# Can you drink lab alcohol? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 18, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329 "2008-11-18T19:00:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/21 "2008-11-19T15:27:25Z")
What **lazybratsche** said makes sense. It is the stuff they add to get the last 4-5% of water out that makes it toxic. However I do remember we had a 5-litre flask of HPLC-grade alcohol in our house at university which we drank (over the course of a year). My memory is hazy as to whether it was the anhydrous or not - I do remember studying the impurities statement on the label for any evidence of benzene and I’m sure I wouldn’t have drunk it if there was any… On the other hand, I’m now slightly concerned 😑 ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/22 "2008-11-19T15:35:59Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > When we needed it in the paper conservation lab I interned in, my boss went to the liquor store and bought Everclear. It worked for what we needed it for and it was a lot cheaper and less hassle, but she had to submit expense reports for cheap liquor. Huh, I never pictured you as a Clemson grad. _:d&r as fast as I can:_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/23 "2008-11-19T15:48:57Z")
The 99% ethanol we used at my University had liquor control tax stamps pasted across the top of the bottle precisely _because_ you could use it for drinking. And this was in Utah, where the temptation must have been strong. I never tried it myself There was a story about some grad student who mixed the stuff with his non-alcoholic drink, and was found passed out in his office. Heck, in my home town in New Jersey, back during Prohibition, there was a ring that purchased denatued alcohol. distilled out the alcohol (leaving the denaturing elements mostly behind, and sold the result to New York speakeasies. People will drink anythin – and any acetone or benzene that remained in THAT stuff had to be worse that any residuum in mosern 99% alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/24 "2008-11-19T21:25:13Z")
> [@](#): > > You _really_ don’t want to drink even trace amounts of benzene. Why not? It’s what makes Perrier tingle on your tongue. 🙂 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE7D61F39F933A25751C0A966958260](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE7D61F39F933A25751C0A966958260) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/25 "2008-11-19T21:32:40Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > [Previous thread about that](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278532). Interesting. My folks have alcohol (Polish Spirytus) which claims to be 96% alcohol (192 proof). [If you click on the Download Sale Sheet](http://stawskidistributing.com/polishspirits.html#Spirytus), you can see the label is marked 96%. Then there’s [this German stuff](http://shopping.kelkoo.de/ssc-100353123-monopolsprit.html) which claims to be 96.5% alcohol. Are these just mislabeled, or can you go above the 95% limit? ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/26 "2008-11-19T22:58:42Z")
At my med school the cadavers are preserved in 95% EtOH rather than formaldehyde. The bodies are kept in big stainless-steel ‘coffins’ with about 5" of alcohol at the bottom. The cadaver is on a perforated steel platform that is cranked in and out of the alcohol. +/- 32 cadavers, each in about 6 cubic feet of alcohol. Needless to say, there were drums and drums of the stuff in the basement, under lock and key, and the med students were _no longer_ allowed to ‘top off’ their tanks from the storage drums. The stuff was 95% - it couldn’t be denatured because we were elbow-deep in it for weeks and weeks. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/27 "2008-11-19T23:38:48Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > At my med school the cadavers are preserved in 95% EtOH rather than formaldehyde. Legend claims that Lord Nelson was stored in a full brandy barrel for the trip from Trafalgar to Gibraltar, where he was stored in Surgical Spirits. And the brandy had to be regularly topped up due to syphoning by sailors :eek: Si ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/28 "2008-11-20T00:27:24Z")
You can indeed use the ETHANOL based lab alcohol, in mixed drinks relatively safely. However alot of it is METHANOL based. This distinction cost someone at the research lab I worked at when I was younger his eye sight. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/29 "2008-11-20T00:31:58Z")
There was a trend for ether drinking in Ulster in the 19th century. Completely off the main topic but what would drinking ether do to you? ---
**Author:** ![Zany\_Zeolite\_Zipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/4af34b/32.png) [@Zany\_Zeolite\_Zipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zany_Zeolite_Zipper)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/30 "2008-11-20T00:36:45Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > What **lazybratsche** said makes sense. It is the stuff they add to get the last 4-5% of water out that makes it toxic. However I do remember we had a 5-litre flask of HPLC-grade alcohol in our house at university which we drank (over the course of a year). My memory is hazy as to whether it was the anhydrous or not - I do remember studying the impurities statement on the label for any evidence of benzene and I’m sure I wouldn’t have drunk it if there was any… > > On the other hand, I’m now slightly concerned 😑 You don’t need to break the azeotrope with benzene anymore, a 3A or 4A molecular sieve will do the trick. Actually, I think we’ve had the sieves since the 60’s or 70’s, so it has been possible since time immemorial to get 200 proof without benzene. Edit: What I mean is that I have seen a lot of molecular sieves for industrial work patented in the 60s and 70s. I have no idea when they were discovered/invented ---
**Author:** ![seodoa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@seodoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seodoa)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/31 "2008-11-20T00:55:20Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > Legend claims that Lord Nelson was stored in a full brandy barrel for the trip from Trafalgar to Gibraltar, where he was stored in Surgical Spirits. And the brandy had to be regularly topped up due to syphoning by sailors :eek: > > Si People drink Mezcal with dead larvae in it. They even brag about it. Here in Japan you can get liquor with dead hornets or snakes in the bottle. I’m sure a Lord Nelson infusion in alcohol would be just fine. I wonder if that could legally be argued as cannibalism… Time to find a country with anti-eating-people laws and disturb a few lawyers. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/32 "2008-11-20T01:06:12Z")
> [@Zany\_Zeolite\_Zipper](#): > > You don’t need to break the azeotrope with benzene anymore, a 3A or 4A molecular sieve will do the trick. Actually, I think we’ve had the sieves since the 60’s or 70’s, so it has been possible since time immemorial to get 200 proof without benzene. > > Edit: What I mean is that I have seen a lot of molecular sieves for industrial work patented in the 60s and 70s. I have no idea when they were discovered/invented These seives were standard in my lab. They are easily ordered and used by anyone. Dry them in the oven at 300˚C and your good to go. I wanted mine really dry, so I cooked them with a flame under a high vacuum. I agree, the benzene azeotrope is no longer used to dehydrate alcohol. Seives are cheeper in the long run and you have fewer environmental regulations to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d9b06d/32.png) [@Hoodligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodligan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/33 "2018-07-17T08:08:03Z")
I might be 10 years late to this conversation… but I found it highly entertaining. Save your change… buy a bottle of jack and a perc or two… and have yourself a safe night. But…while I’m here…in the event someone else is still looking at this thread… wtf is Alpa Fancovka? Found it in my grandmas house… a google search was not helpful… but from the smell it is at least 100 proof…and google says it is for sore muscles…but it was in the liquor cabinet… so was gma just an alky? Or is this just some potent Cheq alcohol with a secondary use? ---
**Author:** ![Hoodligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d9b06d/32.png) [@Hoodligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodligan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/34 "2018-07-17T08:10:30Z")
Seriously… and gma is dead… why I was going through her cabinets… just to clairify. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/35 "2018-07-18T01:35:10Z")
In the lab I worked in as a student we had five gallon jugs of 191 proof that we used to make a punch and was perfectly safe. There were also pint bottles of 200 proof that we knew had a bit of benzene in it. An organic chemist there said you could redistill it and throw away the first and last few ccs, but what would you do with it that you couldn’t do with 191 proof? We didn’t make a habit of it incidentally. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329/36 "2018-07-18T01:48:35Z")
I had an ancestor that went to med school in the 1930s. She told me they used to mix lab alcohol with grape juice to make a “Purple Death”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-drink-lab-alcohol/473329.md?page=1)