Sunday Fun: Global Warming Vodka -- But It Tastes Like Soap

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Now you can drink global warming, sort of. The Wall Street Journal reports, 

Air Company, a Brooklyn-based startup, uses photosynthesis-inspired technology to create vodka distilled from CO2-derived products. It first creates hydrogen from water using a process known as electrolysis, before feeding it into a reactor alongside CO2 captured from ethanol plants in the Northeast, the company says. The gases then go over a catalyst, says Stafford Sheehan, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer. The resulting mixture of ethanol and water is distilled into vodka, Dr. Sheehan says. The company estimates that producing one liter of vodka takes a pound of CO2 out of the air. 

The liquor, marketed as Air Vodka, comes in 750 ml bottles and retails for around $65. Air Company uses a similar technique to make hand sanitizer and, starting this spring, a fragrance. These products are a stepping stone towards building more complex products such as jet fuel, Dr. Sheehan says. “We’re not sitting here cranking out vodka for the sake of cranking out vodka.”


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