Summary
Holly Bowles, a 19-year-old Australian, has become the sixth foreign tourist to die from suspected methanol poisoning in Laos.
She and her friend Bianca Jones fell ill in Vang Vieng, a popular backpacking town, after reportedly consuming tainted alcohol, which can be lethal even in small amounts.
Other victims include a British lawyer, an American man, and two Danish women. Methanol, often found in bootleg or home-distilled alcohol, is believed to be the cause.
Authorities are investigating, with the manager of the hostel where free shots were served detained for questioning.
Homemade alcohol being deadly because of methanol is a myth. If you just look at what ingredients you put it, it’s clear the amount of methanol is too small to be deadly.
This is almost always someone cutting their booze with cheap methanol.
Except when it isn’t. If the price of the locally fermented alcohol is lower than the price of imported methanol (not every country has a chemical industry and some of those countries have a really low GNP), then it’s just not going to be the case. And since there have been methanol contaminations in such countries, we know with certainty that it isn’t always caused by adding methanol.
Some scientists heard the same argument (that it was added methanol), thought that wouldn’t always make sense and then did some research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5028366/
“This study assessed some traditional fermented beverages and found that some beverages are prone to methanol contamination including cachaca, cholai, agave, arak, plum and grape wines.”
That’s true for beers, wines, etc., but not for liquor, which is what I mentioned. Liquor being anything that is distilled.
Distillation does not magically add methanol. If you simply look at the ingredients, it’s fairly clear that it would be very hard to ferment a deadly amount of ethanol.
Maybe if they added tons of wood and leaves and used high pectine fruits? I guess it’s a possibility, but still seems unlikely.
For fermented drinks, yeah, but not necessarily true for distillates.
Not sure what you’re talking about, distillates are distilled fermented drinks, the methanol content doesn’t magically change.
You can’t get more methanol by distilling. Yes it’ll be more concentrated, unless you’re throwing a ton of leaves and wood, I’m not sure where any significant amount would come from. I think possibly high pectine fruits could prove dangerous, but not sure about that.
The concentration is the problem.
It shouldn’t be, the amount should still be pretty insignificant…
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