This week Quentin Mann samples some illegal ‘reconstituted alcohol’.
The student body (note the subtle double meaning) is saturated with alcohol. Alcohol leaves a lot to be desired – like more alcohol, for example. But if you’re tired of the pedestrian drinks on offer, then what can be done? Except drinking-and-driving, obviously, which is currently illegal.
An ingenious new spirit can be purchased online and shipped to the UK via a complex chain of buyers and suppliers, much like Ukrainian ‘beef’. But the ecstatic thrill with which this beverage imbues the imbiber is far superior to your regular vodka. For this is a dazzling feat of human invention: a reconstituted alcohol.
Reconstituted, you ask? Hopefully in your head, otherwise people in the JCR are probably shuffling even further away than normal. Yes, I emphatically shout out loud, because I’m in the OSPL offices and that’s the kind of macho journalistic environment that we’re encouraged to maintain.
This 66.6% alcohol is painstakingly reconstituted from the urine of unfortunate Eastern European tramps. These long-term alcoholics are swigging methylated spirits for pleasure; this company just pays them for the after-effects. Their urine is collected, before the ethyl glucuronide, an alcohol by-product, is extracted. It then undergoes a ‘purification’ process to turn it back into ethanol, although inevitably other chemicals make it through the filters as well…
Under strict orders, I dutifully bought two bottles online using the anonymous Tor network. After waiting patiently for 2 to 3 days, a small package arrives at Cherwell HQ.
“Oh great, more anonymous bottles of piss,” says the Comment Editor, going to put them in the small cupboard devoted to death threats, dirty protests, etc. “Actually that’s for my column,” I say, snatching them off her.
I pour out the dark, pungent liquid into a glass, and hastily down it. I’m pleasantly surprised. The spirit has subtle flavours that no other alcohol can offer… It turns out small quantities of urea really give the drink that little extra kick. Na zdorovje!
