted without the C2-H5-O-H. So, now I often buy alcohol-free beer (Kaliber made by Guiness stands out) because I like swilling (a pile of) beer with pizza, but don't want to get intoxicated. Alcohol free vodka would be distilled water. Hmmmm.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: freshspace
Geeeezzz, just thinking about how great this will taste makes my mouth water. Uh, but wait a minute. I have a question for all you alcohol aficionados. Through this filtering process, are you just hiding the bad quality by removing "odor" or are you really making it better? In other words, are you pretending that it is better because it no longer has that smell/taste? If there is a general consensus that the filtering really does improve the "quality," then I'm gonna be drunk for the rest of the year.

Removal of certain components present in cheap unhighly filtered liquors helps both the flavor and purportedly produces less hang-over effects. Skyy vodka, for example has employed a multiple distillation process to remove some of these 'problem' compounds to produce what they claim is a product that won't ruin your morning so badly.

read up on it here

 

[Soybomb]

I'm with Praxis on this pretty much, vodka already has the crap filtered out of it during distillation, I don't think a brita is anything more than placebo effect. I won't say all vodkas will have the same effect on you though, I'd say what happens during fermentation can play a role in that even after distillation. If you've ever had a beer full of fusel alcohols you' may be familiar with how a poorly controlled ferment can ruin something.

 

[mikeford]

Don't bother getting new filters, I have a feeling this may clean out old ones.

 

[Praxis]

Soybomb, try and do your brewing in the cooler months or in the basement (or even a fridge, if necessary), and/or use ale yeast. You'll produce a lot less long-chain fusel alcohols.

I've made my share back in college. They taste rather 'hot'; actually, we dealt with 15 gallons of rather wretched tasting beer by using a still that was brought back from Saudi Arabia by a friend's father when he was living there (they don't allow booze, so the Westerns would stock up on large quantities of sugar and make hootch). This was a little pot type still, not a column still, like they use for vodka which really does remove everything but the ethanol. The stuff we produced probably came out the spout at about 135 proof (vs. 190 proof) and even had a little hint of color. But it didn't taste fusely, to coin an adjective. Actually, it tasted a lot like cheap grappa, if you've ever had that. Three members of my co-op did go blind, however (just kidding).

 

[yukichigai]

Okay, you asked for it, now you have it. The Brita-Tequila Experiement.

If it says the page can't be found, don't believe it. It's there. Netscape isn't the best host, but it's free. Just hit reload a few times and it'll come up.

The only thing I didn't note on the page was that the Tequila is notably lighter in color after the whole process. Still has flavor though. Oh yes.

 

[chuck2002]

Good job yukichigai, thanks for posting your results. Looks like the brita has potential no matter what you drink....

 

[Vellmont]

Originally posted by: Praxis
I would certainly never make that claim about alcoholic products in general, only vodka in specific. There are tremendous differences between good beer and what Americans drink, for instance. Taste, gravity, aroma, color, alcohol levels, you name it.

Wow, you couldn't be more wrong. I like Vodka, and you obviously have never tasted more than one type or have no taste sense. There's an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. There's even a big difference between different expensive vodkas. I don't know if you're just trolling here, but the difference aren't subtle at all. Vodka is produced by distilliation, not filtration through activated carbon. Distillation doesn't remove the impurities, it only increases the alcohol content.

Vodka, in fact, has no congeners, even cheap vodka.

I have a hard time believing that. I went to a bar a few weeks ago and drank a total of two vodka martinis. Hardly enough to produce a hangover. The next day I felt worse than I've felt in years of drinking (and I had several glasses of water before bed). I have to believe they used very cheap vodka in my drink.

 

[Tarobap]

I'm an emergency room physician, and use charcoal on a regular bases when dealing with overdoses. It has NO EFFECT on alcohol. So I can dismiss that myth right now.

I'm gonna try this as well since I am still a resident and get paid $hit for working 80+ hours a week!

TB

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Vellmont

Originally posted by: Praxis
I would certainly never make that claim about alcoholic products in general, only vodka in specific. There are tremendous differences between good beer and what Americans drink, for instance. Taste, gravity, aroma, color, alcohol levels, you name it.

Wow, you couldn't be more wrong. I like Vodka, and you obviously have never tasted more than one type or have no taste sense. There's an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. There's even a big difference between different expensive vodkas. I don't know if you're just trolling here, but the difference aren't subtle at all. Vodka is produced by distilliation, not filtration through activated carbon. Distillation doesn't remove the impurities, it only increases the alcohol content.

Vodka, in fact, has no congeners, even cheap vodka.

I have a hard time believing that. I went to a bar a few weeks ago and drank a total of two vodka martinis. Hardly enough to produce a hangover. The next day I felt worse than I've felt in years of drinking (and I had several glasses of water before bed). I have to believe they used very cheap vodka in my drink.

yea, there are vast differences in vodka tastes. Right off the bat I'm imagining the difference in taste between like Smirnoff and Absolut. Very pronounced difference there. Also, vodka indeed has congeners. If you read the Skyy site I posted above, you'd have seen

 

[chuck2002]

Originally posted by: Tarobap
I'm an emergency room physician, and use charcoal on a regular bases when dealing with overdoses. It has NO EFFECT on alcohol. So I can dismiss that myth right now.

I am with you on that and agree, but am curious as to what the charcoal absorbs to benefit the person that drank too much. Is there another substance that you are shooting for when you give someone charcoal, or is that just the order of events to getting them to vomit and get out anything that hasn't yet been processed by the body?
Maybe will have some clues from this as to what the brita may be filtering to make the liquor not as bad.....
Thx.

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: gururu
Wow, you couldn't be more wrong. I like Vodka, and you obviously have never tasted more than one type or have no taste sense. There's an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. There's even a big difference between different expensive vodkas. I don't know if you're just trolling here, but the difference aren't subtle at all. Vodka is produced by distilliation, not filtration through activated carbon. Distillation doesn't remove the impurities, it only increases the alcohol content.

Actually you can get some impurities out by being selective about what you take from the stills. I believe its the first bit thats usually discarded. And then once again, filtering isn't some genius idea that no one has thought of, all the vodka manufacturers I know of use it after distillation to clean up the taste as much as possible. Is it possible a brita on your counter is better than their filtering equipment? I guess but I wouldn't put any money on it.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Soybomb

Originally posted by: gururu
Wow, you couldn't be more wrong. I like Vodka, and you obviously have never tasted more than one type or have no taste sense. There's an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. There's even a big difference between different expensive vodkas. I don't know if you're just trolling here, but the difference aren't subtle at all. Vodka is produced by distilliation, not filtration through activated carbon. Distillation doesn't remove the impurities, it only increases the alcohol content.

Actually you can get some impurities out by being selective about what you take from the stills. I believe its the first bit thats usually discarded. And then once again, filtering isn't some genius idea that no one has thought of, all the vodka manufacturers I know of use it after distillation to clean up the taste as much as possible. Is it possible a brita on your counter is better than their filtering equipment? I guess but I wouldn't put any money on it.

That's not my quote!!!!!

 

[AlexPton]

I guess very few people understand what "placebo" means?

It's one thing to say that there is an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. It's quite another to do a double blind experiment and prove that there is an enormous and obvious difference.

I tried this experiment with the brita filter on myself after reading the /. article. I thought I tasted a difference. I then took the unfiltered amount and the filtered amount and gave them to my roomate to try. even in this single blind experiment (with an obvious bias in that the subject knew that there should be a difference), my roomate was unable to pick out the filtered cup of vodka.

PLACEBO.

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: AlexPton
It's one thing to say that there is an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. It's quite another to do a double blind experiment and prove that there is an enormous and obvious difference.

If you happen to have the $30 lying around I need to purchase the Cabo Wabo required for such a double-blind test, then by all means, send it.

 

[chuck2002]

When you hack and cough to death on the original and savor the filtered, then you don't much need a placebo.
Maybe the original in your test wasn't rot-gut enough. Mine was absolutely unmistakable.

 

[Showtime]

I'm going to pick up a brita filter thingy and try it out. I wonder how many bars are going to be trying to fool people using this method to refill their Grey Goose, etc.?

-show

 

[Praxis]

Actually you can get some impurities out by being selective about what you take from the stills. I believe its the first bit thats usually discarded.

The feints (the beginning and ends of a distillation run) are only produced with pot stills and patent stills, and they are not discarded, they are rectified. They are returned to the still with more "low wines" (the product of the fermented mash) and distilled again and again and again and.... alway culling the middle of the run.

However vodka is overwhelmingly made with a column still (or a series of column stills). The stuff comes out of the condenser coils at 190 proof, not ~140 proof for the pot and patent stills. At that proof basically all you are getting is ethyl alcohol and water. It is (besides the ethanol) oderless and colorless (i.e. no congeners). It would take a gas chromatograph to detect the levels of "impurities." In other countries there actually are some companies that make vodka in a pot still, and those, I'm willing to concede have distinctiveness. However in the Vereinigten Staaten:

Vodkas are defined by U.S. government regulation as "neutral spirits, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color." Because American Vodka is, by law, neutral in taste, there are only very subtle distinctions between brands. Many drinkers feel that the only real way of differentiating between them is by alcohol content and price.

Testify.

yea, there are vast differences in vodka tastes. Right off the bat I'm imagining the difference in taste between like Smirnoff and Absolut. Very pronounced difference there. Also, vodka indeed has congeners. If you read the Skyy site I posted above, you'd have seen

SKYY Vodka starts with the finest American grains, carefully selected from the pristine fields of the Midwest.

I'm getting steamed & bothered just reading the advertising copy about those pristine fields. That and the three pictures of the alluring girls with the rack-mounted hardware (which is sending the real message; drink me and you'll be more popular than Spuds McKenzie). (BTW, many vodka snobs claim that using grain is a cheapo shortcut and only potatoes or rye produce REAL vodka. But Skyy needs to keep its production costs low so it can afford that fancy Flash presentations with all the hot tamales- very convincing. I would have watched more of it the the drum machine made my speakers hum.)

It is not vodka that has the congeners; its the wash from which they make it that does. As the copy said, when you run low wines through a column still it removes the congeners (i.e. those nasty solids with actual flavor). Running it through a column still more than once is just pounding the rubble, but at least it gives the marketing folks a selling point.

you obviously have never tasted more than one type or have no taste sense. There's an enormous and obvious difference between cheap vodka and not cheap vodka. There's even a big difference between different expensive vodkas.

Thanks for the gratuitous insult. Tell you what, take a double blind taste taste with a few grades of straight chilled vodka (like I've done with infidels on multiple occasions) and report back to us. Until then I'll just keep believing that your perceptions of differences in taste, hangovers, etc. are just fig newtons of your imaginations mediated by the advertising industry.

Today Vodka is the dominant white spirit in the United States, helped along by its versatility as a mixer and some very clever advertising campaigns from the various producers.

The alcohol industry spends more than $4.5 billion yearly on advertising and marketing. Its not like ANY of these ads are fact-driven. It is folks like you that they are targeting. I personally want to thank you for your suggestability; it basically funds the corporate media, which as we all know, is such a boon to mankind, making Americans the best-informed, most rational group of worker/consumerbots known to history.

The only real filter that is going to make vodka taste any better is you kidney.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Praxis

The only real filter that is going to make vodka taste any better is you kidney.

actually, then it would taste like piss, much like some poor brands of vodkas. If you run urine over a brita, you can also bet that it would taste a heck of a lot better too.

Praxis, you have a lot of good facts and details, but you seem insistent on ignoring the reality that vodkas indeed taste different. Maybe I have some super taste buds (or you lack some)!!

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: gururu

Originally posted by: Praxis

The only real filter that is going to make vodka taste any better is you kidney.

actually, then it would taste like piss, much like some poor brands of vodkas. If you run urine over a brita, you can also bet that it would taste a heck of a lot better too.

Praxis, you have a lot of good facts and details, but you seem insistent on ignoring the reality that vodkas indeed taste different. Maybe I have some super taste buds (or you lack some)!!

Vodka's do taste different. I have 9 different kinds on my shelf, and they all taste different...

 

[jimmythesuperstar]

i have a job, so i can afford good smooth tasting vodka.

 

[imported_sjaxkingpin]

Ahh, sure you can make cheap crap better, but my question is this. What happens if you Britacise a bottle of the Goose? Could it get any better.. I think not

 

[Praxis]

If you run urine over a brita, you can also bet that it would taste a heck of a lot better too.

Quite possibly. From the /. thread, was this exchange of emails with the PUR company and a concerned consumer:

> From: Willett, J.R.
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 3:16 PM
> Subject: PUR
>
> Hi
>
> I received a PUR Water Filtration Pitcher (Plus LX, Platinum Edition) as a
> Christmas present, and I have a question about what things it can't
> filter.
>
> I have been very satisfied with its performance in removing chlorine from
> tapwater, however I am wondering what the limits are in its filtering
> capabilities. Could it, for instance, remove ammonia from an ammonia-water
> solution? In other words, could I use it in the desert to recycle urine
> into
> drinking water? The box says a lot about what it can filter, but not much
> about what it can't filter. It only says that the water must be sterile,
> and
> everyone knows that urine is completely sterile on leaving the body. Upon
> leaving the urinary tract, it provides an ideal environment for growing
> bacteria, but it is completely sterile inside you. The reason we don't
> habitually drink our own urine is because the water in our urine carries
> bodily poisons with it, including ammonia. If, however, your pitcher can
> remove these poisons, I can see how my PUR Water Filtration Pitcher could
> come in handy when water is scarce.
>
> Although my roommate has offered to sample my filtered urine, I thought I
> would ask you people first, before I pee in my PUR pitcher.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -J.R. Willett
-----Original Message-----
From: Beckenbach.Mark [mailto:Beckenbach.Mark@purwater.com]
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 9:38 AM
To: 'Willett, J.R.'
Subject: RE: PUR

Hello J.R.,
Gee-Whiz, I must admit that I read your e-mail with some skepticism. Upon
further reflection I came to the conclusion that you could indeed run human
urine through our filters. If you do this it could very well hasten your
way to death, but you can filter urine. We don't normally test urine or the
body's by-products associated with it. Drinking urine is a bit out of the
main stream, if you'll pardon the pun. The filter may have some effect on
the potency of the ammonia. If you're in an emergency situation with out
water, drinking urine will only make your day worse. The ammonia in urine
isn't what's going to ruin an already pisser of a day, its the salts. By
constantly reintroducing those salts into your system, you are increasing
the amount of salt in your system, and decreasing the amount of usable
fluids. This salt will draw water from other tissues in your body, as will
your kidneys. Your kidneys need the extra water to flush the salts out.
It's a viscous circle. As your kidneys are shutting down, the poisons in
your body will increase; thereby playing havoc with your heart. The lack of
electrolytes in your in your brain can cause the synapses to misfire
eventually causing you to get delirious and run screaming into the desert
waving your hands over your head chasing Elvis.
All levity aside, I am not a physician. However I do understand our
products and have a thorough understanding of human physiology. My
recommendation is not to do it. Carry a bladder of water in your trunk.
Being prepared is the best way to keep from having to drink pee.
Mahalo,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Willett, J.R.
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 10:17 AM
Subject: RE: PUR

Mark,

Thankyou for your timely reply in this matter. Not only have you saved us from what could have been a disasterous science experiment, but you have provided a tremendous amount of amusement to several college students with perhaps too much time on their hands to wonder about such things.

I assume that if the filter cannot remove the salt from urine, then neither could it be used to filter ocean water to obtain something drinkable, another thing we were wondering about. Your skills in customer service extend even to answering the questions I did not ask.

Have a pleasant day, and let me know if your R&D boys ever come up with a filter that can desalinate sea water and/or recycle human waste. I'll be the first to buy, if only for the bragging rights.

-J.R.