Gin is better than rubbing alcohol.
Before you worry that I've gone off the deep end in search of a cut-rate martini, this post is a follow-up to mine on DU2 about using alcohol to stunt the growth of paperwhites and thus prevent toppling over.
The link I originally posted on DU2 suffered from having the WRONG kind of flower in the accompanying picture but, once I really started researching this, I found all the info links back to a study done at Cornell University. (http://blogs.cornell.edu/hort/2009/11/10/pickling-your-paperwhites)
I planted a "control" batch in water, a batch in a water/rubbing alcohol mix and a batch in a water/gin mix.
See the Cornell article for the details but, in a nutshell, the ratios are ten-or-eleven-to-one water-to-rubbing alcohol and eight-to-one water-to-gin (or any other 80-proof liquor, I just had leftover gin from a party.)
Per the instructions, I started all the paperwhites in water and when the roots were a couple of inches long, I poured out the water and replaced it with the alcohol-water mix and continued to water with that mix for the life of the plant.
The water and RA plants were planted about a week earlier than the gins, but all are full grown. I put books under some so that the bulbs would all be at the same height.
The water plants needing typing up well before Christmans and keeled over again just minutes before the photoshoot. In truth, the door is propping them up.
As you can see, the RA barely stunted growth at all and those plants still needed to be tied together to prevent toppling. I used an 11-to-1 ratio, so perhaps the 10-to-one ratio would have worked better. I also got more yellowing earlier in the tips of the RA plants.
The gin really worked. Anywhere from 25-65% shorter plants.
The flowers, fragrance and everything else was the same across all plants.
I am starting a new batch of 6 bulbs in one planter with gin to see if the fact that the gin bulbs were singles/pairs impacted the results at all. Also doing some pairs in RA. Will post a pic of these when they are grown.
(Picked up second round of bulbs at an end-of-season sale. They were marked 60% off and the manager gave me two-for-one on top of that-- 24 bulbs for just under $5. Hurray for bargain experiments! 
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I also "adopted" an orchid (a $1 special in a broken pot) and it has taken up a surprising amount of time trying to learn how to make it happy, plus time worrying that, even though it LOOKS happy, it will keel over any minute.
Only three months until pea-planting season!
Try making a separate OP with your 'tater questions. I'm sure you'll get lots of helpful info. 
I used to do this a lot, but got lazy, I suppose.
Thanks for doing the work....the results are impressive. (And I suppose this is why kids should not drink! Stunts growth! )
It was the only kind at the store.
Also, I wanted to make a full gallon of 11-to-1 mix and it's possible I erred too much on the side of caution when masuring out the amounts. Making a gallon in the way I did made the math more complicated-- I started with a store-bought gallon of spring water b/c I didn't have any empty gallon jugs and had to remove two cups to leave room for the RA and then calculate the ratio.
I also realized last night that the Cornell article says the liquor-to-water ratio should be one-to-seven, not one-to-eight (I got that in my head from a blog that linked to the CU paper), so all my gins were one-to-eight and it still worked fine. The CU paper does say that anywhere from a 4-6% solution works. Guess I proved that.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't waste good hooch on flower bulbs, but I had an open bottle rattling around from a long-ago party and, since we aren't gin drinkers, it seemed frugal and greener to use it rather than go buy a fifth of the rot gut.
Please don't tell the martiniphiles... 
am also trying some "Erlicheer", a variety that supposedly has a un-musky "honey-like" scent. They apparently require a longer period in the cold and dark and opinions vary on how well they do for forcing over pebbles, but I got them cheap and look forward to reporting back on them.
I'm also contemplating dipping my toe into hyacinth forcing. They really require a long, dark dormancy and I'm not sure there's space in my cold closet for them AND all the cheap Trader Joe's wine we have stuffed in there.