There are better ways to do it than encapsulation, such as forming a carbamate ester, ideally of a tertiary alcohol (which unlike primary and secondary alcohols, do not easily undergo oxidative metabolism to nasty carbonylated metabolites (E.g primary alcohols such as ethanol are metabolized first to the aldehyde, and then on to the carboxylic acid, fr.ex. ethanol [the one people usually consume] is metabolized to acetaldehyde then acetic acid, which then enters the citrate cycle (Kreb's cycle) and is metabolized eventually to CO2 with some ATP production, whilst secondary alcohols are metabolized to ketone intermediates, fr.ex isopropanol would be metabolized to acetone first. )
Tert.alcohols are a LOT harder to metabolize, and to not easily undergo oxidative addition and if th right one is picked, can be a lot easier on the body. 2-methy-butan-2-ol was popular for a while (also known as tertiary pentanol/tert.pentyl alcohol), it smells and tastes like arse, but it's an awful lot more potent than ethanol is, rather than downing a half pint of burning liquor to get drunk, its more easily calibrated with a pipette, a couple of ml at a time, as if one were using something like a strong GHB solution. And no nasty metabolites to give you an awful headache later or make your breath taste and smell awful (I can't stand that after-taste of acetaldehyde that comes as a result of drinking ethanol).
There are some highly potent solid alcohols too, 1-ethynylcyclohexan-1-ol is reportedly active at several hundred milligrams. Haven't tried it personally, but reports state it to be extremely potent, although as a potential downside, depending on other medications being taken, is a fairly potent suicide inhibitor of various hepatic cytochrome-P450 pathway enzymes which are important in detoxification and metabolism of various xenobiotics.
IIRC the carbamate derivatives of many tertiary alcohols are barbiturate-like ligands at GABAa (AFAIK its rather debatable how alcohol acts at GABAa, whether there is a distinct binding site or whether it acts more due to its solvent properties, diffusing into cellular lipid bilayers, the same has been posited for a mode of action of volatile surgical anaesthetics, but I'm inclined to disbelieve that theory, at least as the be-all and end all of their properties, given that at least one fluorinated ether, very much structurally akin to surgical anaesthetics, is a convulsant, acting as a GABAa antagonist or inverse agonist, which strongly implies a binding site rather than a generic 'solvent-ey' action on lipid bilayers, if that were the case you'd expect all similar such compounds to act the same general way, rather than have one or more oddballs that act completely the inverse)
There's plenty potential out there by way of alcohol modifications, but IMO this lies more in choosing the correct alcohol to begin with, rather than modifying ethanol (although a carbamate might be worth trying to boost the potency, and solidify it, lower the volatility and possibly improve palatability.) Also, tertiary alcohols are better candidates, as mentioned. Also, making an alkynol with a halogen (usually chlorine, alkyl bromides and iodides are to reactive, and alkyl fluorides have the potential for some VERY unpleasant metabolites, such as fluoroacetate, a deadly, nigh untreatable metabolic poison that gets metabolized to fluorocitrate, which jams up the Kreb's cycle and simply put, throws a spanner in the works of ATP production, slamming down the breaks on cellular respiration, cumulative, targets high energy demand tissues more than the rest, as ATP is our universal cellular 'currency' of energy, and tissues such as reproductive organs, heart and brain are attacked preferentially, or at least, more damage occurs as a result.)
A good example would be to take a drug like ethchlorvynol, an oldschool sedative-hypnotic, as a template and work from that, IMO, a tertiary alcohol with a triple bond and terminal chlorine atom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethchlorvynolhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tert-Amyl_alcohol (amyl is an older synonym for the pentyl radical, this is the 2-methyl-butan-2-ol I mentioned. Quite long lasting, and much more potent than ethanol, tastes like arse however, but at least there isn't very much to get down)
