Sorry, this is incorrect. Apparently they only approved the labeling, and even that was a mistake.

Feds Say Powdered Liquor Not Actually Legal

Woh woh woh

I'd never heard of the stuff, but I found this searching for info on it. Maybe it won't be sold soon after all.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/21/newser-powdered-alcohol/7960361/

The real question is: how does it taste? I'm sure people who want it so they can smuggle some hooch into somewhere where alcohol would be available or is outright prohibited wouldn't care much about the taste so long as it gets them drunk, but if it tastes like ass I don't see that demographic being large enough to sustain such a product. Especially since I'd assume that stuff will be relatively expensive. One packet equals one drink, if a packet costs more than $5 it won't be worth it beyond buying it once as a novelty.

Ideally for someone who wants to smuggle that stuff in somewhere they're not supposed to have it, it would be available unflavored and purchasable in bulk by the pound or something.

Yeah, because taste totally keeps people from drinking ;)

Taste isn't a factor when the options are limited. People in prison will suffer through pruno because that's the only way for them to get drunk. Teenagers will suffer through that diluted grocery store garbage if that's the only thing someone brings to a party. Hipsters will suffer through whatever is ironically hip and trendy. Everyone else has agency when picking their poison. Even poor bastards have a variety of cheap swill to choose from.

Jägermeister tastes like ass, and still has a sizable user base.

I'm pretty sure Jägermeister is German for "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Some people actually enjoy the strong aniseed flavor, the freaks.

I was in Sri Lanka a couple of weeks ago, and watched a bunch of buffed up British (I think English) guys drinking that shit by the half-pint glass. After a couple of rounds of this two of them staggered over to our restaurant and started trying to chat up two girls at a nearby table. Their buddies shouted encouragement to them until the girls informed them that a friend was coming soon. "Oi! They say their friend is coming, and 'e 'as a cock!"

They stumbled back to their buddies who were now on about their fourth round. One of them puked right there (fortunately on the sand), then picked up his glass and kept going. They all ended up hugging and chest-butting before staggering off to somewhere else. And in the morning I would bet that they went out shopping for leather pants.

A scene repeated in a thousand English high streets every week. And one of the reasons I'm glad we don't have many guns here.

repeated so much that deaths from liver disease in England have risen 40% between 2001-2012.

if it tastes like ass I don't see that demographic being large enough to sustain such a product.

I can see this being very popular among college football fans. Most college stadiums (something like 90% of them, I believe) don't sell alcohol, so the traditional solution is to binge drink in the parking lot for hours on end beforehand. Since most of them are Bud Light drinkers, they obviously don't care about the taste of their alcohol, and even those who do are just going to drink the good stuff first and then use this stuff to keep the buzz going once the game starts.

Bud Light doesn't taste bad, it's just bland.

If this stuff ends up tasting like industrial solvent, it might turn all but the most serious alcoholics away.

Vodka tastes exactly like industrial solvents, and it's the most popular liquor in the United States.

Which industrial solvents have you tasted?

I did once taste some laboratory alcohol without the additives that they put in now. There was no pleasure in it and it made my throat feel scarred for about an hour.

Alcohol is a carcinogen, especially in high concentrations for repeated exposure over years. With tobacco vapor or juice added, it's a dynamite carcinogen which can cause a slow, agonizing death in 10 - 30 years.

On the other hand, you could get run over by a bus while jogging to the health food store.

In the year or two before I quit smoking there were times I might've preferred that to all the hacking/choking/puking I was doing in the morning.

is this what you are talking about:

http://www.wikihow.com/Minimize-Cancer-Causing-Acetaldehyde-Exposure-from-Alcoholic-
Beverages

Well, that's depressing.

I think they are also making Koolaid type flavors for it. The entire product is marketed to teens and college students.

I can already imagine the cinnamon challenge-esque videos that would come from this.

Now I just need some dehydrated water to go with it.

Yup. Obviously you can't make ethyl alcohol into a powder so this stuff is micro-encapsulated as per wiki:

"Alcohol powder is molecularly encapsulated alcohol. The powder produces an alcoholic beverage when mixed with water."

It's just alcohol. Why not approve it as such? What's the big deal? If, of course, it doesn't mold and decay.

Obviously.

Good news! The dehydrated water is baked in. You just have to add some normal water to the powdered alcohol to get it out.

Booze Card Game

I remember in the not to distant past, might have been a few years ago, when this stuff was writen up in the popular press, at the time that they were testing it. (FDA?) Might even have been a post in the old SE

This sounds amazing. I already have powered drink mixes.

We've secretly replaced Sarahbear's name brand powdered drink mix with Palcohol® Powdered Alcohol. Let's see if she notices.