Federal Government OKs Powdered Alcohol

There’s a new product floating around that is threatening to be a big game-changer for the alcohol industry. It’s called “Palcohol” and it’s powdered alcohol. Since the idea of powdered alcohol began being floated around, regulators have been worried about its potential for abuse–despite that Palcohol just received federal approval this week.

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Palcohol is a patented product, so exactly how it works is proprietary to the company that owns it, Lipsmark, but essentially powdered alcohol is a lot like powdered milk. You have to add water to make it liquid again. In Palcohol’s case, a one ounce package needs to be mixed with six ounces of water. That one ounce ends up equivalent to a shot. Palcohol will be sold in five “flavors”–vodka, rum, cosmopolitan, powderita (a riff on margarita), and lemon drop. Now that the product has been approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, we should expect to see “Palcohol” on our shelves sometime within the next few months.

Advocates for Palcohol cite its convenience, and how easy it will be to transport. Palcohol’s site uses its founder, Mark Phillips, as an example:

Mark is an active guy…hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, etc. After hours of an activity, he sometimes wanted to relax and enjoy a refreshing adult beverage. But those activities, and many others, don’t lend themselves to lugging heavy bottles of wine, beer or spirits. The only liquid he wanted to carry was water.

Palcohol also might have pretty cool future uses besides just a convenient, light way to throw one back. For example, it could be used as an antiseptic, particularly because of how lightweight the pouches will be.

However, there are many who are worried about Palcohol. First of all, because of Palcohol’s smaller size and weight, it would probably be easier for underage drinkers to sneak somewhere–whether that be into an event or just concealed within their own home. In that vein, not only could it be easier for underage drinkers to utilize, it could be rendered particularly potent. Technically Palcohol could be mixed with any sort of liquid to create a drink. So, if you really wanted, you could mix it with another type of alcohol to make a very strong drink. There’s also a concern that it could be used in food, whether to get drunk yourself or to spike someone else.

This is probably a pretty legitimate concern as, to be fair, teens aren’t always exemplary when it comes to making smart decisions with regard to alcohol consumption. Remember Four Loko? The caffeinated adult beverage was thought to be responsible for quite a few college and high school binge drinking injuries.

One of the more high-profile figures to come forward with concerns about Palcohol was Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who included in a statement:

I am in total disbelief that our federal government has approved such an obviously dangerous product, and so, Congress must take matters into its own hands and make powdered alcohol illegal. Underage alcohol abuse is a growing epidemic with tragic consequences and powdered alcohol could exacerbate this. We simply can’t sit back and wait for powdered alcohol to hit store shelves across the country, potentially causing more alcohol-related hospitalizations and God forbid, deaths. This legislation will make illegal the production and sale of this Kool-Aid for underage drinking.

While many new products have the potential to be abused, drinking fads also tend to die out pretty quickly. Yet all of these concerns aside, the federal government did give Palcohol the go-ahead, so we’ll probably see it on shelves eventually. Changes for the alcohol industry are ahead, that’s for certain.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.