Just Add Water: Powdered Alcohol Approved by the U.S. Government You may be able to order pouches of powdered vodka, Cosmopolitans and 'Powderitas' as soon as this fall.
By Kate Taylor
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Is alcohol in its liquid form is too limiting? Be on the lookout for "Palcohol" – a powdered alcohol that could hit stores by fall.
The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau recently approved seven versions of Palcohol, created by wine entrepreneur Mark Phillips. The product comes in rum and vodka form, as well as in powdered mixed-drink flavors like "Powderita" and Cosmopolitan.
Once the products hit liquor store shelves, one pouch will be equal to one shot of alcohol. The company's website – which once included edgier references to sneaking Palcohol into venues where alcohol is famously expensive or snorting powdered alcohol – attempts to showcase Palcohol as a convenient take on familiar liquors.
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"Think of Palcohol as liquor....just in powder form," reads the site. "It will be sold anywhere where liquor can be sold and a buyer must be of legal drinking age to buy it."
While the patent is still pending for Palcohol, if and when the product is released it will be a game changer not just for college students trying to get drunk cheap, but also for retailers and lawmakers. Just as Four Loko, nicknamed "blackout in a can," raised concerns regarding caffeine in alcoholic beverages that resulted in the drinks ban in several states in 2010, Palcohol promises to open discussion on the issues and dangerous of powdered alcohol.
Amazingly, some state governments saw this coming – almost 40 years ago. In 1978, California passed a law stating that alcoholic tax laws will "apply with respect to powdered distilled spirits in the same manner and to the same extent as with respect to other distilled spirits."
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