Be careful where and what you drink

[scubadada]

Not at all surprising

 

[deepsea21]

Tainted alcohol? Tainted with what? From what I've read 99.9% of that "tainted" alcohol that was seized by Mexican authorities was seized for random yet minor violations at licensed and reputable producers. I guess my question would be to the father who started all of this and has surrounded himself with the media is, "How on earth do your daughter and son register a BAC content 3x the legal limit of impaired after having only 2 shots?" (which he watched them drink). Either he watched his kids down 2 shots that were served in full 8oz glasses or the kids were drinking far more in a much shorter period of time at the free bar than he knew about or cared to monitor.

C'mon now, millions of tourists drink to extreme excess every year in Mexico... Statistically there will be incidents related to that behavior but to condemn an entire industry and make claims that "tainted" booze caused these incidents, runs rampant, and all should be gravely concerned is absolutely ridiculous. I will continue to enjoy my beers and mixed drinks at every establishment I visit in Mexico without any concern whatsoever. Statistically, my odds of being struck by lightening this year are greater than experiencing some sort of incident related to "tainted" alcohol consumption in Mexico.

 

[Altamira]

Tainted alcohol could just be moonshine, which kills lots of folks world wide every year. Put some of that stuff in your favorite beverage, and you could wind up on your butt, or worse, in a very short period of time.

 

[Brules]

Exactly, cutting legit liquor with grain alcohol could easily blow your BAC out of the water with just a few drinks.

I guarantee they do it, take the bottles back from the end of the day - take 1 new bottle and split it into 2 or 3, fill the rest with raw grain alcohol. Saves you big bucks, gets people drunk faster. Saw it happen in person, so call me a liar, but you are naive if you don't think it would happen in Mexico lol.

 

[ggunn]

Exactly, cutting legit liquor with grain alcohol could easily blow your BAC out of the water with just a few drinks.

I guarantee they do it, take the bottles back from the end of the day - take 1 new bottle and split it into 2 or 3, fill the rest with raw grain alcohol. Saves you big bucks, gets people drunk faster. Saw it happen in person, so call me a liar, but you are naive if you don't think it would happen in Mexico lol.

But if a mixed drink is 30% booze, and the booze is normally 50% ethanol, then making the booze, say, 80% ethanol isn't going to make that huge a difference to a single drink. Also, the management of a club is going to create more problems for himself than he solves by making his customers much drunker than they "intended" to get. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't think it's killing people.

Of course, there's alcohol and then there's alcohol. Most of the hubbub over folks having adverse reactions to "moonshine" that I have seen is not from an excess of ethanol but rather from other toxic adulterants such as methanol which get added by unscrupulous traffickers of the stuff. No self respecting Appalachian moonshiner would do that to his product; he wants his customers to be repeat customers.

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Pure alcohol is not 100 Proof, just 200 proof. It is for sale on some US locales as "everclear". But poorly prepared can contain all kinds of bad stuff.

Dave

 

[JohnN]

Pure alcohol is not 100 Proof, just 200 proof. It is for sale on some US locales as "everclear". But poorly prepared can contain all kinds of bad stuff.

Dave

Ahhh now you've brought out my inner chemistry geek. . . "pure" ethyl alcohol is fairly hard to produce. Alcohol and water form a constant boiling azeotrope at about 95% alcohol. Removing that last little bit of water requires adding other chemicals which then can be difficult to remove. When distilling the early (heads) and late (tails) distillate are usually discarded since they can carry nasty tasting (and potentially harmful) turpenes,

Back in the day we would check out ethyl alcohol from the chemical store room and run a sample through a gas chromatograph before consuming (with a little acetic acid for flavor)

 

[Altamira]

Unfortunately, you are not going to find many "good ole boy" Appalachian moonshiners in Mexico or any other foreign country where cutting high quality, known brand liquor with crap, potentially lethal moonshine is rampant. When in foreign countries, I only drink bottled beer that is not opened until at the table. It is a shame because I really like Margaritas.

 

[Altamira]

Ahhh now you've brought out my inner chemistry geek. . . "pure" ethyl alcohol is fairly hard to produce. Alcohol and water form a constant boiling azeotrope at about 95% alcohol. Removing that last little bit of water requires adding other chemicals which then can be difficult to remove. When distilling the early (heads) and late (tails) distillate are usually discarded since they can carry nasty tasting (and potentially harmful) turpenes,

Back in the day we would check out ethyl alcohol from the chemical store room and run a sample through a gas chromatograph before consuming (with a little acetic acid for flavor)

Now, here is a man that is a liquor purist. Good for you.

 

[ggunn]

Ahhh now you've brought out my inner chemistry geek. . . "pure" ethyl alcohol is fairly hard to produce. Alcohol and water form a constant boiling azeotrope at about 95% alcohol. Removing that last little bit of water requires adding other chemicals which then can be difficult to remove. When distilling the early (heads) and late (tails) distillate are usually discarded since they can carry nasty tasting (and potentially harmful) turpenes,

Back in the day we would check out ethyl alcohol from the chemical store room and run a sample through a gas chromatograph before consuming (with a little acetic acid for flavor)

Beat me to it. Everclear is 190 proof.