Alcohol Is Alcohol Is Alcohol Or Is There Different Types Of Alcohol

[RATTER15]

I dont really know what I am talking about here but here goes.

If you were to take a range of different alcoholic drinks and extract the pure alcohol element from them, would the pure alcohol be exactly the same when compared to each other?

Just curious.

[EDDIE51]

'Alcohols' are a range of Organic compounds there are 100s of them, but only one Ethyl Alcohol or Ethanol is drinkable. As sqad says Ethyl Alcohol's chemical formular is C3H5OH. This is what is in all 'Alcoholic drinks' from Beer to Tequila.

[EDDIE51]

To add a bit more information , many drinks have a lot of other compouds in them as well as Ethyl alcohol, Brandy for example has 100s of other compounds as well as the Ethyl Alcohol. It is these other compounds that cause hang overs and alter mood in some people. Vodka should be pure Ethyl Alcohol and water so is less likedly to cause hang overs.

[WELSHYORKIE]

Boy oh boy, Eddie - Vodka used to give me blinding hangovers but then I did go to excess

[EDDIE51]

Yorkie ,There are 2 reasons for hangovers one is the 'other' compounds in drinks like whiskey and brandy which cause a mild form of poisoning. The second reason is that alcohol makes you pee more water out than you drink in, so it dehydrates you. This dehydration is a main cause of headaches that people call hangover.
So Vodka is not 'hangover proof' but it is less likedly to cause them than other drinks. Just imagine how bad you would have been if you had drunk the same amount of Brandy !

[Ric.ror]

When I get a hangover I don't get much of a headache
It's the nausea that gets me
If I could cure that I would drink a lot more than I do now
Weak stomach - I gets it from my late fathers side (grhs)

[SeaJayPea]

Most gins and vodkas made in this country are made from grain spirit. This is made in whisky distilleries alongside the whisky itself - it's the same stuff. Normally at around 96% by volume. Then what's going to be whisky gets put into wooden barrels for a period of a minimum of three years. This is the time that the flavour gets into the spirit, from the barrels themselves.

The remainder gets run through the still again. Then it's known as 'rectified spirit' or 'neutral spirit'. This gets taken to gin and vodka distilleries. It may get distilled a third time, it certainly used to at Beefeater Gin when I worked there 25 years ago. And then flavouring is added to the gin. No flavouring to the vodka. Then it's reduced to the normal bottling strength of 40-odd percent by simply adding distilled water.

All potable alcohol is made by cooking vegetable matter with yeast and cleaning up the result. What you get depends on what you start with. Beer from hops and grain, cider from apples, wine from grapes, whisky from wheat or malted barley. Some vodkas are made from potatoes, tequila comes from a cactus and brandy is alcohol that has been distilled from wine.

And there is no better explanation of what causes hangovers than that given by Eddie.

[Teddio]

Besides dehydration, hangovers are exacerbated by the presence of congeners in the drink. Vodka contains virtually no congeners whereas brandy contains a lot. Congeners are alcohols such as amyl alcohol and certain aldehydes and ketones.

[Ianfiat]

All alcohic drink contain trace amounts of different alcohols eg propanol, 2-propanol, butanol etc. These different alcohols can effect the propensity of alcohol drinks to give you hangovers. The major alcohol present will always be ethanol though.