Funerals in rural Cambodia can be deadly affairs due to the custom of drinking locally made village rice wine, which may contain added methanol to give it a kick.

I don't believe it is because of added methanol. It's because the distillation process produces methanol, and this needs to be separated and removed before consumption.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:53 pm

Funerals in rural Cambodia can be deadly affairs due to the custom of drinking locally made village rice wine, which may contain added methanol to give it a kick.

I don't believe it is because of added methanol. It's because the distillation process produces methanol, and this needs to be separated and removed before consumption.

Methanol is produced during the fermentation process and can be concentrated during the distillation process.
Distillation is simply heating a liquid to a temperature where one of the components becomes a gas that can be collected and condensed back to a separate liquid. It doesn't directly create methanol. A quick google finds the boiling points of methanol 64.7°C or 148.5°F and ethanol 78.4°C or 173.1°F.
So, obviously the correct process will involve heating to 65C and holding there till the methanol has been boiled away and then increase the temperature to 79C to get the ethanol.

IraHayes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 7:54 pm

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:53 pm

Funerals in rural Cambodia can be deadly affairs due to the custom of drinking locally made village rice wine, which may contain added methanol to give it a kick.

I don't believe it is because of added methanol. It's because the distillation process produces methanol, and this needs to be separated and removed before consumption.

Methanol is produced during the fermentation process and can be concentrated during the distillation process.
Distillation is simply heating a liquid to a temperature where one of the components becomes a gas that can be collected and condensed back to a separate liquid. It doesn't directly create methanol. A quick google finds the boiling points of methanol 64.7°C or 148.5°F and ethanol 78.4°C or 173.1°F.
So, obviously the correct process will involve heating to 65C and holding there till the methanol has been boiled away and then increase the temperature to 79C to get the ethanol.

This being the common culprit of alcohol induced problems such as blindness, some mental issues, as well as the slightly more inconvenient death, simply because the still wasn’t run and controlled to the correct temperature, or the separation wasn’t so well controlled. Home made ‘radiator’ hooch
Home made alcohol predates regulated stuff, obviously, and is in fact still quite common in many places.

Poitín (Pocheen) in Ireland- a couple of uncles were infamous for bringing some home.
Khmer Rice wine being the topical one.
Pálinka in Hungary- a colleague in Quebec used to sneak a few bottles of his father’s homemade nectar in whenever he had a chance.
Prohibition era will have been a particularly busy time.

All this discussion of distillation of methanol and ethanol takes me right back to my old high school days and 1 particular lesson in organic chemistry where we were tasked with nitrating methyl benzene (toluene).
For a start the nitrating mix was a pretty nasty combination of fuming nitric acid and conc. sulfuric acid. Then getting the nitro group (NO2) into the benzene ring involved carefully heating the mix to a specific temp, that without googling I cant recall)... Now we were under strict instructions to take great care not to go above this temp as increases would see not 1 nitro group going in but 2 or possibly 3.
I had this little red book of chemistry data and tables and I had it because the organic chem teacher had it and he was always referring to it during the lessons.
Anyway, this book had a table that detailed temps required for various chemical groups so that they would go into benzene ring positions. Thus we found that a temp of 60C would see 3 nitro group go in.... and this would result in a yellowish precipitate.
A precipitate that was .... Tri-Nitro-Toluene
And we weren't allowed to refine it under reflux for some reason.

Dr Ward was a great teacher and he would often allow us to continue lab work into the next lesson while he taught a lower grade and looking back I can see why he allowed us to do that. It was more as an incentive to the younger learners that if they went on to study Chemistry 'A" level they would be allowed the same access and responsibilities to work under minimum supervision.

Jeez, your memories of chem’ lessons is much clearer than mine. I recall some of the outcomes- ringing ears, scorched walls, queuing outside the Head master’s office.