Secret Bargains on Food Grade Alcohol for FECO or Pipe Cleaning 

Do you make FECO (Full Extract Cannabis Oil)?  Do you use glass pipes or bongs?  If you answered yes, then you know the importance of 90% or higher alcohol.  Sometimes sold as Everclear in the United States, you might pay $30 a bottle or more for this potent food-grade solvent.

But here is a secret for anyone traveling South of the Border down Mexico way (or anyone who lives close to the border, which is a lot of us).  You can pick up bottles of 96% food-grade alcohol for a fraction of what it costs in the United States. The 750 ml bottles pictured here cost me $3.50 at one Ensenada botanica store and the other cost $5.00 at a small village bodega south of Ensenada..

California residents are allowed to bring back a bottle of alcohol each time they visit Mexico (and I do bring back a bottle every time I cross the border near my San Diego home).  So forget about the Kahlua and Tequila and get this instead.  Residents of other states are allowed to bring back more.

Technically there is no federal limit on how much alcohol can be brought in for personal use, however different states have different rules and you may encounter a federal tariff for anything over a bottle.  Certainly, anything over a case will trigger suspicions that it might not all be for personal use, and you don't want that kind of hassle at the border, trust me.

My advice is for each person in your party to bring back one bottle to avoid unnecessary questions and suspicions.   This is, after all, higher-grade alcohol than most of us would want to drink, garbage pail punches at frat parties aside. But for cleaning dirty glass pipes or bongs, or for making FECO with a food-grade solvent (most recommended), this stuff can't be beat.  My FECO making friends always love it when I come back from Mexico bearing this particular gift.

Not going to Mexico?

Culinary Solvent ships food grade alcohol to your door. Learn more and get a coupon code here.