would diluting a bottle of vodka decrease it's alcohol strength?

Question

In the pub last night, a mate of mine reckons it would NOT decrease it's 40% abv, he claims that if you poured a bottle of vodka into a swimming pool or whatever and you drank ONLY SOME OF THE WATER, you would have drunk the same amount as if someone was to drink a full bottle, I reckon you would still not have drunk 40% as the water would have diluted the vodka, What do you think?

Answer 1

Laws of physics!!Water dilutes!

Answer 2

Ask you mate how he thinks all the whiskys, gins, vodkas etc are all magically exactly 40% abv (alcohol by volume)?

The reason is that water is added at the distillery to dilute and bring down the alcohol level to 40%

Take a bucket and pour the vodka in it, then fill the bottle with water and pour that into the bucket. Now in the bucket you have twice the amount of liquid and the same amount of alcohol, so now the liquid is 20% abv.*


Still, if your friend really believes what he says, then every time it is your round all you need do is top up his glass with water, Cheap round :) But I bet he changes his story then,




*actually its not exactly, but that is a whole other technical issue

Answer 3

Think about it.

Let's say it's a litre bottle of vodka, at 40% ABV. That means that there's 400ml of alcohol in the bottle. If you pour the bottle into a swimming pool there's still 400ml of alcohol, but now instead of being in 1 litre, it's in (say) 10,000 litres. So now it's 0.004% ABV (0.4/10,000).

To drink all of the 400ml of alcohol originally in the bottle you will now have to drink the entire contents of the swimming pool - obviously if you only drink some of the contents, the remaining contents will still contain some of the alcohol.

As an aside, most spirits, including vodka, are distilled to a much higher alcohol content, and then diluted with water to achieve 40%.

Answer 4

If you dilute it you make it weaker. Add 70 cl of water to a bottle of vodka that is 40% alcohol by volume and you end up with diluted vodka that is half the strength 20% by volume. You have enough liquid to fill two bottles. Drink both bottles of the dilute vodka is the same as drinking one bottle of undiluted vodka - you still get pissed as a fart.

Answer 5

I think you two had a drunken conversation in a pub.

Your friend is absolutely wrong. Maybe in a drunken way he was trying to say if he drank the whole swimming pool, he's drink a whole bottle of vodka. Or something - talking about drinking a whole swimming pool might be something one would discuss when totally blitzed. Hard to tell with drunken bar conversations... they always make sense at the time, but they make absolutely no sense the next day.

Answer 6

if you poured a bottle of vodka into a gallon of other liquid, and then drank all the mixture, yes, you are getting the same amount of alcohol, but if you mix the vodka with another liquid and drank a glass of the mixture, then you are getting less alcohol in total.

Answer 7

I agree with PaddyPower, and it sounds like your mate knows what he is talking about because you cannot say that 'if you drink some of the water' because you don't know whether you are drinking the full bottle in with the water or not.

Answer 8

That is the silliest thing I've every heard. The percentage of 40% is the percentage by volume. If you increase the volume of the solvent (in this case water), you lower the percentage. If you increase the percentage of solute (in this case, alcohol) you raise the percentage. It's a ratio.

Answer 9

if you mixed a liter of vodka with a litre of water and drank it all you would consume the same amout of alcohol.

Answer 10

no it stays the same the vodka per bottle is 4o% so its like adding it to coke nothing changes