Distilling the EtOH off of cheap vodka

[Light-Being]

Hi friends,

This isn't so much an extraction question as a reagent preparation question, but it's all good eh?

Here goes: how many distillations would it take if distilling store-bought vodka (simple distillation in glass, just like if one were recovering methanol from a solution) to get from

A) cheap skanky 80 proof stuff
B) Everclear 151

to a clean 95% EtOH?

My guess is two passes, but that's a guess. It would be nice if it were only one but LB doubts that.

Another: does it help to use vacuum? (LB would think not, for EtOH... that H2O azeotrope is gonna happen anyway, and the congeners are too high boiling to come with the alc, no?) It seems to him that the EtOH is the lowest boiling thing in there, so it should be easy to take it off.

Anyone done this as a way of getting fairly cheap OTC ethanol?

 

[Ginkgo]

Sorry for off topic, but why not brew your own? That way you can easily get 94-96% and it feels great to do it yourself too...

 

[Light-Being]

Hi EG, yeah I've considered it but it's not something I want to get into just yet. I thought I did about a year ago and started haunting websites and researching it and could tell right away that it is a hugely engrossing hobby for those who get into it. I could see it getting like that for me, and I don't have the time for another hobby of that type.

I'm still nurturing the one for which the quick EtOH would be a helpful solvent...

I can see doing it in my later years, it would be a blast to make my own stuff... making custom tequilas and gins in a pot still. On the other hand, I also have some concerns about drinking too much if I always had really good fresh, inexpensive stuff I had made around. I hear it costs around $0.50/liter when you make it yourself. As it stands I don't have an alcohol problem at all, and am almost a tea-totaler so I doubt the availability would turn me into an addict, but stranger things have happened.

So, I ask again... anyone distilled cheap booze to get reagent?