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> all non-drinking alcohol is poisoned ...in the USA. In many (most?) other countries pure ethanol can be bought easily over the counter, and where I live eve
by jbotz 5y ago
> all non-drinking alcohol is poisoned
...in the USA.
In many (most?) other countries pure ethanol can be bought easily over the counter, and where I live even at any gas station. Yes, you could drink the ethanol from the gas station here (it has no additives, but better dilute it first), but nobody does because the cheapest cachaça isn't any more expensive.
- TYFYC 5y agoIt's a peeve of mine. One of those inconvenient truths of history that people don't like to talk about or don't know about. We (the US government) started poisoning alcohol WITHOUT TELLING PEOPLE. The fact that the practice continues is ridiculous.
- fmajid 5y agoMy father worked for Saudi petrochemical company SABIC in the 80s. Some bright spark decided to go to the ethanol factory and get some high purity hooch from a tap and make an end run around Saudi alcohol restrictions. Unfortunately he made a wrong turn and went to the methanol factory instead…
- KaiserPro 5y agoSAme for the UK, it should have some percentage of methanol or some sort of difficult to remove bittering agent
- yarcob 5y agoI can't talk for all countries, but in Austria the cheapest alcohol you can buy is "Spiritus", and they add something to make it taste bitter. You can use it as fuel, for degreasing, cleaning, etc. You can get pure, food grade ethanol at the pharmacy.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoDefinitely not the case in the EU. You can buy it, but it'll be taxed like drinking alcohol. However, I'm surprised that other alcohols (e.g. isopropanol) that don't suffer from this cannot be used instead of ethanol.