Alcool a bruler?

[nirakaro]

Bought a bottle in France last week: it's the French equivalent, as I understand it, of good old-fashioned English meths, but it doesn’t look, and it doesn't smell, a bit like meths. It looks, and smells, like extremely cheap brandy. I wonder why? And though the label warns against getting it in your eyes, or even on your skin, it doesn't say anything about not drinking it. Purely hypothetical question (honest), but would it be safe to drink?

[Brucey]

not safe to drink! Contains methanol and should contain a bittering agent. Smells the way it does because it is made from an organic product.

Lots of info here

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=103517.0

cheers

[meic]

I dont know about safe but I take it that your liquid handling skills are better than mine.
I dont know how but I got some contamination and it tastes absolutely vile.
No matter how gorgeous it smells (as used for household cleaning), you wouldnt enjoy drinking it.

[thirdcrank]

If anybody does drink l'alcool à brûler in any quantity, they should soon find out if it's the same as meths: a regular meths drinker smells like a tom cat. Both forms are "denatured" - made extremely unpleasant to drink - but I thought the addition of methanol was confined to meths.

Since booze has always been relatively cheap in France I'd always assumed that there was less incentive to drink this sort of thing when penniless, so less need for a deterrent.

[Brucey]

IIRC the methanol isn't added to some forms of ethanol, it arises through the manufacturing route. AaB is (IIRC) made by distilling wood chips, and methanol is a by-product of this process, that costs to remove entirely. In fact Methanol used to be called 'wood alcohol' for the reason that it was produced via this route.

cheers

[climo]

Makes you go blind.
I used to work with North American native indians (long story) and drinking wood alcohol was not unknown. I knew of one instance of suicide by drinking it. Not a good way to go.

[Roadster]

Back in the 60s, I was acquainted with an alcoholic who would steal and drink the surgical spirit which his "friend",
One-Armed Pete, routinely applied to his residual stump. The alcoholic soon died of his addiction, but whether that was due to the rubbing alcohol, its constituent linseed oil or other imbibed stuff is not recorded.

[Brucey]

Surgical spirits are defined as

95% methylated spirit, 2.5% castor oil, 2% diethyl phthalate, and 0.5% methyl salicylate (wintergreen oil)

Methylated spirits are up to 10% methanol, balance ethanol, with a bittering agent (typically pyridine) and (for non medical uses) typically also contains a violet dye (in the UK).

If you drank surgical spirits you would soon end up in a bad way for a number of reasons. There is a medical/chemical reagent grade pure alcohol that is available; I believe this is, on occasion, misused, eg by medical students etc.

cheers

[Roadster]

Surgical spirits are defined as 95% methylated spirit, 2.5% castor oil...
If you drank surgical spirits you would soon end up in a bad way for a number of reasons.

Ah yes, castor not linseed oil.
As for ending up in a bad way, he certainly did: ways don't get much badder than dead!

[Randy_Butternubs]

In recent years I've found a new kind of denatured ethanol on sale in the UK in several shops. It is clear and doesn't have the horrible smell of purple meths. It's advertised as being methanol-free and therefore safer. I would imagine it still tastes terrible though (I've not tried it).

Mine is called "bioethanol". It isn't expensive - actually I think it may be cheaper than purple meths which is often absurdly pricey in pharmacists and camping shops. If you get through a lot of the stuff you can get a case off ebay for big savings eg:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bio-ethanol-F ... SwJSJXGLMN

£2.58 per litre compared to £5 per 500ml of purple meths I've often seen.

[Norman H]

I use bioethanol in my Trangia burner and in various home made beer can burners. It does produce some soot, dependant on burner design, but it burns cleaner than methylated spirits, I bought 2litres from B&Q some years ago and it's lasting well.

[thirdcrank]

... doesn't have the horrible smell of purple meths....

One of my earliest childhood memories is of breakfast being fried on primus stoves primed with meths, when we went on holiday to Charity Farm at Sewerby, when it was a ramshackle collection of old buses etc., serving as caravans. It's a really nostalgic smell for me.

OTOH, as I've posted above, the smell of a meths drinker evokes less pleasant memories. And there but for fortune....