I heard this on the radio yesterday. I searched a little on Google and YouTube and things came up. I need to look at the vodka vs. vinegar pages. But who knew! Anyone ever hear of this? Or tried it?
Is it because of the alcohol? I'd think it's too expensive to use for cleaning. Can't imagine it working much better than other cleaners. If it was a "miracle" cleaner, I might consider it.
I was thinking of the cost too @Chrissy Cross The cleaning vinegar has worked well on the toilet hard water. Need to try it in the shower also. I wonder what the cheapest bottle of vodka costs? I like Grey Goose. Will not be testing that for cleaning! I'm sure the alcohol is a factor but I'm not sure why I only found Vodka mentioned. No other alcohols. I'll look further.
Have no idea what the cheapest vodka costs.....don't drink but when I did, Vodka was my first Choice...actually my only choice besides white wine.
Cheap vodka in the U.S. is just grain ethanol diluted to appropriate concentration. It isn't much more expensive than the expensive cleaners, depending on the taxes where you live. Here it is about $10 for 1.75 Liters. I was told by an instrument service tech that ethanol is better for cleaning plastic, as it doesn't make clear plastic cloud as quickly and it has less tendency to make soft plastics brittle. He suggested using Everclear for cleaning plastic parts, but my employer at the time didn't want me bringing drinkable ethanol from the liquor store into the place of employment, so we had to use isopropanol, which we already had on hand. They were okay with just replacing the plastic as it aged. What were you thinking of cleaning with alcohol? I think the applications for vinegar and alcohol would not be the same.
@Don Alaska The bathroom and it's supposed to shine fixtures and windows. I noticed some vinegar vs. vodka pages on Google search and perhaps the vinegar is just as good. I just thought this was something I had never heard before and then found articles and you tube videos. I guess everything is on the internet.
It seems like the vinegar would be best , especially for hard water stuff. Alcohol might make a brighter shine. You could mix them and make ethyl acetate. It is safe to mix them, but don't consume them after mixing. Ethyl acetate is supposed to smell vaguely like pears. It will probably be a slow reaction if it reacts at all. I used to make esthers years ago with catalysts and such. Anyway, it won't hurt to try mixing them and see if it combines the good qualities of each. Don't, however, combine ANYTHING with bleach.
Vinegar stinks more than alcohol. Me, I buy 91% Iso-Propyl Alcohol at Wally World for 3 bucks a bottle (about a quart), strong enough to clean well, much cheaper than other cleaners, harmless if gotten on the skin, but don't drink! Iso-Propyl is very similar in general to plain old Ethyl Alcohol, Ethanol, and no special beverage taxes apply to it, as they do with Vodka. Frank
Yeah, if you can't drink it, they don't tax it. Ethanol is a slightly stronger solvent, but methanol is even stronger. These simple solvents avoid all those chemicals that you cannot pronounce.
@Don Alaska I've always felt that given the ease and cheapness of raw ingredients needed to make Ethanol, one ought to be able to make it himself more cheaply than the retail cost of gasoline, and run his car on it. Never went farther than dreaming, though, no real cost analysis done. Free solar heat would be necessary, sugar is cheap anough, and yeast is all but free..........problem might exist with the "Revenuers".......... Frank
I know, for a while, some farmers in the Midwest were fermenting corn, and distilling using solar stills to power farm machinery. The price of corn was low, and the price for fuel to operate tractors and grain dryers was high, so they found a solution. They had to get a federal license, however, but since it was for industrial alcohol, not "beverages", I don't think the license fee was that much. They also were not selling it.