What is Alcohol

In order to understand alcohol's effects on the body, it is helpful to understand the nature of alcohol as a chemical, so let's take a look...

Here are several facts:

*Alcohol is a clear liquid at room temperature.
*Alcohol is less dense and evaporates at a lower temperature than water (this property allows it to be distilled -- by heating a water and alcohol mixture, the alcohol evaporates first).

*Alcohol dissolves easily in water.
*Alcohol is flammable (so flammable that it can be used as a fuel).

Alcohol can be made by four different methods:

*Fermentation of fruit or grain mixtures (See How Beer Works for details.)
*Distillation of fermented fruit or grain mixtures (Spirits such as whiskey, rum, vodka and gin are distilled.)
*Chemical modification of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal (industrial alcohol)
*Chemical combination of hydrogen with carbon monoxide (methanol or wood alcohol) .

The alcohol found in alcoholic beverages is ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The molecular structure of ethanol looks like this:

H
H3 C - C - O - H
H

In this structure, C is carbon, H is hydrogen, O is oxygen and the hyphens are the chemical bonds between the atoms. For purposes of clarity, the bonds between the three hydrogen atoms and the left carbon atom are not shown. The OH (O-H) group on the molecule is what gives it the specific chemical properties of an alcohol. For the remainder of this article, when we say "alcohol," we mean ethanol.

You will not find pure alcohol in most drinks; drinking pure alcohol can be deadly because it only takes a few ounces of pure alcohol to quickly raise the blood alcohol level into the danger zone. For various types of beverages, the ethanol concentration (by volume) is as follows:

*Beer = 4 to 6 percent (average of about 4.5 percent)
*Wine = 7 to 15 percent (average of about 11 percent)
*Champagne = 8 to 14 percent (average of about 12 percent)
*Distilled spirits (e.g. rum, gin, vodka, whiskey) = 40 to 95 percent .

In most U.S. states, you must be 21 years or older to buy alcoholic beverages, and there are penalties for serving or selling alcoholic beverages to minors.