# Source of alcohol in spirit drinks **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 13, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446 "2021-10-13T19:45:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/22 "2021-10-14T13:06:32Z")
This has saved me a trip to the optometrist! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2021, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/23 "2021-10-22T16:47:48Z")
> [@Nansbread1](#): > > Does anything from the original material remain in the end product. The fairly obscure word you’re looking for is congeners. From the not much larger [Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congener_(beverages)): > These substances include small amounts of chemicals such as methanol and other alcohols (known as fusel alcohols), acetone, acetaldehyde, esters, tannins, and aldehydes (e.g. furfural). Congeners are responsible for most of the taste and aroma of distilled alcoholic beverages, and contribute to the taste of non-distilled drinks. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/24 "2021-10-25T02:27:24Z")
Your website ain’t workin’, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/25 "2021-10-25T02:29:42Z")
Weird. It seems to be working for my wife and I. What isn’t working? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/26 "2021-10-25T02:30:56Z")
" The connection for this site is not secure **[www.vedelvendistillery.com](http://www.vedelvendistillery.com)** sent an invalid response. - [Try running Windows Network Diagnostics](javascript:diagnoseErrors()). ERR\_SSL\_PROTOCOL\_ERROR" ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/27 "2021-10-25T02:31:36Z")
Seems to just be Edge though… weird. Chrome is ok. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/28 "2021-10-25T02:33:03Z")
Oh, ok. Got it. I’ll let them know. That’s just a distillery I’m building. It freaked me out thinking [mine](https://Boozewerks.com) was down since most of my work comes through there. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/29 "2021-11-01T19:10:20Z")
A bit off topic but why is it some people claim, “I can drink vodka all night long but whiskey (tequila, rum, whatever)? It makes me crazy! I’ll never touch that stuff again!” Alcohol is alcohol, right? I can understand how a bad experience, Southern Comfort in my case, can turn one off to a particular booze forever but why do they think its, literally, a different kind of drunk? ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/30 "2021-11-01T19:22:19Z")
Sometimes, it’s not the alcohol per se, but the other stuff left in by the distillers, that messes you up. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/31 "2021-11-01T19:31:49Z")
Oredigger is the expert on this, but I highly doubt it has anything to do with stuff left in by the distillers, unless you’re talking about some home distiller who doesn’t know the difference between heads and tails. There just isn’t enough of that nasty stuff like acetone and methanol in the original mash to cause problems. Bad flavors? Sure. Poisoning? No, the ethanol will poison you long before the other stuff will. If people complain about different liquors making them more sick/hung over, it’s almost always 1. Confirmation bias 2. Drinking more of it because they like the taste or the cocktails made with it 3. Bad association due to getting sick off it once 4. The mixers, particularly high-sugar crap ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/32 "2021-11-01T19:54:09Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > If people complain about different liquors making them more sick/hung over, it’s almost always > > 1. Confirmation bias > 2. Drinking more of it because they like the taste or the cocktails made with it > 3. Bad association due to getting sick off it once > 4. The mixers, particularly high-sugar crap Yep, mostly #1. People decide tequila makes them fight so they drink tequila and look to get in a fight. Back in the day I made rum from sugar beet molasses so legally it wasn’t rum it was a beet spirit. We got a lot of different reactions from people depending on if we told them it was rum or a beet spirit. Same booze but even the same person would act different on different occasions. #2 and 4 tend to be what impacts how you feel the next morning although there are some allowed additions that can make a difference too. Like glycol is allowed up to 50g/L and I’ve found spirits that are close to the max tend to make me feel worse the next day. Also sugar is used to cover up a lot of inferior spirits and up to 2% is allowed prior to label disclosure and most people won’t perceive that addition except as it takes the edge off. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/33 "2021-11-01T19:55:25Z")
I agree. Tequila has a reputation for crazy behavior, and I’ve heard that “gin has a fight in every bottle”, but I suspect that it’s more that parties and get togethers where people start drinking straight (cheap) tequila or gin are probably more… hard drinking affairs than ones where people are drinking white wine and vodka. You have to be pretty dedicated to getting f-ed up to start drinking straight tequila or gin, and that leads to more crazy behavior than when people are just drinking to be social and drinking stuff that tastes good. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/34 "2021-11-01T20:01:46Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > There just isn’t enough of that nasty stuff like acetone and methanol in the original mash to cause problems. Oh, I should probably talk about this too since it may not be true. For some spirits like eue d vie or apple brandy it takes a lot of skill to separate the heads from the apple flavor since they have a very similar boiling point so spirits like lairds apple jack is more likely to have methanol in it then a bourbon. Particularly when distillers are trying to chase particular flavors even if it burns you can get some weird cuts made. The heads end is more likely to cause problems but you’ll see some weird fuel oils come in on the tails end too. In most cases, with popular American spirits, this isn’t really an issue any more then some of the weird botanical macerations putting in unsafe chemicals but I did want to bring up that it is possible for some spirits to be more problematic. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/35 "2021-11-01T20:02:49Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > Back in the day I made rum from sugar beet molasses so legally it wasn’t rum it was a beet spirit. Didn’t all the salts affect the flavor? ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/36 "2021-11-01T20:05:43Z")
> [@bump](#): > > You have to be pretty dedicated to getting f-ed up to start drinking straight tequila or gin, Hey, now. I resemble that remark. We do lots of tasting parties where we will taste 20 different types of the same spirit. My last one was rye whiskey and the next one is apple brandies (us and european). Drinking high quality spirits straight or on the rocks isn’t a sign of wanting to get fucked up any more then drinking Coors light is. There is a lot of variation within the spirits categories and in most cases the only way to understand that is to do comparative tastings with in a category. It’s a lot of fun and people can really learn both about the category and themselves. Maybe you do like gin but there is a particular thing you don’t like that is in most gins. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/37 "2021-11-01T20:07:58Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Didn’t all the salts affect the flavor? We worked with out local sugar mill to get a non Steffan’s process molasses which doesn’t have the weird chemicals you typically get from a beet molasses. I had to buy it by the tanker load but it was worth it. We also bought beet white sugar to blend 50/50 to help balance the flavor. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446/38 "2021-11-01T20:32:34Z")
Tasting parties are one thing… I’ve been privy to some really cool whiskey tasting events in fact. I’m not saying that straight spirits are the problem- far from it. I’m talking about the college and early twenties parties where after a while, people quit with the beer, or with margaritas, and just start taking shots of whatever’s on hand. Which is usually tequila or gin, because at least when I was in college, knowledge of applications beyond rocks margaritas and G&Ts was virtually unknown to most people. That’s when the crazy behavior starts- when people quit mixing and start drinking whatever’s still on hand at the party, which is usually gin or tequila, as people have got into the rum, whiskey and vodka already. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/source-of-alcohol-in-spirit-drinks/952446.md?page=1)