Hey! You'd be AMAZED at some of the stuff those Bulgarians put into plastic bottles!

You've heard of rakia? They DRINK that stuff! 

Actually, I want to try it myself... But then if it's ever poured out of a drain pipe, through a sewer grate and into a bottle, I'll probably try it at least once.

Next up on my hit list is: Jeppson's Malört
http://bumwine.com/others.html

35% alc. by vol.

This foul Sweedish liquor seems to be indigenous to Chicago.  The word "Malört" means wormwood in Sweedish.  The tag line on the label says it all, "Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malort reject our liquor.  Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone.  Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate.  During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malort.  During the lifetime of our founder, Carl Jeppson was apt to say, 'My Malort is produced for that unique group of drinkers who disdain light flavor or neutral spirits.'  It is not possible to forget our two-fisted liquor.  The taste just lingers and lasts - seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! PERSERVERE [sic].  Make it past two 'shock-glasses' and with the third you could be ours...forever."  People write in to us claiming that the flavor is a mixture of tussin, nail polish remover, gasoline, bug spray, varnish remover, grapefruit rinds, corn syrupand metal with a hint of herbs.  The taste powerfully lingers for at least ten minutes.  While it's certainly worthy of mention as "quirky, disgusting booze," at $15-$20 a fifth, it's definitely not the drink of choice for Chicago bums.  It's mostly bottom-shelf pints of liquor instead of that wormwood-infused flower of the Jeppson company.

With a cold anhydrous acetone wash in a vacuum filter setup, a decent amount of product appears to be lost, perhaps 15%.  Does this mean impurities, or simply dissolving product AND impurites?  The xtals were very white and clean to begin with, figured a wash would be nice regardless, but the loss sucks.  Maybe have a cleaned batch, and distill off acetone to re-use, and have a lower quality leftover as well? or trash acetone?

Oh, and good times 
:TS:

With a cold anhydrous acetone wash in a vacuum filter setup, a decent amount of product appears to be lost, perhaps 15%.  Does this mean impurities, or simply dissolving product AND impurites?  The xtals were very white and clean to begin with, figured a wash would be nice regardless, but the loss sucks.  Maybe have a cleaned batch, and distill off acetone to re-use, and have a lower quality leftover as well? or trash acetone?

Oh, and good times 
:TS:

yeah the loss sucks but it's definitely a must.  the loss is two things, impurities for sure but also some loss of good product as well.  the reason for the latter is due to slight water content in the acetone, even a miniscule amount of water present will dissolve a small amount of product and chalk it up to a loss.  acetone is one of those solvents that's a pain in the ass to dry.  most people use anhydrous MgSO4 but that's not really that great of a desiccant for acetone.  sieves and a few others are much better but the problem is that acetone is so reactive, that it will react with the better desiccants, even sieves.  that's what literature on the topic states.  as far as first-hand stories, i've heard many conflicting reports.  some people have used the same desiccant for acetone, yet one reports the acetone was fine for quite some time and another reports that it began to react rather quickly (after two days or so, even in the freezer).  it's one of those things that you'll probably just have to read up on and decide for yourself how you want to handle it.  there's a great book called "Purification of Laboratory Chemicals" which is on its 6th edition now i believe, you should be able to find a pdf of one of the editions somewhere online, if not then i'm sure someone here will hook you up if you can't find it online, anyway it's a real handy book to have and would help shed light on best practices for drying a number of common lab solvents that you use.

as for the lost goods, you don't need to distill the acetone unless you want to reuse it.  you can use a room (with no ignition source) and pour the acetone you used into a pyrex pan, blow a fan over it until it evaporates.  acetone is very volatile and will evaporate very quickly but will stink up that room like crazy so open a window or just ensure lots of ventilation.  it will evaporate clean and leave you with a pyrex pan containing the impurities you removed along with the goods you lost.  once it's dry you can see what it is exactly that the acetone removed and judge whether it's worth your time to scrape up and purify again or not.  you'll probably get a small amount of nasty looking impurities with a slight crystalline texture to it.  the crystalline texture would be from a small amount of actual good product that has crystallized in/on/around the impurities which will probably be more sticky/oily.

but FYI, the acetone washes are considered a necessary purification step unless you recrystallize which you'll see more losses from because it's a more thorough purification process so it removes more legitimate impurities but also you tend to use a larger volume of solvents (recrystallization solvent like IPA and another solvent to crash it out like acetone), both of which will have a small amount of water even after drying them so you're going to lose some goods along with impurities there too.  unless your solvent is very wet with water, the majority of weight loss is impurities and you'll always have a small amount of actual product that is lost but that's to be expected.  the drier you get your solvent (and the less soluble your product is in that actual anhydrous solvent), the less goods you'll lose while removing impurities.

Hey NPH and TS3K, this is one of the most comprehensive threads in this forum, with a wealth of experience, (both good and bad), behind it .....

one of THE most popular methods, has become easier for anyone who basically understands

You have covered a variety of issues, that are encountered, with MUCH to be gleaned from a read every now and then

Thanks a LOT, to all concerned, and of course to Ab2

f1

Ps.  anyone ever used other Hg salts, aside from Cl, in their amalgams? pros/cons