We report here a novel procedure for the reduction of ketones to secondary alcohols using catalytic quantities of commercially available Cp 2 TiCl 2 , inexpensive Zn dust and water as proton source. Mechanistically the reaction presumably proceeds via titanoxy radicals. In practice this reduction process has significant advantages: it shows an interesting selectivity pattern, takes place under mild conditions using safe, cheap reagents and does not require anhydrous solvents. The proton-donor activity of water under these conditions avoids the use of the frequently poisonous hydrogen-atom donors generally required to reduce free radicals. This procedure is also highly convenient for synthesising deuterium-labelled alcohols employing relatively inexpensive D 2 O as deuterium source.