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["Michele Stanton" <6ducks@gmail.com>]

Hi Donna & all,

Cooks Illustrated Magazine studied what happened to wine added to a stew, to see if the alcohol evaporated completely or not during the cooking process.

(I have become a real fan of cooksillustrated.com because the explanations of why things happen in the kitchen are super--I heartily recommend it)

At any rate, the answer in this instance is that not all of the alcohol evaporates.

Here is part of the article:

 

When alcohol and water mix, they form a solution called an azeotrope—a mixture of two different liquids that behaves as if it were a single compound. Even though alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water, the vapors coming off of an alcohol-water azeotrope will contain both alcohol and water. While using a wider pan hastens the reduction process (simply switching from a 10-inch to a 12-inch pan can speed things up by 25 percent to 50 percent), as long as a liquid starts with an alcohol content higher than 5 percent, the final alcohol content will remain at about 5 percent. Theoretically, to lower the alcohol content we would need to first reduce the wine on its own before diluting it with broth.

 

Cheers! 

MIchele in SW Ohio