Thanks, Brett --- the one semi "ultralight" way to imbibe on the trail for me is to bring a small amount of everclear, mix as desired with water (1:7 ratio for me) and add flavoring of choice; crystal light sells "white grape" flavor, for example, or whatever.

It ain't wine, but as a backup stove fuel and a late-trip celebratory drink it's not bad, either. My (already low) standards for this sort of thing definitely go down after a number of days of hiking plus perhaps high elevation and maybe a dash of dehydration into the mix.

I tried dehydrated wine in 1988 when i was working in Kuwait :)

Saying the taste is awful is an understatment...

Bleah put away your dehydrated wine and try some dehydrated marijuana! Only with a doctors prescription of course.

The Japanese had a line of cocktails that were dehydrated and they were ghastly [the online word blocker would not let me use the appropriate language].
The peach something or other could be gagged down if you added some real vodka, the rest wouldn't pass for squid water.

I am glad nobody to my knowledge sells this stuff in the Netherlands. Yuk. It is true, however, that bringing a bottle of wine does rather spoil one's ultralight ambitions. The first thing I have done is to ditch the glass and get a Platypreserve wine bag. I am really happy with them. Sometimes, however, that is not really enough, and one has to revert to the age old way to dehydrate wine: distilling. Brandy, after all, is just distilled wine that has lost two thirds of its volume and weight in the process. Of course one does not dilute it to turn it into wine, but it does the essential thing, of reducing the weight and volume of a given quantity of alcohol. Though not derived from wine, the same logic applies to other spirits. I am planning a two week bike trek in Norway, and I know any kind of alcoholic drink is expensive and hard to get there. So I am planning on taking a Platypus wine bag filled with spirits of one kind or another. Has anyone tried spirits in the Platypreserve yet?

Edited by willem on 09/22/2009 01:34:34 MDT.

I believe the only true way to carry wine and qualify as ultralight would be the original bota bag, a sheep's bladder, washed and rinsed in a spring fed mountain river, then stitched closed with a thread made from ibex hair.
Though the platy sounds interesting, I'll give it a try.