Can alcohol evaporation get you drunk?

Can you get drunk off alcohol vapor? Absolutely. Apparently in the early 2000s, a alcohol vapor device was invented and subsequently banned in some American states, see Wikipedia here.

However, if you cook with alcohol, e.g. deglazing a pan with some wine, sherry, etc., the amounts are not that high, and I doubt you stand above the pan and completely inhale every part of the alcohol vapor. Still, if you want to avoid getting tipsy, just let the alcohol evaporate, maybe set your range hood (correct word?) to a higher setting so it draws away the vapor quickly.

1. yes you are consuming alcohol, technically speaking. Yes, it has calories, scientifically speaking. This is misleading however, because not all calories are the same. Alcohol has calories because it burns (it's actually used as a fuel) and produces heat, which a calorimeter detects. However these calories "don't count" in the sense that sugar or fat calories do, because your body cannot store them, thus they don't make you gain weight; they are converted to other chemicals and excreted as waste. To wit: vodka itself can't make you fat, but carbs in beer and wine can.

2. a pot cover doesn't change the total amount evaporated, though it may direct the vapor away from your face and thus lower your overall uptake, or reduce the rate at which alcohol escapes from the pan. A reduce seep rate will make the air concentration lower, which makes uptake slower, which gives your liver longer to break it down in real time.

3. As long as the air around you stays around you, so too will the ethyl vapor. Or in other words, as long as you can smell it there is alcohol in the air.

Fun with Numbers:

Keep in mind that your body constantly breaks down ethyl in your metabolism. The rate varies, but is generally about a half-ounce per hour, or one ml per 4 minutes. If you figure a 2oz splash of sherry has 10ml of ethyl and takes 5 mins to completely reduce, that's an evaporation rate of 2ml/min. Even if you breathed in all the vapors of the pot with each breath, you're only inhaling 25% of the time; 0.5ml/min, or about twice the rate you can break it down.

That means it will take a long time to get enough ethyl to feel in that route of administration, basically half as long as it takes you to sober up. That's certainly longer than you're standing over the pot or the splash takes to evaporate. There's much more effective ways of consuming alcohol...