My physical therapist suggest that I make a beverage out of a type of fermenting mushroom and water (improves immune system and gives some nutrients etc etc.) According to her recipe I should leave the fungi in the water for 3 days with a lemon for added flavor.
One week I was quite forgetful and accidentally let the solution ferment for 12 days. The resulting solution was quite pungent and tasted like a slightly alcoholic beverage. When I told my great friends it got us wondering…
If we (a) assume that the mushroom ferments and produces alcohol in the water and (b) wanted to make the alcohol more pure how would we go about it?
One of my friends prides himself in being quite the chemist and claimed that the basic principle that alcohol has a boiling point of 78.3 Degrees Celsius and Water boils at 100 Celsius all one has to do is simply heat up the solution to 85 Degrees celsius and harvest the alcohol vapor.
Since none of us have the time to sit around moonshining, is it possible to distill liquor like my chemist-friend suggests with what is available in most people’s homes? Or is there another way to isolate the alcohol from the mixture?