Innocent Abroad

I like to drink. There’s nothing wrong with that inherently— well, health factors aside there’s nothing wrong with that except for one nagging complication: I’m poor.

In my refusal to sacrifice drinking in favor of paying rent, I’ve had to be very creative when it comes to finding cheap booze. Having rich friends is helpful. Dating an enabler is awesome, but most of the time you’re on your own searching for an affordable drunk. Cheap domestic beer works, but no matter how much Coors Light I choke down, I can’t seem to enjoy it. A box of wine (or, a cask as it’s known down here) is always a solid bet. But my favorite standby has always been handles of generic, store-brand liquor. They mix well (enough) and can be taken as shots (if you don’t mind watery eyes and twisted, black bowel movements the next day). But the miracle that is the internet, and the smaller miracle that is my brother, turned me on to a revelation in my recent efforts to escalate my drinking without denting an already thin wallet.

The theory goes thusly: One major difference between cheap and expensive vodka is charcoal filtering. Those cheap and widely available Brita filters contain charcoal. Connect the blurry dots and the outcome is clear: dirt cheap vodka without the dirt taste.

In just a few hours you can turn acetate into tap water. All you need is:

The dirtiest, cheapest bottle of vodka you can find. My poison cost $10 for 1.75 liters, or roughly thirty cents a shot.

A standard Brita filter

And an accomplice

I know it sounds like some David Copperfield shit, but it works. It works well. To help explain this miracle I called Scientist Brother. He talked for several minutes about excess hydrocarbons and their molecular attraction to the elements that make up charcoal, then realized I was probably masturbating out of boredom (good call, dude). So he simplified it: charcoal is Alf, and evil errant hydrocarbons are cats. Let the man from Melmak munch and he’ll eat the bad taste right away. As an added benefit, it severely reduces the hangover you would have otherwise received, which is extremely helpful to any functioning alcoholic.

So we got to work about 10:00. In an attempt to be scientific, we took two control shots, and then samples after each filtration. I intended to take notes, but by noon I was on shot number six and instead found myself trying to imagine the genitalia of various past first ladies. (Eleanor Roosevelt’s must have looked like the inside of a melting Astrojump). By mid-afternoon I was passed out cold on the couch, and when I awoke several hours later, headache free, there was still plenty of vodka to take home for later. Two drunks in one day? Who am I, Danny Devito? OHHH!!!

One last word of advice from Scientist Brandon: “You want the vodka to go through the filter, but drip well away from it. If you let the vodka sit around the filter, it will dissolve the alcohol-soluble parts of the charcoal and taste like a dirty asshole.”

Get your filter on!

Adam

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