Palcohol: the powderised alcohol that turns water into rum

Palcohol is designed for those times when you need a margarita … fast. Photograph: Chris Collins/Corbis

Name: Palcohol.

Age: Weeks old, regulation-wise.

Appearance: Illicit-looking white powder.

Is it illicit? Not at all. In fact it's been approved for sale by the USAlcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

And what is it, exactly? It's powderised alcohol.

Come again? It's alcohol in powder form. Just add water.

You mean it turns water into wine? It turns water into either vodka or rum, or optional flavours including cosmopolitan, mojito and the Powderita – a powdered margarita.

Move over, Jesus! There's a new miracle worker in town! There is indeed: Mark Phillips, inventor of Palcohol.

Tell me more about him. "Mark is an active guy," according to the Palcohol website. "After hours of an activity, he sometimes wanted to relax and enjoy a refreshing adult beverage."

You know who Mark reminds me of? Me! Mark didn't want to carry bulky bottles of alcohol on his activities, so he invented Palcohol. But it has loads of other handy applications.

Really? I can't think of any. What about adding it to food for an extra kick?

Rum on your cornflakes? The Palcohol website suggested vodka on eggs, but it's the same idea – drinking at breakfast "to start your day off right".

Great thinking! What other advice does the website have? It suggested taking Palcohol into expensive venues to jazz up soft drinks, and mentioned "the elephant in the room".

Which is what? The already high rates of alcohol-related disease in the US? No – "snorting Palcohol".

Can you? Apparently you can, but you shouldn't.

They shouldn't have put the idea in my head, then. To be fair, all that advice came from a part of the website that was "experimenting with some humorous and edgy verbiage about Palcohol". It wasn't meant to be public, and it's since been removed. They've also added "volume" to the powder to make snorting it more trouble than it's worth.

Do they have any revised suggestions? Only that you consume Palcohol responsibly, and treat it the way you would any other form of alcohol.

I can't do both - which is it?

Do say: "Take your Pal wherever you go!"

Don't say: "Stranded in the desert? Use Palcohol to turn your urine into beer!"