Why can’t we drink industrial ethanol diluted to, say, 15%, but we can drink ethanol made from yeast?
In: Chemistry
You can’t just buy “industrial ethanol” because it needs to be denatured for tax reasons. If you go buy a bottle of Everclear, that’s basically pure ethanol that you can dilute however you want. Drinking straight ethanol, however, is hard on your body, makes it easy to overdose & presents a significant fire hazard.
Here in the US, if you’re buying cheap vodka you probably *are* buying industrially produced ethanol that’s just slightly more purified and watered down. This is because we have massive subsidies for corn & fuel ethanol. The factory just needs to make it a slightly cleaner batch and they can sell it at a much higher profit margin to alcohol producers who add water & a fancy label on it.
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