Is There An Appreciable Amount of Methanol, In Alcoholics Drinks?

Question

Thanks John, Isn't There Competition At this Enzyme Step?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_dehydrogenase

Answer 1

No.  When drinks are contaminated with methanol, people go blind or die depending on how much they drank.  Ethanol is the form of alcohol that is only mildly poisonous.  But...   more people die due to drinking ethanol than methanol, consider drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and all manner of accidents.

Answer 2

As I have come to understand, the break down pathway of ethyl alcohol is pga (phospho glyceraldehyde) to pg acid to acetic acid.

For methanol you end up with formic acid (the stuff red ants sting you with), which is what causes the blindness, etc. and you use NaHCO3 to neutralize it.

Answer 3

Methyl alcohol is very poisonous.It is totally absent from bottles or cans of alcohol purchased from shops.

Answer 4

A tablespoon of methanol is enough to cause blindness and possibly death. An ounce will require hemodialysis to save you. Last I checked, there was no requirement that bars have dialysis centers next door.

Answer 5

There is, at best, trace amounts, particularly in wines with wood based additives such as Retsina, or the wines like vermouths and sherries (especially from old soleras), but nothing like the percentages to cause the metabolic change to formalin.