I’m curious, why the focus on distilled? You can literally boil pond water and drink it, gross, like nasty soup, but hydration that won’t cause dysentery. Toxins in the water supply can be a different story, and sometimes they are not mitigated even by distilling.
Adventures in water distillation.
Added a few stainless steel marbles to the bottom of the undistilled water pan so I can hear if I'm getting close to boiling it dry. Once I understand the method for the giving heat source (induction, natural gas, vegetable oil, wood, etc...) then I can set a timer for how until the water is low.
In an emergency situation, with freezer dried food, you can probably get by on .5 gallon per person a day. Of course, it's smart to have 25+ gallons of water on hand so you aren't immediately forced to go fetch drinking water from a natural source.
If this goes well, I'll move to pond water tests. Today I used tap water with extra ionic minerals, bringing it to 950PPM particulate. Will be curious how long it takes to make a gallon and how much of that 950PPM is removed.
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_5934664599180828371699050142.webp
Discussion
Because distillation paired with carbon + ceramic filters provides completely empty water which can be made healthy with the addition of ionic minerals. Having a kit on hand to create pristine water seems like a good thing to me.
Granted it depends on the desired outcome, but if survival is the goal, I see it as a lot of time and effort invested that generally cannot be afforded in that scenario and is unnecessary for general hydration.