Quote:
“Gooby;57708841]This isn't my area of expertise but I thought ethanol is a chemical for use in industry etc and is not made for human consumption no matter how much it is watered down.
Alcohol for drinking is made in a completely different way.
[snip]
No-one should drink industrial alcohol like ethanol - you can easily die from stuff like that.”
Kind of. Ethanol is the
exact same psychoactive chemical as the alcohol we know and love in alcoholic beverages. Pure ethanol is entirely drinkable, though at 200% proof it would be like swallowing a chillie. Still, as I like cask strength whisky and rum at 140%, I'd certainly have a go at some pure stuff. Might even snort it!
I used to have a book on building a home-still and it claimed that pure ethanol is in fact
better for you than most commercial distillates because it is the impurities left in the alcohol to impart flavour that really add to the hangover pain. This is why heavily flavoured (impure) spirits like dark rum and brandy make your head throb while the most highly filtered "pure" vodkas like Skyy and Finlandia are advertized as easier on the hangover.
The key difference is that drinking ethanol is made from good old-fashioned fermentation (sugars turned into ethanol by yeast), whereas some industrial ethanol is made from a chemical process which turns sulphuric and other acids into ethanol.
As one of the main (non-drinking) uses of alcohol is it's amazing solvent properties (things dissolve very easily in it), I suppose the main risk is lack of purity and the ease with which alcohol carrys any toxin/contaniment it has come into contact with. Drinking even traces of sulphuric acid doesn't bare thinking about. Horrific.
Also, IIRC industrial manufacturers deliberately add agents to the ethanol to render it undrinkable (and so avoid the drinking tax bracket.) This could either be something to make it taste disgusting or even something toxic.
@OP. My grandad used to have a still during prohibition and you can still get moonshine (or in Ireland poteen) today, but I would never touch illegal distillates off anyone I didn't know and trust.
If you want to get your own drinkable ethanol, you'll probably have to build your own still!
But like people have said, Alcopops are just cocktails. If you don't want any flavour Skyy vodka claims to be the purest, though I can't vouch for that personally....