>>2650674I love the way this species is so bright yellow that it looks like the sun...or an egg yolk.
>>2650709There's two active compounds in Amanita muscaria, ibotenic acid and muscimol. Ibotenic acid is the less pleasant of the two, but it is unstable and can be converted into muscimol through decarboxylation. Drying them, especially in the sun, converts only some of the ibotenic acid to muscimol, I think it's "up to 35%". Boiling it in acid can achieve 100% decarb.
You definitely don't need 100% decarb since your body breaks down ibotenic acid to muscimol by itself, but converting ahead of time before you consume it means there's more muscimol that can be absorbed right away. I go through the process because I don't really like eating mushrooms, fresh or dry, to begin with.
I've seen that episode too, I don't remember what the vodka was about. Ibotenic acid is soluble in water and muscimol is soluble in both ethanol and water, I guess the compounds should move out of the mushroom and into the vodka if that's the goal.