With the current heatwave over western Europe, this idea is topical... but it was initially spurred by worrying trends in global warming. It is possible that in a few decades some areas on Earth will be too hot and humid to be habitable without air conditioning, because the wet bulb temperature will be higher than that of human skin, meaning an inability to cool down by perspiration.

I imagined several systems to help in this situation and this hybrid ethanol/water evaporation cooler is one of them. Alcohol can evaporate even with 100% humidity, although its cooling performance in only 1/3 that of water. I also wanted to avoid getting flammable vapors into the building to be cooled, hence the distillation still.