3 ms·

Additives are still added to make alcohol poisonous and unpalatable, in addition in many countries a coloring is added. Traditionally, the main additive is 10%

• Confusion 17y ago
  Usually it's the other way around: unpalatable additives are added to already poisonous substances, to prevent them from being consumed. The usual example is cleaning alcohol: it already contains methanol (because it is cheaper than ethanol and because it has different properties, which makes for better cleaning alcohol) and the coloring, smelling and vomit-reflex-inducing substances are added to prevent poor, ignorant slobs from going blind and paralysed (and eventually dead) by drinking it.
  • yannis 17y ago
    Not really! see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol). Since normal alcohol (ethanol) is highly taxed (sin tax), additives are added to stop people from using it other than for industrial or medical use or even to make it difficult to distill again, hence they add methanol and the additives. The tax man has protected himself very carefully :)
    • goodside 17y ago
      Yes, really. Pure ethanol is more expensive than methylated alcohol (which has both ethanol and methanol) even before taxes are applied. Denaturing existing pure ethanol with methanol is wasteful, as the constituants are more valuable separated. In Poland, alcohol is by law denatured only with safe, taste-altering substances, and so their denatured alcohol is more expensive than in other countries because industrial manufacturers have to produce the stuff methanol-free.
      • yannis 17y ago
        Please read the customs regulations for the uk http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_024321&propertyType=document http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPort... , as the US is a couple of volumes thick! Quoting: Excise duty is not charged on spirits used for industrial or scientific purposes, so long as it has been contaminated ('denatured') to make it undrinkable. At present the relief is managed through the Methylated Spirits Regulations 1987 (MSR), which require spirits purchased for non-drinkable uses to be made unsuitable for drinking prior to delivery to the end user. MSR allows for 3 different formulations of denatured spirits. The spirits are only contaminated to ensure that they are not used for human consumption and thus avoid tax. They do not offer any advantages (actually fumes from methanol are toxic).
    • Confusion 17y ago
      Well, it's both. As you state, they are required to add stuff to ethanol, to make it undrinkable. On the other hand, if something is already poisonous, they are required to add the same stuff. In the case of cleaning alcohol, the manufacturer would 'add' (or 'not remove', depending on the process) the methanol even if they weren't required to. As such, the cleaning alcohol is poisonous and they have to add the other stuff. My point was merely that that situation is actually more common than the first, because methanol is cheaper than ethanol.