Best alcohol brands for barter, cooking, etc?

[AMProducts]

Was the hard stuff in glass bottles with metal tops?

How did the alcohol evaporate in that?

I have iso alcohol - 70% - that is in plastic containers, the kind you buy drug store iso alcohol in - that is at least several years old, and one bottle that has been opened, it still has plenty of alcohol content - as evidenced by the sting when I use it on skin to disinfect it.

Isopropyl alcohol is a bigger molecule than the more svelt ethanol one. Typically booze stored in casks loses about 2% per year, this is called "the angel's share". Most plastics are permeable, the exception to this is mylar or plastics like nylofume that are intended to be vapor barriers.

Most alcohol is going to come in a PET bottle, which while still permeable, will do a better job of holding the bigger molecules than smaller ones. Glass is still the gold standard for a reason...

 

[Hamilton Felix]

This is interesting. Of the 1.75L bottles we have, I believe most are glass. One exception is some really cheap vodka that my wife bought because she uses half & half water and vodka to make pie crust. I'd best make sure anything stored for a long time is is glass.

 

[chemist]

Mylar is PET, BTW, and it's an absolutely terrible barrier by itself.

The Mylar bags sold for heat-sealed storage have metallic barrier layers laminated in them - usually aluminum - that stop the transport of small molecules like those in air.

I kept a new plastic ketchup bottle on the shelf in near-ideal conditions, and in a few years it had turned brown - probably from oxidation by air.

 

[Hamilton Felix]

Sounds to me like there are many grades of Mylar. I know it originated with the Echo satellite program, and I know there is a balloon grade Mylar that can contain hydrogen. I've seen long term stored water in what appeared to be Mylar bags. Even Space Blankets vary in quality.

 

[AMProducts]

Mylar is PET, BTW, and it's an absolutely terrible barrier by itself.

The Mylar bags sold for heat-sealed storage have metallic barrier layers laminated in them - usually aluminum - that stop the transport of small molecules like those in air.

I kept a new plastic ketchup bottle on the shelf in near-ideal conditions, and in a few years it had turned brown - probably from oxidation by air.

Sorry if I wasn't clear... it's the metal that does the actual sealing, the plastic is just structural support.

This is actually a thing with MREs and a major reason why they go bad in X-time frame and DOD has spent a fair amount of time researching non-permeable plastics, and pouch construction to maximize shelf life. It's still a work in progress, Natick occasionally gets mentioned in news articles about their research. IIRC the box containers (name escapes me RN) that they're starting to package soup in, supposedly have a better shelf life than some canned soups. FWIW...