Cognac is aged in casks cut from France’s famous oak forests, full of Quercus sessiliflora and Quercus pedunculata. American bourbon and Scotch whiskey too rely on stalwart staves of the oak variety to deepen their flavor over time. Wine, even, is fermented and aged in oak, acacia, or other wood until it is time for bottling. These then, must all be wood alcohols.
Wood alcohol? Not at all. Strike that impression from your mind immediately, lest you poison yourself. Wood alcohol is not to be drunk! It is a potent poison that blinds before it kills. Stick to the stuff aged in wood, not made from wood.
Wood alcohol is a layman’s term for methanol, sometimes referred to as methylated alcohol, hydroxymethane, wood spirit, methyl hydrate, wood naphtha, and supposedly, Columbia or Colonial spirit. Of all the alcohols (chemically speaking), it is the simplest with a chemical formula of CH₄O. On one side, 3 hydrogen atoms cling to a carbon atom, forming a methyl group. On the other side, a hydrogen bonds with an oxygen, forming an alcohol group. Taken together, we have methyl alcohol.
This poisonous form of alcohol is produced in trace amounts during normal alcoholic fermentation, but it is produced in large quantities during the destructive distillation of its namesake, wood. While normal distillation separates chemicals out of a solution using heat, destructive distillation separates out chemicals by decomposing an unprocessed material.
The process of decomposing wood is so straightforward that it has reportedly been used since ancient times when the Egyptians heated wood to create methanol-laced embalming fluids. They would have put methanol containing wood into a sealed container and cooked it until the liquids vaporized. Once cooled, methanol, acetone, and acetic acid remain. This can be refined further into pure methanol with distillation, although the Egyptians may not have had access to that technology.
In more modern times, the legendary chemist Robert Boyle discovered the chemical formula of wood alcohol in 1661 after distilling boxwood. Later in the 1800s, French chemists Dumas and Peligot discovered the molecular structure and named the molecule methyl after the Greek methy for wine and hyle for wood. Since then, it has been known as wood alcohol.
It was not until the 20th century that the industrial production and use of wood alcohol began. In 1923, German industrial chemist, Mathias Pier, pioneered the use of catalysts in the production of wood alcohol from gas. This made the process more efficient and cost effective, leading to large scale production.
State-side, the business environment for the industrial alcohol industry had been primed by a 1906 law. It stipulated that alcohol produced domestically for industrial purposes be tax free, so long as it was denatured. Methanol was itself a denaturing agent, a chemical added to potable ethanol to make it unfit for human consumption.
Early wood alcohol plants used pressured environments and acids to break down the indigestible cellulose which accounts for about 50% of wood’s mass. Sawdust and wood scraps from hardwood, birch, beech, maple, oak, elm, and alder were favorites of the industry. The acid wood mixture was agitated and heated by steam to over 300℉ for an hour. Then the acid would be neutralized with lime, and the resulting sugary soup could be digested by yeast into alcohol. Normal distillation ensued to make more concentrated chemicals. These early plants could produce 300 pounds of fermentable sugar from 1 ton of pine sawdust.
As industrial chemicals became increasingly important, new and more efficient techniques were developed. Hydrogenation (the addition of hydrogen atoms to carbon) and dehydrogenation (the removal of hydrogen atoms from a compound) made the production of methanol easier, and removed wood from the process entirely. Both processes used metals like nickel, copper, or palladium to catalyse reactions and allow them to occur at lower temperatures. Most of these chemical breakthroughs came from innovation in the production of ammonium which used similar reactions. Eventually, in 1963 two British chemists, Davies and Snowdon, invented a new process catalyzed by copper, zinc, and chromium that synthesized methanol directly from natural gas. This process, Low Pressure Methanol, is still used today.
Modern industrial methanol is used as a precursor to many other useful chemicals such as formaldehyde. As a race, we produce over 85 million metric tons of methanol annually. Among its many uses are anti-freeze, perfume, chemical solvents, shellac, racing fuel, fuel in chafing dishes, and printing solutions.
The one thing that methanol is decidedly not used for is drinking (and breathing as it also has noxious fumes). When metabolized, it causes acute poisoning and dissolves the optic nerve, doing permanent damage to vision if not blinding entirely.
Wood alcohol poisonings began to come into the public eye just as industrial production began. In 1917, the New York State Coroner’s office noted an uptick in wood alcohol deaths as they began testing the livers of those who died inexplicably. Prohibition would not improve on this trend. Indeed, most cases of methanol poisonings globally are the result of illegal alcohol production during which corners are cut to produce cheap and unsafe liquor. In the United States most wood alcohol poisonings involve the ingestion of antifreeze or windshield wiper fluid. Inhalation poisonings usually result from carburetor cleaner.
Ironically, the only cure for methanol poisoning is ethanol. When you find yourself going blind after one cocktail, drink another from a different bottle. Methanol is only poisonous when the body has begun to break it down. The enzymes we have metabolize ethanol more quickly than methanol (luckily!). Having lots of ethanol in the body blocks methanol metabolization. In other words, ethanol gets to cut in line and methanol gets flushed out in urine. Of course, this should only be used in emergencies.
Wood alcohol may sound natural and alluring, but it is deadly poisonous. In fact, it is used to denature normal ethanol that is being used for industrial purposes. It may serve as a silly reminder, but one can never be too safe, drinking is not an industrial purpose.
“Alcohol from Wood Waste.” The Science News-Letter, vol. 61, no. 14, [Wiley, Society for Science & the Public], 1952, pp. 213–14, https://doi.org/10.2307/3930474.
Barreiro, Eliezer J., Arthur E. Kümmerle, and Carlos AM Fraga. “The methylation effect in medicinal chemistry.” Chemical reviews 111.9 (2011): 5215-5246.
George L Berry, field sec. of the National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness 1920
“How Wood Alcohol Poisonings Advanced Toxicology.” Wood Alcohol: The Poisoners Handbook, https://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/articles/wood_alcohol.html.
MacKenzie, Donald, and Judy Wajcman. The social shaping of technology. Open university press, 1999.
“Recommendations Concerning the Manufacture and use of Wood Alchol.” Monthly Labor Review (Pre-1986), vol. 10, no. 000002, 1920, pp. 197. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/recommendations-concerning-manufacture-use-wood/docview/227909598/se-2?accountid=11752.
Sheldon, Daniel. “Methanol production‐a technical history.” Johnson Matthey Technology Review 61.3 (2017): 172-182.
Simmonds, Charles. Alcohol, Its Production, Properties, Chemistry, and Industrial Applications ; with Chapters on Methyl Alcohol, Fusel Oil, and Spirituous Beverages. Macmillan and Co., 1919.
United States. Bureau of Mines. Manufacture of Wood Alcohol. Washington: U. S. Govt. print. off., 1931.
Vogel, Frederick H. “The economic problem of converting Pacific Northwest forest waste to industrial alcohol.” (1937).
Wiener, Sage W. “Toxic alcohols.” Gold frank’s Toxicologic Emergencies (2006).
The common inky cap is normally an edible mushroom, except when consumed with alcohol. If someone ingests alcohol within several days of eating an inky cap, they will experience immediate alcohol poisoning. Chemicals in the mushroom prevent the body from digesting alcohol and create an immediate, prolonged hangover. Mixing mushroom and booze might not kill you, but it could ruin your day.
During the war, the burgeoning international trade of the late 19th and early 20th century dissipated to the point that many nations had to look internally for their basic needs. Yeast, an all important ingredient in the bread and beer that western civilization relies on, was a focal point of this supply chain disruption. The story of yeast in World War I was everywhere a story of culinary ingenuity and homegrown innovation.
We always work with coffee, but how does coffee work? Eating ripe coffee berries won’t give us the kick that a cup of joe does. We need to play chemist and transform the naturally occurring compounds in the coffee plant into water soluble, aromatic chemicals before we can drink it. Once we take a sip, those compounds will go to work on our nervous system, helping us stay awake and finish our work day.
Due to its esteemed position as a healing potion in the ancient world, alcohol was subject to intense interest by those who wanted to find medicines. Before modern medicine, alchemists were at the cutting edge of what they considered to be medicine production and research, creating new infusions and elixirs in pursuit of everlasting life. Eventually these men of mystery, mercury, and medicine discovered the process of distillation.
