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Watch What You Order: This Cheaper Alcohol Ingredient Substitute is Making Drinks Poisonous!

Everyone has heard that quality comes at a price. In a never-ending effort to lower costs, quality is, therefore, the first thing to go even though it might actually be worth the price. Recently, methanol—the same chemical that is found in antifreeze and drain cleaner—has become popular as a replacement for ethanol in alcoholic beverages. Although the alcohol produces a similar buzz to that of ethanol, the effects that come later are horrific and, unfortunately, often deadly.

In a recent case (as reported by the Daily Mail Online), Kate McCormick and Laura Livanou—two British lawyers—were on vacation in Bali when they fell ill after having had vodka Red Bulls at a local bar. After…

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 Could Bootleg Alcohol Explain The Dominican Republic Deaths?

Police are looking into whether "bootleg booze" containing toxic chemicals could have contributed to the string of deaths that have occurred in the Dominican Republic between June 2018 and now, the New York Post reports. To date, seven people have died, and there has been speculation from family members and experts that these deaths may be related.

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Can You Really Drink Yourself Blind?

Some people will drink products that contain methanol—including antifreeze, paint thinner, and other denatured alcohol products—in pursuit of a cheap buzz. As little as 4 milliliters of methanol has been known to cause blindness, and as little as 30 to 60 milliliters has been reported to kill drinkers. A more common lethal dose would be 70 to 100 milliliters.

FYI: Can Drinking Moonshine Really Make Me Go Blind?

So where does the methanol that causes blindness come from? It's not the alcohol itself you need to be worried about so much as the distiller. Methanol--also known as wood alcohol--is cheap, and its physiological effects on the body are the same as ethanol's, at least at first. Unscrupulous moonshiners will actually add methanol to their product to up the potency. And when they do so, the results can range from slightly unhealthy to absolutely deadly.

Moonshine Poisoning Is Still a Massive, Deadly Problem Worldwide

After nearly a hundred people were killed by drinking bootleg liquor in Mumbai over the weekend, it's hard not to wonder when the problem of poisonous booze will end.

Tainted Alcohol Danger In Mexico

Mexico has long dealt with issues stemming from counterfeit alcohol. The country’s government estimates that 43% of the alcohol consumed in the nation is illegal and produced in unregulated facilities.

What's Inside: Vodka

Found only in the cheap, poisonous stuff, this short-chain alcohol is metabolized into a substance called formic acid, which does a real number on the eyes, blocking mitochondrial pathways in the optic nerve and retina. Incredibly lucky methanol guzzlers might start to get their vision back within a week; unlucky ones face optic atrophy and total, permanent blindness.

A drink to die for? Avoiding methanol poisoning

You can't see, smell or taste it. So how would you know if a tainted Bali cocktail or home-distilled spirit contains methanol?

Aspartame Pathway

Coca-Cola notes that "when aspartame is digested, the body breaks it down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol" -- and it is methanol that is one of the root problems with aspartame.

Methanol Ingestion

Alcohols are hydrocarbons with one or more hydroxyl groups. Although all alcohols are toxic to varying degrees, the toxic alcohols refer to all but ethanol, which is consumed widely in beverages and medicinal preparations. Methanol is a single carbon alcohol that is highly toxic in very small quantities—as little as a sip in small children. Although its use in the embalming process dates back to ancient Egypt, pure methanol was not isolated until the mid seventeenth century by the chemist Robert Boyle through distilling boxwood. In fact, the word methanol derives from the Greek words for wood and wine.

Methanol Poisoning: A Silent Epidemic

Looking to cut costs and speed up production targets, Indonesian home breweries and black market alcohol factories sometimes fail to sufficiently heat the alcohol—or eschew the heating process completely—leaving the deadly methanol behind. Reports of methanol being deliberately added to poison consumers are extremely rare, if they happen at all; it’s far more likely to be a case of human error.

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StatPearls

Methanol poisoning is most often due to accidental or intentional ingestions, and accidental epidemic poisonings due to distilling and fermenting errors and beverage contamination.