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You can also use Everclear for industrial purposes, e.g. diluting wood finishes, as a less toxic alternative to denatured alcohol. I live in a state where you
by twblalock 9y ago
You can also use Everclear for industrial purposes, e.g. diluting wood finishes, as a less toxic alternative to denatured alcohol.
I live in a state where you can buy denatured alcohol full of legally-mandated poison at hardware stores, but you can't get 190-proof Everclear anywhere. It's an odd screwed-up situation when you are only allowed to sell high-proof alcohol if you poison it first. I suspect the health damage done by the fumes over the years far outweighs the public health benefits of restricting the strength of drinkable alchohol, and the health damage falls disproportionately on people using the alcohol for non-recreational purposes.
- kgwgk 9y ago> the public health benefits of restricting the strength of drinkable alchohol I think the restriction is mostly to ensure taxes are paid on drinkable alcohol and not due to health concerns.
- twblalock 9y agoIt is illegal to sell 190 Everclear in my state. Taxes don’t have anything to do with it.
- dpark 9y agoOut of curiosity, where do you live? When I lived in Mississippi I couldn’t buy it, either. But then, I lived in a town where I couldn’t buy cold beer.
- kgwgk 9y agoTrue, I didn’t completely understand your comment on the first read. But I wonder if enough people would actually buy expensive drinkable alcohol instead of the inexpensive denaturalized one for the difference in toxicity to make a difference when it comes to industrial applications.
- dpark 9y agoThere is undoubtedly some small contingency of people who fervently believe that putting methanol or acetone in ethanol to ”denature” it will reduce alcohol consumption and improve “public health”. Mostly, though, denatured alcohol exists to ensure that industrial use of alcohol isn’t crippled by “sin” taxes. Alcohol taxation is a big revenue generator. Selling 190 proof ethanol at the hardware store for a couple bucks per liter would likely put a real dent in tax revenue as people used it in place of vodka and everclear for punches and whatnot. Charging a $10 tax per liter on industrial ethanol would put a real dent in otherwise valuable uses. So denatured alcohol is the ugly compromise. I’m just happy I live in a state where I can buy 190 in a liquor store. It’s faster and more cost effective for liqueur creation than 150. It’s amazing how rapidly it desiccates lemon zest. I’d leave 150 for almost a month to extract lemon oils. 190 does the same job in about a week. I agree that blocking the sale of alcohol over 150 proof is bizarre and does nothing to reduce alcohol consumption. Frankly no one is drinking 190 straight so blocking the sale just means you buy two fifths of 150 instead of one of 190 for your party.
- jpindar 9y agoWould isopropyl alcohol work for those industrial purposes? Amazon sells 99% isopropyl.
- dpark 9y agoProbably for some uses. One major drawback of isopropyl is that it’s so much more toxic than ethanol.