It's disappointing they did not reference the seminal work by the father of the Periodic Table on ethanol/water solutions [1]. This work is often cited as justification for why Russian vodkas are 80 proof.
1. Mendeleev, D.I., O soedinenii spirta s vodoi, sochineniya (Total Collection of Transactions: On the Combinations of Alcohol with Water), Leningrad: ONTI-Khimteoret, 1937, vol. 4.
Dale Schaefer and colleagues, who conducted the study, note that vodka has a long-standing reputation as a colorless, tasteless solution of 40 percent pure ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, and 60 percent pure water. All such beverages should have the same faint or undetectable taste. But sales of premium vodka brands have surged in recent years. Schaefer’s group at the University of Cincinnati worked with colleagues from Moscow State University in Russia to find an answer.
They knew that famed Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, noted for work on the Periodic Table of the Elements, made a key observation on alcohol solutions in his 1865 doctoral dissertation. Mendeleev believed that a solution of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water would develop peculiar clusters of molecules, called hydrates. That solution became the global standard for vodka, which usually is sold as an 80-proof, or 40 percent alcohol, beverage.
From the wikipedia page you're citing:
However, Mendeleev's dissertation was about alcohol concentrations over 70% and he never wrote anything about vodka.
This is clearly not true. Page 81 (Chapter 4) of Mendeleev's dissertation [1] starts as follows:
where does that say whiskey? google translate provides:
On the basis of this, wishing, with the utmost precision, to
determine the composition of the mixture of alcohol and water, which
corresponds to the greatest compression at different temperatures, I
used a mixture containing from 40 to 50 percent of anhydrous alcohol.
This study consists of two main parts: the preparation of the sms and
the definition of their extra vias. I'll describe the first, the
second is set out in the second chapter.
1. Mendeleev, D.I., O soedinenii spirta s vodoi, sochineniya (Total Collection of Transactions: On the Combinations of Alcohol with Water), Leningrad: ONTI-Khimteoret, 1937, vol. 4.
UPDATE on Mendeleev's work with alcohols: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/20...
Dale Schaefer and colleagues, who conducted the study, note that vodka has a long-standing reputation as a colorless, tasteless solution of 40 percent pure ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, and 60 percent pure water. All such beverages should have the same faint or undetectable taste. But sales of premium vodka brands have surged in recent years. Schaefer’s group at the University of Cincinnati worked with colleagues from Moscow State University in Russia to find an answer.
They knew that famed Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, noted for work on the Periodic Table of the Elements, made a key observation on alcohol solutions in his 1865 doctoral dissertation. Mendeleev believed that a solution of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water would develop peculiar clusters of molecules, called hydrates. That solution became the global standard for vodka, which usually is sold as an 80-proof, or 40 percent alcohol, beverage.
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