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Cooking Alcohol + Ritalin?
(self.adhd)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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If you're cooking with alcohol and it's getting hotter than 78 °C (or 173 °F if you're so inclined) then all that alcohol will evaporate off.
It's only in the pan for a minute or two usually, near the end of the cooking process, so I don't think that's enough time for that
It really depends on how much heat is actually making it to the alcohol, which relies on a lot of factors but you're right fresh short cooking applications most of the alcoholic usually remains.
https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-burns-off-during-cookingbut-does-it-really.html
That's really interesting! however I'm skeptical of the information in the table in that article. It doesn't describe testing methodology or list any studies where these results were recorded.
That said, I understand that not all the alcohol will cook off and stay out. Some will re-condense and re-enter whatever you're cooking, and any covering or absorbant layers will retain some of the alcohol that has evaporated.
Edit: my bad, the article does mention a source. However the methodology isn't fully described and the source doesn't align with the claims made in the article.
I did cross check some articles on Google scholar that seemed to line up with the results but I only had 15 minutes so take that for what you will
Bearing in mind that I'm an unqualified rando on the Internet: I dunno, alcohol evaporates much more readily than water (which is how distillation is possible), so if you reduce that sauce by 15% then you probably got most of it.
Edit: hmm, yeah but you probably aren't reducing it by 15% in a minute or two like you say unless it's really boiling
Cooks Country would like to disagree (as would basic chemistry): the alcohol is bound to the water, so you lose as much alcohol as total water lost to evaporation.
Basically while alcohol alone evaporates at a lower temp than water, when they're bound (like in a wine) they evaporate together.
You make a great point. Obnoxious clarification - Ethanol evaporates about 5x faster than water. The exact details depend on the % of ethanol to water, and the distillation type.
Distillation will force most of the alcohol off first as only some of it is bound to the water, depending on the method and concentration before an azeotrope is found. The azeotrope is where the water and alcohol are bound and can't be further separated by distilling and boil off together. It's around 95% ethanol 5% water.
If that is the case then how does distillation work at all?