5-17 IAT Vodka Branding

 Circle H with potato vodka. What does that mean?  Lea Beckett and her husband Bill are the owners of a distillery over in Riggs, Idaho and they make potato vodka with the brand name Grand Teton Vodka. Needless to say their product is in high demand but there is a fascinating byproduct that comes out of the process and believe it or not can be used to permanently identify cattle. So rather than throw away or waste the byproduct, local ranchers come over and take it away for use with their herds. How in the world can this come to be? Listen to Lea. “the 1st alcohol that comes off of our still by the lower vapor  point alcohols like methyl alcohol which is not good for humans and acetone which is used in finger nail polish remover and we have to separate those out because they cannot be used. They are just waste products but we put those aside and the ranchers pick those up. One of the ranchers came 2 weeks ago and got 9 gallons and mixed it with dry ice and used it to brand their cattle because they freeze brand the cattle and the alcohol mixed with dry ice gets the temperature low enough that they put it on the branding irons and freeze the brand in to the hide.