TEK - Detoxifying mouthwash via distillation

[bcubed]

SWIM currently has a bit of time on his hands, and happened to be in a grocery store where he happened to read the active ingredients in motuhwash:

Ethanol: 23.6%
Water: 76.2%
Eucalyptol: 0.092%
Menthol: 0.042%
Methylsalylate: 0.06%
Thymol: 0.064%

The interesting thing is (most likely not having to pay U.S. taxes on consumable alcohol) the cost per effective unit of ethanol is exactly 1/3 as much as rotgut vodka. [pretty sure RELATIVE prices are OK]

Now, this raises two questions:
1. Is it safe to drink as is?
2. Could simple distillation remove the impurities?

As for 1., Wiki indicates two of the ingredients as toxic, most significantly Methyl Salycate. It indicates fatalities in children at 4ml. Now, in a 1.5L bottle, 1500X0.0006=0.9ml, so drinking the 1.5L bottle (a LOT of booze) shold not be overly dangerous to an adult.

As for 2, the boiling points of the adulterants are as follows:
eucalyptol: 176C
menthol: 212C
methyl salicylate: 222C
thymol: 232C

AS water boils at 100C, and ethanol at 78C, it would seem very easy to extract the ethanol from the solution with any decent distillary apparatus.

Now the problem, swimmers, is that--as tax has not been paid on the mouthwash--distilling (or even drinking it) is highly illegal. As much as John Law hates illegal drugs, he REALLY hates not getting his cut of the legal ones.

Also, the labor involved really requires distilling at least 10gal at a time. I suspect SWIM might run into resistance at buying 30 bottles of moutwash at once. Could SWIM order direct from the supplier?

Any imput (especially from those that have tried this) is appreciated.

[Swimster]

As for consumption, just as you said-Methyl salicylate-is a no no[toxic!].
But the distillation method sounds plausable. It would be fairly safe, seeing
as how the boiling points of adulterants are way higher than that of Ethanol. Pretty
simple one if you ask swim.

[Pondlife]

It's possible to concentrate the Ethanol quite easily, but I doubt that it's easy to get rid of the taste and smell of those adulterants as they will be carried over in the vapour.

Steam distillation is often used to extract essential oils, which often have boiling points similar to the adulterants you mention, and are also similarly volatile. I expect that any distallation procedure would carry the adulterants over in a similar way.

I'm sure that a distillation process would reduce the concentration of the adulterants, but I'm not sure if it would reduce it to a non-hazerdous level let alone a drinkable level.

[geezaman]

SWIMs logic is arguing with him as he posts this, mainly because it sounds dumb, and is to a degree, but please read whole post to see where SWIM coming from... Recently in the UK an individual making alcopops in south england was jailed, because he was making them by basically mixing ethanol with fruit juice and flavourings. so can ethanol be formed by chemistry , for say industrial purposes, rather than produced, like vodka is by fermentation and distillation?, if so could the same reasons that the individual was locked away, for making a consumable alcohol drink from ethanol pertain to this? after all they are not adding vodka to mouthwash but ethanol? SWIM does know that vodka is ethanol and methanol, hopefully significantly less of the latter.
to put it as a basic question , are we sure that the ethanol in this product is safe to consume.
as a side note anyone thinking of knocking back a few bottles of mouthwash as well as poisoning, will get very bad diarrhea most likely
stupid question over (but hopefully SWIYs can see how SWIM got 5 or 4 (whether its right or not) from his 2+2)

[bcubed]

Originally Posted by geezaman

SWIMs logic is arguing with him as he posts this, mainly because it sounds dumb, and is to a degree, but please read whole post to see where SWIM coming from... Recently in the UK an individual making alcopops in south england was jailed, because he was making them by basically mixing ethanol with fruit juice and flavourings. so can ethanol be formed by chemistry , for say industrial purposes, rather than produced, like vodka is by fermentation and distillation?, if so could the same reasons that the individual was locked away, for making a consumable alcohol drink from ethanol pertain to this? after all they are not adding vodka to mouthwash but ethanol? SWIM does know that vodka is ethanol and methanol, hopefully significantly less of the latter.
to put it as a basic question , are we sure that the ethanol in this product is safe to consume.
as a side note anyone thinking of knocking back a few bottles of mouthwash as well as poisoning, will get very bad diarrhea most likely
stupid question over (but hopefully SWIYs can see how SWIM got 5 or 4 (whether its right or not) from his 2+2)

Well, SWIM can't comment on the intracies of UK law, but what he suspects was going on there was the guy who got popped wasn't paying the appropriate alcohol tax. The punishment for dodging such taxes is ofen at least as severe as selling illegal drugs.

Now, in the U.S., brewing beer and wine for personal use has been legalized, but distillation of alcohol FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION is still illegal, or, rather, requires so much paperwork and fees that only a commercial producer could afford to jump through all the hoops. One can legally make alcohol as a fuel, by paying several hundred dollars to various gov't agencies and esentially saying: "Attention feds! I have a still! Feel free to come on my property anytime!"

But, thanks to Prohibition, the U.S. has had thriving illegal distillation operations (basically because bootlegging whiskey presents fewer logistical problems than bootlegging a bulkier product such as beer).

ALL ethanol is...well...yeast excrement, and getting much higher than 20% alcohol requires distilling.

And as for the safety questions:
1. Methanol is present in exceedingly small amounts in grain or sugar based spirits. Fruit juices (and alcoholic products therof) have much more. As no methanol is listed in mouthwash, it's doubtful the manufacturers would risk the fines associated with adulterated products and throw it in there. So we're safe from that standpoint.
2. As mentioned, consuming 1.5L of this product would expose one to 20% of a LD for children of the most toxic contaminant. So while it might give one a headache, it shouldn't do permenent damage. Additionally, mouthwash manufacturers surely know some desperate souls drink their product, and wouldn't want the suits involved if drinking it proved fatal.

So, my query wasn't whether distillation could make a fatal product safe, but could one synthesize vodka from it at a substantial savings over store-bought vodka.