According to Reuters, some Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol. According to the story, one simply adds water to make it up to 3%. The inventors reckon they’ll make a killing selling it to the underage market. They also claim that the product would avoid alcohol taxes. There are so many flaws in this I don’t know where to begin.
Now I don’t know about Dutch legislation, and conceivably the Dutch word for alcohol includes the notion that it is liquid. But I’ve just checked a few Irish statutes, and they all refer simply to “alcohol”. I don’t see how they would be invalidated just because the alcohol wasn’t in liquid form.
Which in any case is clearly nonsense. Pure alcohol, C2H5OH is a liquid, and can no more be powdered than water - and Steven Wright already made that joke. Alcohol minus water would be ethylene, which is a gas.
And why claim 3%? Even a glue-sniffing 12 year old could figure out that adding less water would make it stronger.
In any case, any of the companies that allegedly expressed interest could hardly fail to realise that national legislation would be updated to cover the product before it could hit the market.
Never mind, Reuters, here’s another exclusive: in the Netherlands, April Fool’s Day falls on the 6th of June.
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.