I like that idea!We always christened our (boat drinking) water tank every season with a pint (or two) of vodka (in the tank!). Don't know if it worked or not, but who am I to argue with generations of boat lore...
During my submarine years I was afforded many opportunities to inspect tanks & voids to ensure they were clean and ready to be closed out. It's a rite of passage for the crew to invite a young officer to enter a tank and lose their lunch in it.
You would think that the sewage tanks would be the worst. They were actually cleaner than the tanks which held "gray water" from sinks & showers.
But the tanks that were by far the worst were the potable water tanks. The distilled water was treated with bromine (chlorine is a very bad thing on a submarine) which made the water "potable" but did not render the tank hostile to life. Some kind of grass was actually growing in there before the tank cleaning.
I think we should've given serious consideration to vodka as a potable-tank disinfectant. Who'd care whether or not it worked?
If it's any consolation, the engineering plant's main lubricating oil tanks and the sail area (masts & antenna and voids) were no picnic either. But at least I never had to drink their contents.
If that was a Wikipedia article it'd be flagged for citations... for example, the link between bacteria and disease wasn't established until long after Ben Franklin was dead, and there's some dispute whether he ever made that quote.Here is a pdf download of the history of water treatment from a water treatment plant.