3 day rations

[Matt Lukes]

I had the same thought. Vinegar + wine would kill the bacteria you might find. Saves the time of boiling water.

Dear Gods don't try substituting wine or vinegar for boiling environmental water guys- consider that your stomach acid is quite strong (~pH 1) and yet nasty bacteria ingested in contaminated food and water survive it to cause you problems- vinegar has a pH of around 3 (pH is a logarithmic scale so the difference between 3 and 1 is 100x), so if the hydrochloric acid in your stomach can't kill them all, vinegar sure won't. And rembember, adding it to water to the point where the mixture is drinkable dilutes the vinegar a lot further reducing it's ability to kill anything. Alcohol kills bacteria for a different reason, but we use a solution of 70% isopropanol to clean surfaces in labs where we can't use bleach (a far more preferrable agent). There's a reason that the active agent in water 'purification' tablets is chlorine.

Both alcohol and vinegar will kill bacteria to be sure, but are in the 'better than nothing' category- IF boiling isn't possible. I'd never trust them personally.

Matt