26 Jan
1998
26 Jan
'98
12:47 a.m.
That's ok, old warnings from the past are hard to
get rid of. One
that I heard just tonight was "if you aren't careful when you make your
own booze you can go blind". This came from the era when alcohol was
prohibited, and some unsavory people would repackage denatured alcohol
(ethanol with a percentage of methanol in it to render it poisonous so if
you drink it you will either go blind, or die, thus prevent you from
getting pleasure from UNTAXED alcohol). After a while, they switched to
formula 19 (methyl isobutyl ketone I think) as the denaturant so you don't
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ok, so *thats* why modern denatured alcohol smells like that! I
recently bought some from a hardware store to clean circuit boards,
and it smelled very strange to me-- it had an MEK 'edge' to it. The
last time I used denatured alcohol was almost twenty years ago-- I
was un-aware that they had changed the 'formula'.
Anyway, I'm seriously considering shelling out some real $$$ for
ethanol-- this new denatured stuff leaves a residue which the old
formula did not. (Anybody remember 'Zeracol' ?)
Jeff