Comments on: This Just Isn’t a Good Idea

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:05:56 +0000

That’s interesting, Nate. But how much of the starch do you need to powder how much alcohol? I can’t see how this would reduce the volume, and might dramatically increase it. Also, would it introduce spoilage problems which might even exceed any savings in evaporation losses?
And beyond texture, how about the taste? What kind of taste is introduced in this process?

But I now can conceive of two products that we could have fun with:
Envision a bowl of gruel with the tag line of “Absolut Tapioca”
And I can just see us reclaiming the Rave crowd from Ecstasy with a properly formulated Lik-Em-Stix product. Add the right flavorants, and you could have your lime-flavored stick and three pouches of rum, brandy, and scotch powders….

In other words, I still think it’s a bad idea….

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:49:47 +0000

As to the Why? I don’t have an answer, but that’s why we have thousands of creative bartenders all around the world to find a good use for any silly thing the rest of us can come up with. Maybe it would simply be useful to give astronauts a little tipple after a long day working on the space station.

But i DO believe that it can, and very likely has been done. Credible source or no, as ken suggested we’re already doing very similar things in the world of molecular gastronomy. Tapioca maltodextarin can be used to turn fats into powders, I’ve done it myself with bacon fat, and it’s not too far a leap to go from long hydrocarbon chains down to the very short one that makes up the backbone of alcohol. The ‘-OH’ group could even feasibly be used to an advantage in the binding site. However, it would very likely work only with pure alcohol, as there is no real way to powder water that I know of that’s stable at room temperature without being contained in a vacuum. The other problem is that, if like in fat transformation they use a complex starch, it’s still present in the powder product, and powdered fats tend to get a little, well, doughy, in your mouth when your saliva reconstitutes the mixture.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:54:51 +0000

Michael, I address your comment in an update to the post itself.
Ken, I just don’t see it. If the stuff was flavorless (I can’t see how), idiots wold be sprinkling it on their Corn Flakes at breakfast, or on their chips in the break room. We’d be back to the Gin Craze days of 1730′s London.
If it isn’t flavorless, then it would only be suitable for pills, or else you might as well use the original stuff.
I will grant that you could use it to make and market full-on cocktails that could be sold to any age, with legal-agers adding a packet to them, like a Goody’s Headache Powder. But that just is fraught with so much more fraughtedness….

By: Michael Dietsch

Michael Dietsch — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:28:45 +0000

Boudreau makes liqueur powders for rimming glasses. There’s a video on Small Screen Network showing him doing it with Chartreuse. He even makes a rimming joke.

By: Ken Moorhead

Ken Moorhead — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:16:24 +0000

I respectfully disagree, Doug!

While I think we can all agree to the importance of responsibility (and moderate pacing!) when imbibing, IF such a product can exist, it is yet another tool available to cocktailiers and mixologists.

I do hope this (hypothetical product) doesn’t come to market in a gelcap or similar form like you’ve described, but more as a tool for those interested in solid / nontraditional cocktail presentations. You could eat your wine and drink your pasta! Novel and contrived? Assuredly. Revolution for the hell of it? Probably. But fun, interesting and exciting nonetheless!

Gives the notion of “Beer-Battered Fish & Chips” a whole new meaning, methinks!

Ken