What is alcohol?

Alcohol is a liquid. Alcohol is a chemical. Pure alcohol is colorless. Pure alcohol is very bitter.

Alcohol mixed with malt and yeast > you have beer and malt liquor

Alcohol mixed with fruit extracts > you get wines

Alcohol mixed with grain-based fermentation products > you get whisky

Alcohol mixed with artificial sugary stuff > you get ciders, lemonades

Alcohol mixed with flavors - you get drinks such as gin, vodka, tequila

Some liquores have lots of alcohol (example: gin, vodka, whiskey). Some liquors have less alcohol (example: beer) See here for alcohol content of different liquors

Which alcohol is natural?

Beers, malt liquors, wines, whisky are natural products. That means these products are basically filtered and bottled straight from fermentation mix.

Remember craft breweries? You must have seen those huge tanks. These tanks have barley, hops, and yeast fermenting inside. Once the fermentation is over, they filter the liquor and bottle it. Also think about making coffee. You brew coffee and filter it. Then you drink the filtered liquid. Same way, alcohol is made in the fermentation mix. Then you filter the liquor and bottle it and drink it

Which alcohol is man-made?

Ciders, lemonades, gin, rum, tequilas, vodkas, extra-strong liquors are made by mixing pure alcohol with flavors, colors, fruit products, sugars. These added items can be natural or artificial (man-made).

As an example, say you are making your own liquor. You got pure chemical alcohol in a bottle. It is a colorless liquid. You can mix it with lemon juice and add a bit of Sriracha sauce. You can call it Karen's Lemon Sriracha Hard Liquor (or whatever). This is a type of man-made liquor.

Are natural liquors better than artificial liquors?

There is no difference. Both affect your health in same way. Both can react with medicines in same way.

The important thing is how much alcohol you drink.

A beer bottle (12 ounce or 360 ml) has almost same alcohol as a wine glass (5 ounce or 150 ml). If you drink a bottle of beer and your friend drinks a glass of wine, both of you pretty much drank the same alcohol.

The idea to remember is standard drink. See here what is a standard drink?

Some research says little bit of alcohol every day (e.g. a glass of red wine) is good for health. But the research is not confirmed yet.

Page last updated: 25-August-2019