Well....

Well, alcohol is a liquid itself and not a hydrous solution, so you can't dehydrate it like you could many drinks (most of which are hydrous solutions).

I'm guessing they must have found a fortuitous chemical reaction, whereby some powdered chemical actually reacts with water to create a gas (the fizz), and ethanol. Acetylene, if it could be powdered, could combine with water to be ethanol and hydrogen gas. The gas is more likely CO2, which means the compound being combined would have to look more like C3H4O2, which would combine with water to produce ethanol and CO2.

Of course C6H8O6 is two of those (C3H4O2) plus two oxygens, meaning it would combine with two waters to make two ethanols, a CO2, and an O2. Also, whatever part of it that remained uncombined could contribute to the lime flavor, since c6h8o6 is the formula for ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.

Of course none of the things I mentioned are complicated enough to be the actual reaction involved (if it were that simple, it would have already been invented), and furthermore, the electronegativities involved would prevent a vitamin C-water reaction from producing ethanol, or otherwise you would get drunk off of OJ. But some reaction of this type that actually does occur is what they found.

Posted By: Steve in Holland on June 11th 2007 at 14:38:24

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