The Dangers of Bootleg Whiskey - 1922

[Dr Griz]

One more little piece from The Democratic Watchman, reporting 61 cases of methanol poisoning in Pennsylvania. The piece credits "a very dangerous poison known as acetone" as the culprit.

https://panewsarchive.psu.edu/lccn/sn83 ... /seq-3.pdf

The source for this piece is the chief of The PA Bureau of Drug Control. In the previous year, he also called in a paper written for the JAMA for the banning of the ritual use of peyote by native Americans.

[kiwi Bruce]

Who in their right mind would have put Acetone in their spirit? Especially if they wanted return costumers!

[shadylane]

1922 info available in print, we now know Illicit manufactured alcohol will have only trace amounts of acetone and methanol.
The antidote if you've been poisoned by adulterated booze is slow and steady consumption from the local distillery that has good morals...

[contrahead]

The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919 so in 1922 any ethanol was hard to find.

The “Torpedo Cocktail” (the first “cocktails”) emerged during this period, as a means of dressing up or making palatable - pure grain alcohol. Pineapple juice or something else from the ship's galley was used.

Acetone was not typically used to denature torpedo fuel, but it is possible that it was tried. Even petroleum fractions like gasoline can be used to denature ethanol.

Navy torpedos burned alcohol to make steam / which propelled the torpedo. Savvy sailors would sometimes sneak into storage and drain some of the fuel from the torpedos. Later when torpedos failed to function properly, the Admiralty discovered it had a problem. Their answer was to denature the torpedo juice - with methanol. After several sailors were blinded, the methanol was eventually replaced with croton oil (a violent purgative). Not to be outdone some sailors tried to re-distill the alcohol, which was impractical for removing the denaturing agent. Others maintained that dripping the juice through a loaf of bread - would do the trick.

[Dr Griz]

I honestly wonder whether the description of acetone as the prime toxin in "wood alcohol" is a deliberate effort to mislead readers from the role of government mandating the use of methanol in denatured alcohol.

Or maybe the reporter simply misunderstand the government doctor? I've had more than my fair share of reporters completely misquoting me after consulting me on some story or other...

The article also warns readers that "another dangerous poison is fusel oil, found in bootleg whiskey and also in the home-made whiskey manufactured in private stills." I suppose this tracks, if your "private distiller" didn't make any cuts...

[8Ball]

Others maintained that dripping the juice through a loaf of bread - would do the trick.

Years ago, my crayon eating Marine brother in law told me that some folks used to pour liquid shoe polish through a loaf of bread to make hooch while deployed & underway. This would have been in the ‘59-63’ era.

Fast forward to ‘76, it was my first time at sea on an aircraft carrier and I witnessed first hand (and was offered some, but declined) my shipmate chug down a bottle of Aqua Velvet Blue shaving lotion.

Another time, I saw him drinking Vicks 44 cough syrup & Coke. .