Government bans hard liquor! That is a headline that grabs my attention. In Texas we lived in a dry county. Is Ozaukee County now going dry!? Is prohibition back? Most importantly, can I still buy beer before tonight's Packer game?
The Czech Republic has banned the sale of any liquor with an alcohol content of greater than 20 %. They are having a moonshine problem. Many people around the world make their own alcoholic beverages. Home brewed beer and wine is pretty common in this country. But distilling hard liquor in your backyard is little different. The problem in the Czech Republic is that the homemade hard liquor is being made, labeled and sold are the real deal. Someone is making a buck, what's the big deal? Check out this link. The tox problem is that the counterfeiters are adding methanol to their liquor. The methanol adds to the alcohol content, stretches the volume produced, and is cheap and tasteless. Perfect. But it causes blindness and death. Over 20 people have died and many more are sick and/or blind.
Methanol is a toxic alcohol that in the body metabolizes to formic acid and formaldehyde. The formic acid causes a severe metabolic acidosis, blindness and death. Clearly, "stretching" your moonshine with a little methanol is a big deal. Methanol outbreaks from tainted alcohol have happened before, and will happen again.
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