I happened to see on fark that the homeless are using mouthwash as a beverage in great numbers lately. I don't know why, but this sort of astounded me. You have a mouthwash that's basically 58 proof liquor, but it's really cheap, can be bought at any hour of any day even in dry areas, and is hardly ever locked up. It's like schnapps without the sugar. No wonder the hobos are downing Listerine! I was really curious (enough to forgo sleep, at any rate) as to why it is this loophole exists.

Apparently, the alcohol in mouthwash is a certain type of denatured alcohol. The BATF calls this specially denatured alcohol (or "SDA"). There are apparently 50 varieties of and formulas for denaturing alcohol into SDA, according to this page (whose authors seem to know what they are talking about). SDA for mouthwash has no component considered all that harmful for drinking (ie, no methanol, unlike paint stripper or the like), but the whole product meets the requirement that "no potable alcohol cannot be derived from it" -- and so gets no liquor tax applied to its sale.

Now I had a thought: why not produce a mouthwash that is basically the same as all the others (inasmuch as it can still be called "mouthwash" as far as the ATF and FDA are concerned), but make it such that you can sell it at half the cost? You don't need all the "special" ingredients of the "real" mouthwashes since you aren't out to remove plaque or prevent gingivitis. You don't need Methyl Salicylate, Thymol, or any of those others; adding things that will actually wash one's mouth will only drive up the cost. What you want is water, SD alcohol, Minty Freshness Extract^TM, and coloring. That's as close to mouthwash as you'd need to get, and it'd be really cheap to make. A feasibility study would need to be done in order to make sure that you can beat the competitor's price. I think it could be done.

If Listerine sells for $3.99 per 50-ounce bottle, then you'd need to undercut them by at least a buck. Selling those 50 ounces at $1.99 would be best. You'd need to figure out how much it would cost to make in bulk and how much it costs to set up the whole operation before final pricing can be determined, but since you wouldn't advertise or do any marketing of any kind (word of mouth would surely sell your product) then you could certainly undercut a national name brand like Listerine.

Once you have the formula down, you get all the ATF permits in place, set up a producer/packager (Mexico would work), line up a distributor to open the retail channels and then sit back and facilitate the winos' need for non-seizures. You'd be doing them a favor by preventing them from ingesting all that other crap that goes into real mouthwash. They'd get better a SDA, so that would help their livers. Since the product would cost dramatically less, the merchants would experience less thievery and other related offenses -- which in turn frees up police to tackle other, certainly more serious crimes. Bums would need to beg less change and therefore panhandling and general loitering would go down (it goes without saying that you would have to find that magical price point where a hobo would rather panhandle the money for your product than risk stealing it; I'd bet that price is very close to that of a 40 ouncer of malt liquor). Since they'd only need to spend half as much to get their freshness groove on, the homeless might also get a taco or whatever in addition to the hooch. And if they wound up doubling up on their supply of your product instead of buying food, then so much the better for you. Anyway you look at it, it's a win-win for everyone.

I think it's clear that there is a definite need for such a product. If I had a more entrepreneurial bent, I'd write it up and head out in search of funding.