wrong section maybe... seperating alcohol from listerine

I find this thread mildly amusing, but trying to get drunk from listerine is kinda a flag of alcoholism. If you are only 14, you are only asking for trouble if you start drinking so young. If you have anxiety or insomnia see a doc about it. If you are just looking for fun (and its obvious that it isn't the technical challenge that is motivating your experiment) then do something else like try to score, get really good at a sport or video game, whatever. I'm not saying drugs are bad but you only have one chance to grow up, to properly develop mentally and physically, and drugs--especially excessive alcohol will cause big problems. Some adults can use (recreational) drugs intelligently and in a way that improves their lives, but many more lose control and really fuck things up. A far smaller percentage of minors/kids are able to use, not abuse drugs, and not get busted. I think expermentation is wonderful, but be smart about it, and as corny as it sounds go for the natural highs in life that require no xenobiotics.

 

By the way, the reason the whole thing froze is because it is an AQUEOUS suspension of alcohol with the other ingredients. There is so much water and easily frozen ingredients suspended that the alcohol will freeze within the suspension. This is why if you put a beer in the freezer for long enough it will freeze.

 

Then the question is does any alcohol and water solution differentially freeze? Vodka, Everclear?

 

Well, I'm sure if you exposed it to liquid N2 even everclear would freeze. Fuck. Anything under n2 would probably freeze.

 

when you traditonaly make applejack it is called jacking, where you freeze the solution to remove the water, people have been doing it for ages, ive done it a few times, you are left in the end with the alcohol and a buncha nasty shit that didnt freeze up with the water. bad hangovers.

when you toss it in the freezer it wont just freeze and seperate, you have the get the ice out of there, so you have to check it frequently and whenever the is a layer of ice on the surface smash it and skim it out

 

my friend swim has done this. She said that what she was more alcoholic, but tasted mintier and was harder to swallow than the listerine. Turns out three of the active ingredients of listerine are thymol, eucalyptol, and methyl salicylate, which are essential oils...in brewing terms called congeners. These are very volatile, and in a distillation vaporize and condense along with the alcohol.

Congeneres give flavor to all alcholic drinks...however they are (in general) also weakly toxic. From my research, the congeners in the distilled listerine liquor would be at ridiculous levels in comparison to wine or whisky. However, since congeners are supposed to be half the hangover, you'd probably get a killer hangover in the morning, if not a headache and hangover-ish feeling while drinking the actual liquor. Probably not deadly, keep in mind one would not be extracting many of the toxic substances from the listerine, and one would effectively be drinking concentrated listerine minus coloring, polyaxamor 407, and benzoic acid.

I know she has also distilled alcohol from cooking wine, which is 12-15% alcohol but too salty to drink. That turned out with clear, and effectively congener-free alcohol.

 

Fuckin dope fiends man...

 

I have a friend who does a lot of brewing and uses this method to get higher proofs of alcohol. I believe it would work...

I've got a sep funnel and something that could at least be set up to be a still. I wanna do some horribly pointless chemistry!

The freezing idea does work to concentrate other alcohols, though.