I’m not sure of the toxicity of the product, but you can find denatured ethyl alcohol on store shelves practically everywhere today. There are two “rubbing” alcohols for sale – isopropyl, which is not an intoxicant, is unpalatable, and which has a distinct aroma, and denatured ethyl alcohol. Once denatured, ethyl alcohol is not taxed the same as drinking alcohol.
I had never heard of it either. I knew that denatured alcohol had SOMETHING In it to make it taste bad, but not specifically what it was called.
No, this has already been corrected a few times in the thread. Isopropyl alcohol is an intoxicant, and is in fact stronger than ethanol.
Isopropyl alcohol directly acts as a CNS depressant and is considered to be twice as inebriating as ethanol.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/isopropyl-alcohol
>sigh<
One more time - you certainly CAN get intoxicated on isopropyl. I don’t know where people got the notion you can’t. I’m told it’s not as much fun as ethanol, and certainly does not smell or taste as good as all the various ethanol beverages tweaked to appeal to the human palate.
Worth mentioning that hand sanitizers are very often made with ethanol, and such versions are very consumable. So that’s where people get the impression, because it often is just fine to consume.
In fact during the height of the pandemic when liquor distillers took a hit in demand, they made it up by selling to manufacturers of hand sanitizer. So for the past 2 years I’ve frequently noticed that the hand sanitizer in doctors’ and dentists’ offices smells like tequila, because it has tequila in it. Or nothing, which could have been vodka or other white liquors.
No idea why it was always tequila and never bourbon, rum, scotch, etc. My theory is that liquors aged in barrels probably stayed there because age adds market value. Plus maybe brown/gold tinted hand sanitizer might not be as competitive on the market (though in the pandemic market who knows).
It’s about 50/50. If the ingredients just say “alcohol” it’s probably ethanol. The bags we were taking theft reports on said isopropyl on their ingredients. They were being taken from municipal buildings and a local tech college. We’d look at the video camera footage and sure enough, there would be some bum ripping open the plastic dispenser and stealing the solution bag.
Then later we’d find these guys in muni parking lots curled up and puking or crapping their pants. That stuff is terrible to the intestines!
Probably because so few of us drink isopropyl to get drunk, knowing its effects. Your link, by the way, doesn’t state that isopropyl will get you drunk, only that it has toxic effects.
It’s not obvious that isopropyl (or any other alcohol, for that matter) will get you drunk. A quick search on medical sites confirms that both isopropyl and methyl alcohol can give you the same drunken feeling as ethanol, but with much more toxic side-effects. I don’t know about other alcohols.
I had assumed that people only ingested methyl alcohol because of poor quality control in distillation, or because of ignorance in choosing their intoxicants. It never occurred to me that someone might deliberately choose another alcohol in experimentation or desperation. Ignorance fought.
Sure they will. According to inchem.org, "The potency of 1-butanol [“slightly toxic” according to the classification of Hodge & Sterner] for intoxication is approximately 6 times that of ethanol… The potency of 2-butanol [“practically non-toxic”] for intoxication is approximately 4 times that of ethanol… The potency of tert-butanol [“slightly toxic”]… is approximately 1.5 times that of ethanol… 1-propanol [“more neurotoxic than ethanol”] was 2.5 times as potent…
I used to work regularly with pentanol. Looks like I missed an opportunity there.
Methanol is most commonly consumed unknowingly. It is very difficult to introduce enough methanol during distillation no matter how poor your quality control is. Fermentation doesn’t generally produce enough to matter (unless there are pectins, like with an apple brandy, but even then you’d pretty much have to be intentionally trying to extract the methanol).
Consuming methanol on purpose to get drunk is a mistake you don’t make multiple times, because you’re probably dead after the first time. Methanol poisoning in adults is most commonly caused by a bad guy adding it to make people think it’s booze.
Another “advantage” of isopropyl alcohol for the hardcore alcoholic who’s still trying to keep up appearances is that there’s no telltale odor on the breath.
Really? Not even the telltale odor of rubbing alcohol?
It should be noted that during Prohibition, bootleggers found ways to remove or neutralize adulterants that had been added to industrial alcohol. Their products sometimes weren’t all that palatable either.
“The homemade alcohol of this era was harsh. It was almost never barrel-aged and most moonshiners would try to mimic flavors by mixing in some suspect ingredients. They found they could simulate bourbon [by adding dead rats or rotten meat to the moonshine and letting it sit for a few days. They made gin by adding juniper oil to raw alcohol, while they mixed in creosotean antiseptic made from wood tar, to recreate scotch’s smokey flavor.”
Patent medicines (poorly regulated, not that we have a great situation now) were another source of danger. One of them, Jamaica Ginger caused numerous cases of paralysis before people caught on.
I pointed out above that during Prohibition officials in my home town had a ring that bought denatured alcohol and took it to a chemical factory to distill out the adulterants.
My home town – I’m so proud.
They were caught and the ring reported on by the New York Times.
Paul Brickhill, in his book The Great Escape (about the mass escape from Stalag Luft III during WWII. They based the movie on this book) wrote that after they fermented “raisin hooch”, some guys distilled it to get spirits (although not as much as the movie showed). There was a Polish pilot in the camp who’d been a chemistry professor, and for a cut of the liquid himself, would add some chemicals to the mix that would turn it into fake whiskey. It was reportedly an adequate substitute, especially if you couldn’t clearly remember what whiskey tasted like. He wouldn’t tell them what he added, but I suspect it wasn’t dead rats or rotten meat. Creosote I could believe.
When I was a little kid, I remember my grandpa talking about prohibition and the danger of “wood alcohol” and how a friend of his died from it back in the day.
I am passing on what certain patients have told me. I have not tried the experiment personally.
Thank you for that information. I have not yet read the article in your link, but I will. I am very curious as to why, if isopropanol is a stronger intoxicant, it is not widely used for that purpose unless it, like ethanol, it is denatured for sale.
Try this explanation: In it’s un-denatured state isopropanol a slightly stronger intoxicant and a much more deadly poison. But cheaper than ethanol.
The only people who would (or do) drink it are those too screwed up to give a shit about their personal short- or long-term survival. Folks for whom the cheapest high, any high, is the one and only overriding goal.