Tired of having to lug bottle after bottle home from the liquor store? Palcohol, i.e. not-at-all-shady alcohol in powdered form, has been approved by the federal government and may be available soon in a water bottle/bowl of cereal/cup of coffee near you. Ron Swanson would not approve.
Palcohol’s website is quick to address the first thing most people associate with a powder that puts you in an altered state:
We have seen comments about goofballs wanting to snort it. Don’t do it! It is not a responsible or smart way to use the product.
You hear that, goofballs? Palcohol is not cocaine. It’s just, you know, alcohol that’s also your pal, or as the website says, a Pal you can take “wherever you go!”
Making Palcohol (assuming you don’t skip the middleman and attempt the painful snorting method) just requires 5 ounces of water and a single Palcohol packet. However, that level of convenience is obviously a double edge sword: the product’s distributors have already been criticized for suggesting that Palcohol be substituted for buying drinks at expensive venues.
What’s worse than going to a concert, sporting event, etc. and having to pay $10, $15, $20 for a mixed drink with tax and tip. Are you kidding me?!Take Palcohol into the venue and enjoy a mixed drink for a fraction of the cost.
Palcohol withdrew that text from their website, but not before it was copied, pasted and scrutinized by Gawker. Palcohol explains,
There was a page visible on this site where we were experimenting with some humorous and edgy verbiage about Palcohol. It was not meant to be our final presentation of Palcohol.
It’s understandable why Gawker would focus on that “experimental verbiage”: powdered alcohol will make underage drinking unprecedentedly easy, and a message from the company that implies their product could be used in secret just exacerbates those concerns.
Palcohol, understandably, swears their discrete drinks are aimed at outdoorsy adults, not teens. The website says that Palcohol’s creator was inspired by his experiences “hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, etc. After hours of an activity, he sometimes wanted to relax and enjoy a refreshing adult beverage.”
If alcohol in powdered form isn’t gauche enough for you, Palcohol’s website also suggests sprinkling it on spaghetti, salad, and other things that shouldn’t get you drunk:
We’ve been experimenting with it like adding Powderita powder to guacamole, Cosmopolitan powder on a salad, V in a vodka sauce, etc.
It’s tempting to react to Palcohol’s bro-y name and careless early marketing with high-and-mightiness, but don’t forget: we as a culture have already basically accepted Jello Shots, alcoholic lemonade, and using other people’s navels as a glass. None of those weird vessels for alcohol are designed to appeal to adults.
If you’re still weeping for this generation of underaged basement drinkers, hey, at least it’s not 4Loko! When that’s in powdered form, we can panic.
(Huffington Post, image via Palcohol)
