I keep getting ads geared towards herbalists for 200‑proof alcohol for tinctures. Let’s talk about why that’s not only unnecessary, but not even how ethanol actually behaves.
When you distill ethanol and water, you can only reach about 95–96% ethanol (190 proof) by distillation alone. At that point, ethanol and water form what’s called an azeotrope: a mixture where the vapor and liquid have the same ratio of ethanol to water. No matter how many times you redistill, you don’t get past that 95‑ish percent... there will always be about 4–5% water riding along.
To make 200‑proof ethanol, you have to use special drying steps; things like molecular sieves or other drying agents to strip out that last bit of water. But the moment you open that bottle to the room or pour it over plants, the ethanol happily starts absorbing water again from the air or even trace amounts in the plant material, and it drifts right back toward its comfortable azeotrope around 95%.
In herbalism, 190‑proof is already more than enough for extracting resins, aromatics, and “hard‑to‑get” constituents, and it gives you flexibilty to dilute with water to the percentage you actually want for stability. The only real need for truly anhydrous (water free) ethanol is in metallic alchemy, lab‑grade spagyric work, or organic chemistry, where even a drop of water can block a reaction; sabotaging your work - and in those cases, you also need dry‑tube setups and careful storage, like you see in this photo.
So if you’re seeing those 200‑proof ads in your feed, know it is a sales gimmick. For herbalism, there is absolutely no practical need to use 200‑proof alcohol. 190‑proof (or 30–60% spirits for many herbs) is exactly what the plants want.