Vodka
Vodka (Polish: wódka [ˈvutka]; Russian: водка [ˈvotkə]) is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Its varieties originated in Poland and Russia.[1] Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impurities and flavourings.[2] Traditionally, it is made by distilling liquid from fermented cereal grains and potatoes since the latter was introduced in Europe in the 18th century. Some modern brands use maize, sugar cane, fruit, honey, and maple sap as the base
vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
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Science
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Matter & Energy
distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
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Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
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Related Topics: vapour compression distillation vacuum distillation fractional distillation foam fractionation gas-liquid chromatography
petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
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chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
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Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
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Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
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Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
alcohol consumption
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Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
Top Questions
How is alcohol absorbed and metabolized in the body?
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alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour.
blood alcohol concentration
blood alcohol concentrationPercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking two ounces of spirits each hour for four hours (curve A) and eight ounces all at once (curve B).
Sustained drinking over time at rates greater than the body’s ability to process alcohol leads to greater intoxication. This effect is illustrated by curve A in the graph of blood alcohol over time, which shows what happens if an average-size man drinks 2 ounces (60 ml) of spirits four times an hour apart. At the end of the first hour (that is, just before the second drink), the blood alcohol concentration has passed its peak and begun to decline. With the second drink, however, the concentration starts rising again, and this process is repeated after each drink. The highest blood alcohol concentration is reached at the end of four hours—an hour after the last drink. Only with the cessation of drinking does it decline steadily. Curve A thus illustrates the combined effects of repeated alcohol absorption and its continuous metabolism. Curve B in the graph shows what the course of blood alcohol concentration would be if all 8 ounces (240 ml) of spirits were drunk and absorbed at once.
Intoxication
Effects of alcohol on the brain
Alcohol is a drug that affects the central nervous system. It belongs in a class with the barbiturates, minor tranquilizers, and general anesthetics, and it is commonly classified as a depressant. The effect of alcohol on the brain is rather paradoxical. Under some behavioral conditions alcohol can serve as an excitant, under other conditions as a sedative. At very high concentrations it acts increasingly as a depressant, leading to sedation, stupor, and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and unmodulated anger. Excitement actually may be caused indirectly, more by the effect of alcohol in suppressing inhibitory centres of the brain than by a direct stimulation of the manifested behaviour. The physical signs of excited intoxication are slurred speech, unsteady gait, disturbed sensory perceptions, and inability to make fine motor movements. Again, these effects are produced not by the direct action of alcohol on the misbehaving muscles and senses but by its effect on the brain centres that control the muscle activity.
The most important immediate action of alcohol is on the higher functions of the brain—those of thinking, learning, remembering, and making judgments. Many of the alleged salutary effects of alcohol on performance (such as better dancing, happier moods, sounder sleeping, less sexual inhibition, and greater creativity) have been shown in controlled experiments to be a function of suggestion and subjective assessment. In reality, alcohol improves performance only through muscle relaxation and guilt reduction or loss of social inhibition. Thus, mild intoxication actually makes objectively observed depression (and dancing for that matter) worse. Experiments also indicate a dependence of learning on the mental state in which it occurs. For example, what is learned under the influence of alcohol is better recalled under the influence of alcohol, but what is learned in the sober state is better recalled when sober.
Effects on behaviour
effects of alcohol consumption
effects of alcohol consumptionHow drinking alcoholic beverages affects the human body.
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People ordinarily drink alcohol to obtain effects that they have been taught to expect; the state of expectation combines with the pharmacological action of the drug to produce the desired effect. Small amounts of alcohol are drunk in the expectation of reducing feelings of tension, relieving feelings of anxiety, and, conversely, experiencing exhilaration and a loss of inhibition. The anxiety-suppressing action of alcohol is largely a function of muscle relaxation and the removal of social inhibitions. But anxiety reduction is also a function of suggestibility and of the cultural permissiveness present in drinking settings. Shy people become outgoing or bold; well-behaved people become disorderly; the sexually repressed become amorous; the fearful become brave; the quiescent or peaceful become verbally or physically aggressive. In people with clinically diagnosed anxieties and phobias, however, alcohol is little better than a placebo, and alcohol consumption actually worsens sleep patterns, depression, and the risk of suicide.
In folklore, whiskey is popular for treating colds and snakebites, brandy for treating faintness, spirits as a spring tonic, beer for lactation, and any alcoholic beverage for treating sleeplessness or overexcitement. Such uses depend on popular belief, not medical fact. Physicians often prescribe “a drink” for a variety of purposes: to stimulate a sluggish appetite, to help relieve premenstrual tension in women, to act as a vasodilator (an agent used to widen the lumen of the blood vessels) in arteriosclerosis, and to relieve the vague aches and pains that beset the elderly. These salutary effects, however, are psychological more than they are pharmacological. Alcohol is important pharmacologically for use with some active medicines that are poorly soluble in water but readily dissolve in alcohol and for preventing delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal in alcoholics.
Blood alcohol concentration
Because brain alcohol concentrations are difficult to measure directly, the effects of alcohol on the brain are calculated indirectly by noting the physical and mental impairments that typically arise at various levels of blood alcohol concentration, or BAC.
Typical symptoms shown by drinkers at successive BACs are listed in the table. Inefficiency in performing some tasks may begin at concentrations as low as 0.03 percent. The impairments at these concentrations may not be visibly manifested by all individuals, but laboratory tests show that alertness, visual acuity, and capacity to distinguish between sensory signals are all diminished. Reflex responses and the time of reaction to a signal, as well as neuromuscular functions, are slowed. Complex reactions, such as those that require the brain to process more than one type of incoming information simultaneously, are impaired at BACs too low to affect simple reflexes and reaction times.
Signs of intoxication at increasing levels of blood alcohol concentration (BAC)
BAC Signs of intoxication
0.02–0.03 mild euphoria and loss of shyness; no apparent loss of coordination
0.04–0.06 sense of well-being and relaxation; sensation of warmth; some decline in ability to perform two tasks simultaneously; lowered judgment about capabilities
0.07–0.09 some impairment of balance, reaction time, speech, and memory; reduced judgment, caution, and self-control; continued euphoria
0.10–0.125 obvious impairment of muscle control and reaction time; loss of good judgment; slurred speech
0.13–0.15 major loss of balance and physical control; blurred vision; appearance of dysphoria (emotional depression)
0.16–0.20 nausea, dysphoria, confusion, loss of memory
0.25 severe impairment of all mental and physical functions
0.30 loss of consciousness
0.40 onset of coma; possible respiratory arrest and death
The majority of drinkers begin to show measurable impairment at just above 0.05 percent, and in fact most jurisdictions in Western countries make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle at various levels between 0.05 to 0.08 percent. Most people exhibit some degree of functional sedation and motor incapacitation at a BAC of 0.10 percent, and most people are considered intoxicated at 0.15 percent. Habitual heavy drinking, however, does produce increased tolerance to alcohol.
As BACs rise above 0.15 percent, intoxication steadily increases. Well-adapted, very heavy drinkers may continue to function fairly well in some motor and mental tasks even up to concentrations of 0.30 percent, but, long before this level of alcohol concentration is reached, most people will appear visibly drunk, showing the common symptoms of slurred speech, unsteady gait, and confused thinking. At a 0.40-percent BAC, most people will be anesthetized to the extent that they will be asleep, difficult to rouse, and incapable of voluntary activity—indeed, they will be in a state in which they can undergo surgery. At yet higher BACs, deep coma sets in. Between 0.40 and 1 percent, the breathing centre in the brain or the action of the heart may be anesthetized, and then death will quickly follow directly from alcohol intoxication. Ordinarily, however, it is not likely that anybody would attain a BAC above 0.40 percent by drinking. In a man of average build such a level would require the ingestion and unmetabolized absorption of between a pint and a quart (that is, almost a half-litre to a full litre) of spirits.
Long-term health effects of drinking
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The drinking of a small amount (1 ounce [30 ml] of absolute alcohol, or two standard drinks per day), even if done regularly for years, does not have any conclusively demonstrated pathological effect except for a small increased risk for some cancers. An exception to this rule is drinking during pregnancy—even one standard drink a week may harm the fetus.
Drinking just 0.5 ounce (15 ml) of alcohol a day has been shown to be a mild anticoagulant and, like small doses of aspirin, to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack. Mild infrequent intoxication produces a variety of temporary biochemical disturbances in the body: the adrenal glands may discharge hormones, sugar may be mobilized from stores in the liver, the electrolyte balance may be slightly altered, and the metabolism and equilibrium of the liver may be disturbed. However, these changes leave no chronic aftereffects, and the body rapidly returns to normal.
Severe or frequent intoxication, on the other hand, may produce more serious disturbances, including temporary extensive imbalances in the body chemistry, cardiac arrhythmias, acute hepatitis, loss of memory (blackouts, passing out), and numerous “hangover” effects: nausea, headache, gastritis, dehydration, and a generalized residual malaise and physical and mental incompetence that may last as long as 24 hours after all the consumed alcohol has been metabolized. Some drinkers are willing to suffer the mild and even the more severe aftereffects of occasional intoxication for the sake of the temporary dissociation, euphoria, or socialization associated with it, but frequent intoxication, even of moderate degree, imposes a severe and debilitating burden on the drinker. Four or more standard drinks a day, consumed regularly, can produce liver damage and atrophy of the cerebral cortex (the “gray matter” of the brain) in vulnerable people.
The irritating effects of alcohol, especially in undiluted strong beverages, can result in damage to the tissues of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and stomach and an increased susceptibility to cancer in these organs. The liver is likely to suffer serious damage if it must cope for extended periods with the detoxication of large amounts of alcohol. There can also be damage to the heart muscle and the pancreas.
Frequent heavy drinking that leads to severe intoxication or the prolonged steady maintenance of a high alcohol concentration in the body has been shown to be linked to many impairments or injuries. Disorders commonly linked to alcoholism are diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies, cardiomyopathy, accidents, suicide, cirrhosis, and impaired resistance to infection.
Worldwide, such chronic alcohol abuse causes as much death and disability as measles and malaria and results in more years lost to death and disability than are caused by tobacco or illegal drugs. (For a discussion of pathological states caused by alcohol consumption, see alcoholism.)
Fetal alcohol syndrome
There is evidence that even occasional drinking by an expectant mother can endanger the development of the fetus and result in a variety of birth defects; these are referred to together as fetal alcohol syndrome. The defects include abnormal physical features, disorders of the central nervous system, and slow development. Some specific signs of fetal alcohol syndrome are a small head, small eyelid openings, a sunken nasal bridge, a cleft palate, defective joints in the hands and feet, heart abnormalities, and mental impairment. Some babies may be so severely affected that they die soon after birth. When their brains are studied, they are found to be poorly developed with portions sometimes entirely missing. Fetal alcohol syndrome is not a rare occurrence; its prevalence in the United States in 2004 was reported to range from 0.2 to 1.5 cases per thousand live births. Much current medical opinion supports the view that alcohol should be totally avoided during pregnancy because of the possibility that the fetus may be harmed by even very low or infrequent doses. In 2005 the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory that “no amount of alcohol consumption can be considered safe during pregnancy.”
Alcohol and society
History of the use of alcohol
In early societies
The origin of alcoholic beverages is lost in the mists of prehistory. Fermentation can occur in any mashed sugar-containing food—such as grapes, grains, berries, or honey—left exposed in warm air. Yeasts from the air act on the sugar, converting it to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Alcoholic beverages were thus probably discovered accidentally by preagricultural cultures. Early peoples presumably liked the effects, if not the taste, and proceeded to purposeful production. From merely gathering the wild-growing raw materials, they went on to regular cultivation of the vine and other suitable crops. Few preliterate groups did not learn to convert some of the fruit of the earth into alcohol. In the case of starchy vegetation, quite primitive agriculturists learned how to convert the starch to fermentable sugar through preliminary chewing. (Saliva contains an enzyme that carries out this conversion.)
Alcohol is the oldest and still one of the most widely used drugs. The making of wines and beers has been reported from several hundred preliterate societies. The importance of these alcoholic beverages is evident in the multiplicity of customs and regulations that developed around their production and uses. They often became central in the most valued personal and social ceremonies, especially rites of passage, and were ubiquitous in such activities as births, initiations, marriages, compacts, feasts, conclaves, crownings, magic rites, medicine, worship, hospitality, war making, peace making, and funerals.
The manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages was already common in the earliest civilizations, and it was commercialized and regulated by government. The oldest known code of laws, the Code of Hammurabi of Babylonia (c. 1770 bce), regulated drinking houses. Sumerian physician-pharmacists prescribed beer (c. 2100 bce) in relatively sophisticated pharmacopoeias found on clay tablets. Later Egyptian doctors, in their medical papyri (c. 1500 bce), included beer or wine in many of their prescriptions. Semitic cuneiform literature of the northern Canaanites, in prebiblical Ugarit, contains abundant references to the ubiquitous religious and household uses of alcohol.
Water, a precious commodity in the earliest agriculturally dependent civilizations, was probably the original fluid used as offering in worship rites. In time, other fluids—milk, honey, and later wine (in some religions, beer)—were substituted. That alcoholic beverages should have displaced other fluids in early religions, both as offering and drink, is not surprising. The capacity of alcohol to help the shaman or priest and other participants reach a desired state of ecstasy or frenzy could not long have escaped observation, and its powers were naturally attributed to supernatural spirits and gods. The red wine in religious uses was eventually perceived as symbolizing the blood of life and, in this spiritual sense, ultimately passed into the Christian Eucharist. The records of the ancient Egyptian as well as of the Mesopotamian civilizations attest that drinking and drunkenness had passed from the state of religious rite to common practice, often troublesome to government and accompanied by acute and chronic illnesses. There are ample indications that some people so loved drink and were so abandoned to drunkenness that they must be presumed to have been alcoholics.
Among Classical peoples
The significance of the Classical history of drinking arises from the fact that after about 300 bce the Greek, Hebrew, and Roman cultures became mingled in a manner that was to influence powerfully the development of European culture. The surviving records of ancient Greek and Roman culture, in Classical pictorial and plastic art as well as in the literature transmitting prehistoric memories enshrined in myths, reveal the common and copious use of wine by the gods, as well as by people of all classes. The worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, the wine god, was the most popular; his festival, the Bacchanalia, has given English one of its literary names for a drunken orgy. His female devotees, the Maenads, worshipped him in drunken frenzies. The Greco-Roman classics abound with descriptions of drinking and often of drunkenness. The wine of the ancient Greeks, like that of the Hebrews of the same time, was usually drunk diluted with an equal part or two parts of water, and so the alcohol strength of the beverage was presumably between 4 and 7 percent. But diluted wine, as a standard drink, was apparently more common than plain water, and there were topers who preferred their wine straight.
The literature of the Greeks does not lack warnings against the evil effects of excessive drinking, but in this it is surpassed by the classics of the Hebrews. The earliest references in the Bible show that abundant wine was regarded not only as a blessing, on a par with ample milk and honey, grain and fruit, but also as a curse to alcohol abusers such as Noah.
In the national religious culture that developed into the Judaism of today, drinking was an important aspect of all important ceremonial occasions—from the celebration of the eight-day-old boy’s circumcision to the toasting of the soul of the departed and, in between, the wedding, the arrival and departure of every Sabbath and festival, and, indeed, any sort of celebration. Drinking thus became integrated with a strict attitude of reverence for the sanctity or importance of the occasion, to the extent that overdrinking and becoming tipsy would manifestly be inappropriate and disapproved. Drunkenness then became a culturally negative, rejected behaviour, and it generally vanished from Jewish communities. In contemporary terms, drinking was under effective social control, and the result has been the seeming paradox, fascinating to modern students of sociocultural phenomena, that some peoples with a very high proportion of drinkers will exhibit relatively low rates of alcoholism and other alcohol-related problems.
A different kind of religious control was adopted later (in the 7th century) in Islam: the Qurʾān (Koran) simply condemned wine, and the result was an effective prohibition wherever the devout followers of Muhammad in Arabia and other lands prevailed. A similar process occurred some 1,000 years later in Europe after the Reformation and later still in the United States, when a number of ascetic Christian sects, resting their ideology on the Bible, made abstinence a fundamental tenet.
Like the early agriculturists of the Middle East, the people of East Asia discovered the technology of manufacturing alcoholic beverages in prehistoric times. Barley and rice were the chief crops and the raw materials for producing the beverages that, as in the Middle East, were incorporated into religious ceremonies, both as drink and libation, with festivals featuring divine states of drunkenness. Here too, in time, sacred drink became secularized, even while its religious uses survived, and evoked public as well as private disorders. The history of China includes several abortive efforts at control or prohibition, but prohibition was effective only when religiously motivated. The Hindu Ayurvedic texts skillfully describe both the beneficent uses of alcoholic beverages and the consequences of intoxication and alcoholic diseases. Most of the peoples in India and China, as well as in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Japan, have continued, throughout, to ferment a portion of their crops and nourish as well as please themselves with the alcoholic product. However, devout adherents of Buddhism, which arose in India in the 5th and 6th centuries bc and spread over southern and eastern Asia, abstain to this day, as do the members of the Hindu Brahman caste.
In Africa, corn (maize), millet, sorghum, bananas, honey, the saps of the palm and bamboo, and many fruits have been used to ferment nutrient beers and wines, the best-known being sorghum beer and palm wines. Most of the peoples of Oceania, on the other hand, seem to have missed the discovery of fermentation. Many of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America were also exceptional in lacking alcoholic beverages until they were introduced by Europeans, with explosive and disastrous consequences. But the Papago Indians of the southwestern United States made a cactus wine, and the Tarahumara of northern Mexico made beers from corn and species of agave, while throughout Central and South America the indigenous peoples made chicha and other alcoholic beverages from corn, tubers, fruits, flowers, and saps. For the most part, their drinking appears to have been regulated so as to inhibit individual alcoholism and limit drunkenness to communal fiestas.
Alcohol in modern societies
From early uses to modern uses
In early societies, alcoholic beverages had multiple uses. First, they had important nutritional value. Second, they were the best medicine available for some illnesses and especially for relieving pain. (In any case, a patient given a prescription to be taken in beer or wine, with the instruction to drink it liberally, was likely to feel better regardless of whether the various ingredients affected his disease.) Also, they facilitated religious ecstasy and communion with the mystical supernatural powers thought to control tribal and individual fate. They enabled periodic social festivity and the personal jollification of the participants, thus also serving as the mediator of popular recreation. By helping to reduce tension and fears and preoccupation with safety, alcohol can reduce as well as stimulate the impulse to engage in aggressive or dangerous activities. Just as drinking facilitates dangerous and uninhibited sex and driving by reducing stranger anxiety and fear of punishment, it also facilitates peaceful associations and commercial or ceremonial relations. In individuals with extraordinary responsibilities, such as chiefs, shamans, and medicine men, alcohol helped to assuage the personal anxieties and tensions connected with those exceptional roles. In some cases a formalized public binge could serve to loosen interpersonal aggressions and allow an interlude of verbal or even physical hostility within the family or clan group that otherwise would be forbidden by the mores of the cohesive small society. Any insults and wounds suffered during the discordant interlude could easily be forgiven by blaming them on alcohol-induced irresponsibility. Under these circumstances drunkenness could be approved or even be mandatory and still serve an integrative social function. In short, the most general effect of alcohol, suggested by its very equivocal uses, appears to be as a facilitator of mood change in any desired direction.
The conditions of early societies foreshadow the conditions of modern societies, including the contemporary highly industrialized ones. As food, alcohol retains little value beyond its caloric content. As a medicine, it has survived only as a solvent for water-insoluble compounds and as a “tonic.” In religion, where not completely eliminated, wine has been relegated to a highly specific, essentially symbolic role. Indeed, the most distinctive features of alcohol in complex technological societies are social, from Andean fiestas to Irish pub life to Greek weddings.
Not that the ancient uses of alcohol have been forgotten: a drink is still the symbolic announcer of friendship, peace, and agreement, in personal as well as in business or political relations. In modern society, however, many people discover that drinking can often help them to suppress the overwhelming inhibitions, shyness, anxieties, and tensions that frustrate and interfere with urgent needs to function effectively, either socially or economically. In cultures characterized by various inhibitions against gratifying interpersonal relationships, the capacity of alcohol to serve as a social lubricant is highly valued.
Conflicts over drinking
Modern societies are troubled by a lack of consensus around many issues of right and wrong or proper and improper behaviour. Since the latter part of the 18th century, drinking alcohol has been a focus of disagreement, sometimes amounting to political warfare among subgroups making up larger national societies. In the United States, the late 19th-century temperance movement became, by the early 20th century, an anti-alcohol movement that culminated in national Prohibition, enacted by constitutional amendment in 1919 (and repealed in 1933). Similar movements in other countries had somewhat similar histories. The lack of consensus regarding who may drink, how much of what may be drunk, and where and when and with whom one may drink is illustrated by the crazy quilt of local regulations extant in the United States. In some localities there is total prohibition or prohibition only of distilled spirits and strong wines; in some, only those over 18 or over 21 years of age may buy drinks; in some, married underage women may buy alcohol but married underage men may not; in some, until recently, Native Americans could not buy alcohol; in some, liquor may be sold only by the bottle, not by the drink; in some, drinks may be served only with food, in others only without food; in some, drinking in public places is permitted only if the drinkers are curtained or only if they are uncurtained or only when they are seated; in some, men may stand to drink, but women must be seated. Dissonant attitudes toward a custom as common as drinking are believed by many sociologists to account for the inability of a society to establish firm rules inhibiting immoderate behaviour, with a resulting high incidence of damaging use, drunkenness, and many other problems related to alcohol. The Chinese and Italians, as well as the Jews, are cited as examples of groups having a well-developed cultural consensus against drinking to drunkenness, with resulting low rates of alcohol problems. In parallel, France and Great Britain are cited as countries with a consensus favouring steady copious drinking, with a resulting high rate of alcoholism.
The modern conflict over drinking reflects the complex interactions of the individual with small groups and larger society. Small groups, formed by common interests in business, occupation, recreation, neighbourhood, politics, ethnicity, or religion, use communal drinking to facilitate mixing, engender solidarity, reduce normal inhibitions against trust and promote collaboration with “strangers,” symbolize and ratify accord, and ensure that gatherings for celebration will succeed as festive occasions. Individuals use alcoholic beverages as an agreeable effector of desired mood alteration, such as altering dysphoric mood or masking unease and pain, and to enable participation in the various small groups with which they are required to associate. Given favourable contexts and consensual practices, moderate amounts of drink have an integrative function within families and in common-interest groups. This is thought to account for the survival of drinking customs from early times in spite of the problems drinking has engendered and the opposition it has provoked. Nevertheless, individuals and sometimes groups, whether formally or informally organized, also indulge in immoderate, self-injurious, and socially damaging drinking. These dysfunctional behaviours account, in part, for the organized societal opposition to any drinking. Alcohol has been, from olden times, a facilitator of risk-taking and morally lax, hedonistic behaviour; as such, it has evoked the displeasure and condemnation of those favouring moral strictness and an ascetic way of life. Encyclopedia Britannica
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vodka
distilled liquor
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vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
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Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
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distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
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Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
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petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
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chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
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Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
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Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
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Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
alcohol consumption
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Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
Top Questions
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alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour.
blood alcohol concentration
blood alcohol concentrationPercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking two ounces of spirits each hour for four hours (curve A) and eight ounces all at once (curve B).
Sustained drinking over time at rates greater than the body’s ability to process alcohol leads to greater intoxication. This effect is illustrated by curve A in the graph of blood alcohol over time, which shows what happens if an average-size man drinks 2 ounces (60 ml) of spirits four times an hour apart. At the end of the first hour (that is, just before the second drink), the blood alcohol concentration has passed its peak and begun to decline. With the second drink, however, the concentration starts rising again, and this process is repeated after each drink. The highest blood alcohol concentration is reached at the end of four hours—an hour after the last drink. Only with the cessation of drinking does it decline steadily. Curve A thus illustrates the combined effects of repeated alcohol absorption and its continuous metabolism. Curve B in the graph shows what the course of blood alcohol concentration would be if all 8 ounces (240 ml) of spirits were drunk and absorbed at once.
Intoxication
Effects of alcohol on the brain
Alcohol is a drug that affects the central nervous system. It belongs in a class with the barbiturates, minor tranquilizers, and general anesthetics, and it is commonly classified as a depressant. The effect of alcohol on the brain is rather paradoxical. Under some behavioral conditions alcohol can serve as an excitant, under other conditions as a sedative. At very high concentrations it acts increasingly as a depressant, leading to sedation, stupor, and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and unmodulated anger. Excitement actually may be caused indirectly, more by the effect of alcohol in suppressing inhibitory centres of the brain than by a direct stimulation of the manifested behaviour. The physical signs of excited intoxication are slurred speech, unsteady gait, disturbed sensory perceptions, and inability to make fine motor movements. Again, these effects are produced not by the direct action of alcohol on the misbehaving muscles and senses but by its effect on the brain centres that control the muscle activity.
The most important immediate action of alcohol is on the higher functions of the brain—those of thinking, learning, remembering, and making judgments. Many of the alleged salutary effects of alcohol on performance (such as better dancing, happier moods, sounder sleeping, less sexual inhibition, and greater creativity) have been shown in controlled experiments to be a function of suggestion and subjective assessment. In reality, alcohol improves performance only through muscle relaxation and guilt reduction or loss of social inhibition. Thus, mild intoxication actually makes objectively observed depression (and dancing for that matter) worse. Experiments also indicate a dependence of learning on the mental state in which it occurs. For example, what is learned under the influence of alcohol is better recalled under the influence of alcohol, but what is learned in the sober state is better recalled when sober.
Effects on behaviour
effects of alcohol consumption
effects of alcohol consumptionHow drinking alcoholic beverages affects the human body.
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People ordinarily drink alcohol to obtain effects that they have been taught to expect; the state of expectation combines with the pharmacological action of the drug to produce the desired effect. Small amounts of alcohol are drunk in the expectation of reducing feelings of tension, relieving feelings of anxiety, and, conversely, experiencing exhilaration and a loss of inhibition. The anxiety-suppressing action of alcohol is largely a function of muscle relaxation and the removal of social inhibitions. But anxiety reduction is also a function of suggestibility and of the cultural permissiveness present in drinking settings. Shy people become outgoing or bold; well-behaved people become disorderly; the sexually repressed become amorous; the fearful become brave; the quiescent or peaceful become verbally or physically aggressive. In people with clinically diagnosed anxieties and phobias, however, alcohol is little better than a placebo, and alcohol consumption actually worsens sleep patterns, depression, and the risk of suicide.
In folklore, whiskey is popular for treating colds and snakebites, brandy for treating faintness, spirits as a spring tonic, beer for lactation, and any alcoholic beverage for treating sleeplessness or overexcitement. Such uses depend on popular belief, not medical fact. Physicians often prescribe “a drink” for a variety of purposes: to stimulate a sluggish appetite, to help relieve premenstrual tension in women, to act as a vasodilator (an agent used to widen the lumen of the blood vessels) in arteriosclerosis, and to relieve the vague aches and pains that beset the elderly. These salutary effects, however, are psychological more than they are pharmacological. Alcohol is important pharmacologically for use with some active medicines that are poorly soluble in water but readily dissolve in alcohol and for preventing delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal in alcoholics.
Blood alcohol concentration
Because brain alcohol concentrations are difficult to measure directly, the effects of alcohol on the brain are calculated indirectly by noting the physical and mental impairments that typically arise at various levels of blood alcohol concentration, or BAC.
Typical symptoms shown by drinkers at successive BACs are listed in the table. Inefficiency in performing some tasks may begin at concentrations as low as 0.03 percent. The impairments at these concentrations may not be visibly manifested by all individuals, but laboratory tests show that alertness, visual acuity, and capacity to distinguish between sensory signals are all diminished. Reflex responses and the time of reaction to a signal, as well as neuromuscular functions, are slowed. Complex reactions, such as those that require the brain to process more than one type of incoming information simultaneously, are impaired at BACs too low to affect simple reflexes and reaction times.
Signs of intoxication at increasing levels of blood alcohol concentration (BAC)
BAC Signs of intoxication
0.02–0.03 mild euphoria and loss of shyness; no apparent loss of coordination
0.04–0.06 sense of well-being and relaxation; sensation of warmth; some decline in ability to perform two tasks simultaneously; lowered judgment about capabilities
0.07–0.09 some impairment of balance, reaction time, speech, and memory; reduced judgment, caution, and self-control; continued euphoria
0.10–0.125 obvious impairment of muscle control and reaction time; loss of good judgment; slurred speech
0.13–0.15 major loss of balance and physical control; blurred vision; appearance of dysphoria (emotional depression)
0.16–0.20 nausea, dysphoria, confusion, loss of memory
0.25 severe impairment of all mental and physical functions
0.30 loss of consciousness
0.40 onset of coma; possible respiratory arrest and death
The majority of drinkers begin to show measurable impairment at just above 0.05 percent, and in fact most jurisdictions in Western countries make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle at various levels between 0.05 to 0.08 percent. Most people exhibit some degree of functional sedation and motor incapacitation at a BAC of 0.10 percent, and most people are considered intoxicated at 0.15 percent. Habitual heavy drinking, however, does produce increased tolerance to alcohol.
As BACs rise above 0.15 percent, intoxication steadily increases. Well-adapted, very heavy drinkers may continue to function fairly well in some motor and mental tasks even up to concentrations of 0.30 percent, but, long before this level of alcohol concentration is reached, most people will appear visibly drunk, showing the common symptoms of slurred speech, unsteady gait, and confused thinking. At a 0.40-percent BAC, most people will be anesthetized to the extent that they will be asleep, difficult to rouse, and incapable of voluntary activity—indeed, they will be in a state in which they can undergo surgery. At yet higher BACs, deep coma sets in. Between 0.40 and 1 percent, the breathing centre in the brain or the action of the heart may be anesthetized, and then death will quickly follow directly from alcohol intoxication. Ordinarily, however, it is not likely that anybody would attain a BAC above 0.40 percent by drinking. In a man of average build such a level would require the ingestion and unmetabolized absorption of between a pint and a quart (that is, almost a half-litre to a full litre) of spirits. Signs of intoxication at increasing levels of blood alcohol concentration (BAC)
BAC Signs of intoxication
0.02–0.03 mild euphoria and loss of shyness; no apparent loss of coordination
0.04–0.06 sense of well-being and relaxation; sensation of warmth; some decline in ability to perform two tasks simultaneously; lowered judgment about capabilities
0.07–0.09 some impairment of balance, reaction time, speech, and memory; reduced judgment, caution, and self-control; continued euphoria
0.10–0.125 obvious impairment of muscle control and reaction time; loss of good judgment; slurred speech
0.13–0.15 major loss of balance and physical control; blurred vision; appearance of dysphoria (emotional depression)
0.16–0.20 nausea, dysphoria, confusion, loss of memory
0.25 severe impairment of all mental and physical functions
0.30 loss of consciousness
0.40 onset of coma; possible respiratory arrest and death. Because brain alcohol concentrations are difficult to measure directly, the effects of alcohol on the brain are calculated indirectly by noting the physical and mental impairments that typically arise at various levels of blood alcohol concentration, or BAC.
Typical symptoms shown by drinkers at successive BACs are listed in the table. Inefficiency in performing some tasks may begin at concentrations as low as 0.03 percent. The impairments at these concentrations may not be visibly manifested by all individuals, but laboratory tests show that alertness, visual acuity, and capacity to distinguish between sensory signals are all diminished. Reflex responses and the time of reaction to a signal, as well as neuromuscular functions, are slowed. Complex reactions, such as those that require the brain to process more than one type of incoming information simultaneously, are impaired at BACs too low to affect simple reflexes and reaction times. Encyclopedia Britannica
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vodka
distilled liquor
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vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
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Science
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distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
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Last Updated: Jul 18, 2025 • Article History
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
Key People: Eva Ekeblad
Related Topics: vapour compression distillation vacuum distillation fractional distillation foam fractionation gas-liquid chromatography
petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
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chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy McKenna.
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
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Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025 • Article History
Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
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Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
alcohol consumption
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Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
Top Questions
How is alcohol absorbed and metabolized in the body?
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alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour.
blood alcohol concentration
blood alcohol concentrationPercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking two ounces of spirits each hour for four hours (curve A) and eight ounces all at once (curve B).
Sustained drinking over time at rates greater than the body’s ability to process alcohol leads to greater intoxication. This effect is illustrated by curve A in the graph of blood alcohol over time, which shows what happens if an average-size man drinks 2 ounces (60 ml) of spirits four times an hour apart. At the end of the first hour (that is, just before the second drink), the blood alcohol concentration has passed its peak and begun to decline. With the second drink, however, the concentration starts rising again, and this process is repeated after each drink. The highest blood alcohol concentration is reached at the end of four hours—an hour after the last drink. Only with the cessation of drinking does it decline steadily. Curve A thus illustrates the combined effects of repeated alcohol absorption and its continuous metabolism. Curve B in the graph shows what the course of blood alcohol concentration would be if all 8 ounces (240 ml) of spirits were drunk and absorbed at once.
Intoxication
Effects of alcohol on the brain
Alcohol is a drug that affects the central nervous system. It belongs in a class with the barbiturates, minor tranquilizers, and general anesthetics, and it is commonly classified as a depressant. The effect of alcohol on the brain is rather paradoxical. Under some behavioral conditions alcohol can serve as an excitant, under other conditions as a sedative. At very high concentrations it acts increasingly as a depressant, leading to sedation, stupor, and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and unmodulated anger. Excitement actually may be caused indirectly, more by the effect of alcohol in suppressing inhibitory centres of the brain than by a direct stimulation of the manifested behaviour. The physical signs of excited intoxication are slurred speech, unsteady gait, disturbed sensory perceptions, and inability to make fine motor movements. Again, these effects are produced not by the direct action of alcohol on the misbehaving muscles and senses but by its effect on the brain centres that control the muscle activity.
The most important immediate action of alcohol is on the higher functions of the brain—those of thinking, learning, remembering, and making judgments. Many of the alleged salutary effects of alcohol on performance (such as better dancing, happier moods, sounder sleeping, less sexual inhibition, and greater creativity) have been shown in controlled experiments to be a function of suggestion and subjective assessment. In reality, alcohol improves performance only through muscle relaxation and guilt reduction or loss of social inhibition. Thus, mild intoxication actually makes objectively observed depression (and dancing for that matter) worse. Experiments also indicate a dependence of learning on the mental state in which it occurs. For example, what is learned under the influence of alcohol is better recalled under the influence of alcohol, but what is learned in the sober state is better recalled when sober.
Effects on behaviour
effects of alcohol consumption
effects of alcohol consumptionHow drinking alcoholic beverages affects the human body.
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People ordinarily drink alcohol to obtain effects that they have been taught to expect; the state of expectation combines with the pharmacological action of the drug to produce the desired effect. Small amounts of alcohol are drunk in the expectation of reducing feelings of tension, relieving feelings of anxiety, and, conversely, experiencing exhilaration and a loss of inhibition. The anxiety-suppressing action of alcohol is largely a function of muscle relaxation and the removal of social inhibitions. But anxiety reduction is also a function of suggestibility and of the cultural permissiveness present in drinking settings. Shy people become outgoing or bold; well-behaved people become disorderly; the sexually repressed become amorous; the fearful become brave; the quiescent or peaceful become verbally or physically aggressive. In people with clinically diagnosed anxieties and phobias, however, alcohol is little better than a placebo, and alcohol consumption actually worsens sleep patterns, depression, and the risk of suicide.
In folklore, whiskey is popular for treating colds and snakebites, brandy for treating faintness, spirits as a spring tonic, beer for lactation, and any alcoholic beverage for treating sleeplessness or overexcitement. Such uses depend on popular belief, not medical fact. Physicians often prescribe “a drink” for a variety of purposes: to stimulate a sluggish appetite, to help relieve premenstrual tension in women, to act as a vasodilator (an agent used to widen the lumen of the blood vessels) in arteriosclerosis, and to relieve the vague aches and pains that beset the elderly. These salutary effects, however, are psychological more than they are pharmacological. Alcohol is important pharmacologically for use with some active medicines that are poorly soluble in water but readily dissolve in alcohol and for preventing delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal in alcoholics. Encyclopedia Britannica
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vodka
distilled liquor
Written by
Last Updated: Aug 1, 2025 • Article History
News • US energy drink cans accidentally filled with vodka, prompting recall • July 31, 2025, 1:13 AM ET (Straits Times)
vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
A hand holds a magnifying glass over an Absolut Vodka label, highlighting “80 PROOF” with question marks in the background.
Why is alcohol measured by proof?The answer involves lighting liquid on fire.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
A piña colada, a bottle of brown liquor, a full shot glass, a cocktail in a coupe glass, and a bottle of gin sit on a bar. A sign labeled Britannica Bar hangs above them.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.
Science
Physics
Matter & Energy
distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
Written by
Last Updated: Jul 18, 2025 • Article History
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
Key People: Eva Ekeblad
Related Topics: vapour compression distillation vacuum distillation fractional distillation foam fractionation gas-liquid chromatography
petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
pH paper
More From Britannica
chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy McKenna.
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
Written by
Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025 • Article History
Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
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alcohol consumption
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Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
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alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour.
blood alcohol concentration
blood alcohol concentrationPercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking two ounces of spirits each hour for four hours (curve A) and eight ounces all at once (curve B).
Sustained drinking over time at rates greater than the body’s ability to process alcohol leads to greater intoxication. This effect is illustrated by curve A in the graph of blood alcohol over time, which shows what happens if an average-size man drinks 2 ounces (60 ml) of spirits four times an hour apart. At the end of the first hour (that is, just before the second drink), the blood alcohol concentration has passed its peak and begun to decline. With the second drink, however, the concentration starts rising again, and this process is repeated after each drink. The highest blood alcohol concentration is reached at the end of four hours—an hour after the last drink. Only with the cessation of drinking does it decline steadily. Curve A thus illustrates the combined effects of repeated alcohol absorption and its continuous metabolism. Curve B in the graph shows what the course of blood alcohol concentration would be if all 8 ounces (240 ml) of spirits were drunk and absorbed at once.
Intoxication
Effects of alcohol on the brain
Alcohol is a drug that affects the central nervous system. It belongs in a class with the barbiturates, minor tranquilizers, and general anesthetics, and it is commonly classified as a depressant. The effect of alcohol on the brain is rather paradoxical. Under some behavioral conditions alcohol can serve as an excitant, under other conditions as a sedative. At very high concentrations it acts increasingly as a depressant, leading to sedation, stupor, and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and unmodulated anger. Excitement actually may be caused indirectly, more by the effect of alcohol in suppressing inhibitory centres of the brain than by a direct stimulation of the manifested behaviour. The physical signs of excited intoxication are slurred speech, unsteady gait, disturbed sensory perceptions, and inability to make fine motor movements. Again, these effects are produced not by the direct action of alcohol on the misbehaving muscles and senses but by its effect on the brain centres that control the muscle activity.
The most important immediate action of alcohol is on the higher functions of the brain—those of thinking, learning, remembering, and making judgments. Many of the alleged salutary effects of alcohol on performance (such as better dancing, happier moods, sounder sleeping, less sexual inhibition, and greater creativity) have been shown in controlled experiments to be a function of suggestion and subjective assessment. In reality, alcohol improves performance only through muscle relaxation and guilt reduction or loss of social inhibition. Thus, mild intoxication actually makes objectively observed depression (and dancing for that matter) worse. Experiments also indicate a dependence of learning on the mental state in which it occurs. For example, what is learned under the influence of alcohol is better recalled under the influence of alcohol, but what is learned in the sober state is better recalled when sober. Encyclopedia Britannica
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vodka
distilled liquor
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vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
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Science
Physics
Matter & Energy
distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
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Last Updated: Jul 18, 2025 • Article History
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
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petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
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chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
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Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
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Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025 • Article History
Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
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This article was most recently revised and updated by Kara Rogers.
Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
alcohol consumption
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Last Updated: Jul 21, 2025 • Article History
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
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alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour.
blood alcohol concentration
blood alcohol concentrationPercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking two ounces of spirits each hour for four hours (curve A) and eight ounces all at once (curve B).
Sustained drinking over time at rates greater than the body’s ability to process alcohol leads to greater intoxication. This effect is illustrated by curve A in the graph of blood alcohol over time, which shows what happens if an average-size man drinks 2 ounces (60 ml) of spirits four times an hour apart. At the end of the first hour (that is, just before the second drink), the blood alcohol concentration has passed its peak and begun to decline. With the second drink, however, the concentration starts rising again, and this process is repeated after each drink. The highest blood alcohol concentration is reached at the end of four hours—an hour after the last drink. Only with the cessation of drinking does it decline steadily. Curve A thus illustrates the combined effects of repeated alcohol absorption and its continuous metabolism. Curve B in the graph shows what the course of blood alcohol concentration would be if all 8 ounces (240 ml) of spirits were drunk and absorbed at once. Encyclopedia Britannica
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vodka
distilled liquor
Written by
Last Updated: Aug 1, 2025 • Article History
News • US energy drink cans accidentally filled with vodka, prompting recall • July 31, 2025, 1:13 AM ET (Straits Times)
vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
A hand holds a magnifying glass over an Absolut Vodka label, highlighting “80 PROOF” with question marks in the background.
Why is alcohol measured by proof?The answer involves lighting liquid on fire.
See all videos for this article
In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
A piña colada, a bottle of brown liquor, a full shot glass, a cocktail in a coupe glass, and a bottle of gin sit on a bar. A sign labeled Britannica Bar hangs above them.
What makes these alcoholic spirits different?To find out, we hit the bar.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.
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This article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.
Science
Physics
Matter & Energy
distillation
chemical process
Also known as: distillate
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Last Updated: Jul 18, 2025 • Article History
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram
Crude-oil fractional distillation column diagram Schematic diagram of a crude-oil fractional distillation column.
distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.
Key People: Eva Ekeblad
Related Topics: vapour compression distillation vacuum distillation fractional distillation foam fractionation gas-liquid chromatography
petroleum refining process diagram
petroleum refining process diagramPetroleum being refined to produce gasoline and other petroleum products from crude oil. The refining process begins with the fractional distillation of heated crude oil. The crude-oil components (gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, light and heavy gas oils, and residuum) are separated into lighter and heavier hydrocarbons. Light hydrocarbons are drawn off the distilling column at lower temperatures than are heavy hydrocarbons. The components are then treated in many different ways, depending on the desired final products (shown at the bottom). The conversion processes are shown as blue boxes. For simplification, not all of the products of the conversion processes are shown in the diagram.
A method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
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chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy McKenna.
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Food
alcoholic beverage
Also known as: liquor
Written by
Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025 • Article History
Beer
Beer Glasses of beer in a bar in Brussels.
alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.
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Scottish distillery
Scottish distilleryGlenlivet whisky distillery, Minmore, Scotland.
The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Kara Rogers.
Health & Medicine
Conditions & Diseases
alcohol consumption
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Last Updated: Jul 21, 2025 • Article History
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Patrons in a beer garden during Oktoberfest, an annual festival held in Munich, Germany.
Top Questions
How is alcohol absorbed and metabolized in the body?
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What are some long-term health effects of alcohol consumption?
alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating.
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Ingestion
Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour.
Accumulation in the body
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over time
blood alcohol concentration by quantity of alcohol over timePercent of blood alcohol concentration in an average man at hourly intervals after drinking one, two, four, or six ounces of spirits containing 50 percent alcohol.
Whenever drinking proceeds at a faster rate than the alcohol is metabolized, alcohol accumulates in the body. The graph of blood alcohol per size of drink shows a set of probable average curves of blood alcohol concentrations in an average-size man after rapid absorption of various amounts of alcohol. It also shows the average rate of decline of the blood alcohol concentration over time as a result of the disposal of alcohol by the body through the processes of metabolism and excretion described above. If the average-size man drinks and absorbs 4 ounces (120 ml) of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol within an hour, he will have a blood alcohol concentration near 0.07 percent—above many established legal limits to operate an automobile. Likewise, if he drinks 6 ounces (180 ml), he will have a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.11 percent—a level at which his speech will be slurred and his muscle movements clearly impaired. The graph also shows the diminishing blood alcohol concentrations over time as the body processes the alcohol at its average rate of one drink per hour. Absorption through the stomach and intestines
When an alcoholic beverage is swallowed, it is diluted by gastric juices in the stomach. A small portion of the alcohol is diffused into the bloodstream directly from the stomach wall, but most passes through the pyloric junction into the small intestine, where it is very rapidly absorbed. However, up to half the alcohol is degraded in the stomach before it passes into the small intestine. In general, a lower percentage of the alcohol is degraded in a young woman’s stomach than in a young man’s because a young woman’s gastric secretions contain lower levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol prior to absorption.
The rate at which alcohol is absorbed can be affected by a number of factors. For example, a strong alcoholic drink, when taken into an empty stomach, may cause a spasm of the pylorus that will impede passage into the small intestine, resulting in a slower overall rate of absorption. The presence of food in the stomach, especially some fatty foods, will also delay absorption. Naturally carbonated alcohol such as champagne or alcohol taken with a carbonated beverage such as soda water will ordinarily be absorbed more rapidly than noncarbonated alcohol. Other factors, such as the emotional state of the drinker, may also affect the rate of absorption.
Alcohol is diffused in the body in proportion to the water content of the various tissues and organs, appearing in greater concentration in the blood and brain than in fat or muscle tissue. The absorbed alcohol is greatly diluted by the body fluids. Thus, 1 ounce of whiskey at 50 percent alcohol by volume (100 U.S. proof, or 87.6 British proof) will be diluted, in a man of average build, to a concentration of about 2 parts per 10,000 in the blood (0.02 percent). The same amount of alcohol will lead to higher blood levels (up to 50 percent higher) in a woman because of differences in size, ratios of body water to body fat, and levels of gastric ADH.
The body begins to dispose of alcohol immediately after it has been absorbed. An insignificantly small proportion of alcohol is exhaled through the lungs, and a tiny amount is excreted in sweat. A small proportion is excreted by the kidneys and will be accumulated and retained in the bladder until eliminated in the urine. However, only between 2 and 10 percent of the alcohol is eliminated by these means. The remainder, 90 percent or more of the absorbed alcohol, is disposed of by metabolic processes, mainly in the liver.
Processing in the liver
As absorbed alcohol is passed through the liver by the circulating blood, it is acted upon by ADH present in the liver cells. The alcohol molecule is converted by this action to acetaldehyde, itself a highly toxic substance, but the acetaldehyde is immediately acted upon by another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase, and converted to acetate, most of which enters the bloodstream and is ultimately oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. Considerable utilizable energy—200 calories per ounce of alcohol (about 7.1 calories per gram)—is made available to the body during these processes, and in this sense alcohol serves as a nutrient.
The two enzymatic reactions—that of ADH and of aldehyde dehydrogenase—require a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the acceptor of hydrogen from the alcohol molecule, for their effects. The NAD is thus changed to NADH and becomes available again for the same reaction only after its own further oxidation. While adequate ADH seems always present for the first step of alcohol metabolism, the temporary reduction of the available NAD apparently acts as a limit on the rate at which alcohol can be metabolized. That rate per hour in an average-size man is about half an ounce, or 15 ml, of alcohol. In other words, the body is able to process approximately one standard bar drink of spirits, beer, or wine per hour. alcohol consumption, the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific social contexts and may even be a part of religious practices. Because of the effects that alcohol has on the body and on behaviour, governments often regulate its use.
A hand holds a magnifying glass over an Absolut Vodka label, highlighting “80 PROOF” with question marks in the background.
Why is alcohol measured by proof?The answer involves lighting liquid on fire.
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Alcoholic beverages include wine, beer, and spirits. In beers the alcohol content varies from as little as 2 percent to as much as 8 percent; most lager- or ale-type beers contain between 4 and 5 percent. Natural or unfortified wines (such as burgundy, Chianti, and chardonnay) usually contain between 8 and 12 percent alcohol, though some varieties have a somewhat higher content, ranging from 12 to 14 percent. Spirits, including vodka, rum, and whiskey, usually contain between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. A standard drink served in most bars contains 0.5–0.7 fluid ounce of absolute alcohol. (One ounce equals approximately 30 ml.) Thus, a 1.5-ounce (45-ml) shot of vodka, a 5-ounce (150-ml) glass of wine, and a 12-ounce (355-ml) bottle of beer are equally intoxicating. The making of distilled spirits begins with the mashes of grains, fruits, or other ingredients. The resultant fermented liquid is heated until the alcohol and flavourings vaporize and can be drawn off, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid. Water remains behind and is discarded. The concentrated liquid, called a distilled beverage, includes such liquors as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs, or cordials. They range in alcoholic content usually from 40 to 50 percent, though higher or lower concentrations are found.
Beer glasses on dark table
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Hard cider
Hard ciderGlasses of hard cider with a bottle and apples.
In the ingestion of an alcoholic beverage, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) because it does not undergo any digestive processes; thus, alcohol rises to high levels in the blood in a relatively short time. From the blood the alcohol is distributed to all parts of the body and has an especially pronounced effect on the brain, on which it exerts a depressant action. Under the influence of alcohol the functions of the brain are depressed in a characteristic pattern. The most complex actions of the brain—judgment, self-criticism, the inhibitions learned from earliest childhood—are depressed first, and the loss of this control results in a feeling of excitement in the early stages. For this reason, alcohol is sometimes thought of, erroneously, as a stimulant. Under the influence of increasing amounts of alcohol, the drinker gradually becomes less alert, awareness of his environment becomes dim and hazy, muscular coordination deteriorates, and sleep is facilitated. See also alcoholism.alcoholic beverage, any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled spirits, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH3CH2OH), as an intoxicating agent. A brief treatment of alcoholic beverages follows. For full treatment, see alcohol consumption.
Wine
WineGlasses of white, rosé, and red wine.
Alcoholic beverages are fermented from the sugars in fruits, berries, grains, and such other ingredients as plant saps, tubers, honey, and milk and may be distilled to reduce the original watery liquid to a liquid of much greater alcoholic strength. Beer is the best-known member of the malt family of alcoholic beverages, which also includes ale, stout, porter, and malt liquor. It is made from malt, corn, rice, and hops. Beers range in alcoholic content from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Wine is made by fermenting the juices of grapes or other fruits such as apples (cider), cherries, berries, or plums. Winemaking begins with the harvest of the fruit, the juice of which is fermented in large vats under rigorous temperature control. When fermentation is complete, the mixture is filtered, aged, and bottled. Natural, or unfortified, grape wines generally contain from 8 to 14 percent alcohol; these include such wines as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, and Sauterne. Fortified wines, to which alcohol or brandy has been added, contain 18 to 21 percent alcohol; such wines include sherry, port, and muscatel.method called fractional distillation, or differential distillation, has been developed for certain applications, such as petroleum refining, because simple distillation is not efficient for separating liquids whose boiling points lie close to one another. In this operation the vapours from a distillation are repeatedly condensed and revaporized in an insulated vertical column. Especially important in this connection are the still heads, fractionating columns, and condensers that permit the return of some of the condensed vapour toward the still. The objective is to achieve the closest possible contact between rising vapour and descending liquid so as to allow only the most volatile material to proceed in the form of vapour to the receiver while returning the less volatile material as liquid toward the still. The purification of the more volatile component by contact between such countercurrent streams of vapour and liquid is referred to as rectification, or enrichment.
pH paper
More From Britannica
chemical analysis: Distillation
Multiple-effect distillation, often called multistage-flash evaporation, is another elaboration of simple distillation. This operation, used primarily by large commercial desalting plants, does not require heating to convert a liquid into vapour. The liquid is simply passed from a container under high atmospheric pressure to one under lower pressure. The reduced pressure causes the liquid to vaporize rapidly; the resulting vapour is then condensed into distillate.
A variation of the reduced-pressure process uses a vacuum pump to produce a very high vacuum. This method, called vacuum distillation, is sometimes employed when dealing with substances that normally boil at inconveniently high temperatures or that decompose when boiling under atmospheric pressure. Steam distillation is an alternative method of achieving distillation at temperatures lower than the normal boiling point. It is applicable when the material to be distilled is immiscible (incapable of mixing) and chemically nonreactive with water. Examples of such materials include fatty acids and soybean oils. The usual procedure is to pass steam into the liquid in the still to supply heat and cause evaporation of the liquid.distillation, process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface. Distillation is used to separate liquids from nonvolatile solids, as in the separation of alcoholic liquors from fermented materials, or in the separation of two or more liquids having different boiling points, as in the separation of gasoline, kerosene, and lubricating oil from crude oil. Other industrial applications include the processing of such chemical products as formaldehyde and phenol and the desalination of seawater. The distillation process appears to have been utilized by the earliest experimentalists. Aristotle (384–322 bce) mentioned that pure water is made by the evaporation of seawater. Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of an apparatus known as a still.
Most methods of distillation used by industry and in laboratory research are variations of simple distillation. This basic operation requires the use of a still or retort in which a liquid is heated, a condenser to cool the vapour, and a receiver to collect the distillate. In heating a mixture of substances, the most volatile or the lowest boiling distills first, and the others subsequently or not at all. This simple apparatus is entirely satisfactory for the purification of a liquid containing nonvolatile material and is reasonably adequate for separating liquids of widely divergent boiling points. For laboratory use, the apparatus is commonly made of glass and connected with corks, rubber bungs, or ground-glass joints. For industrial applications, larger equipment of metal or ceramic is employed.vodka, distilled liquor, clear and colourless and without definite aroma or taste, ranging in alcoholic content from about 40 to 55 percent. Because it is highly neutral, flavouring substances having been mainly eliminated during processing, it can be made from a mash of the cheapest and most readily available raw materials suitable for fermentation. Cereal grains were traditionally employed in Russia and Poland; later potatoes were used increasingly there and in other vodka-producing countries.
While the name vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda (“water”), the origins of the liquor are a matter of debate. Some claim that it originated as early as the 8th or 9th century in either Poland or Russia. Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century. The beverage was popular mainly in Russia, Poland, and the Balkan states until soon after World War II, when consumption began to increase rapidly in the United States and then in Europe.
Related Topics: distilled spirit limoncello Bloody Mary screwdriver vodka martini
Most producers purchase previously distilled and purified neutral spirits that are extremely high in alcohol content, with almost no flavouring substances remaining. Such spirits are then additionally purified by a filtration process, usually employing charcoal, and are then reduced in strength with distilled water and bottled without aging.
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Why is alcohol measured by proof?The answer involves lighting liquid on fire.
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In Russia, where fairly low alcohol content of 40 percent by volume (80 U.S. proof) is preferred, and in Poland, where 45 percent is more common, vodka is usually consumed unmixed and chilled, in small glasses, and accompanied by appetizers. In other countries it is popular for use in mixed drinks because of its neutral character. It may be combined with other beverages without imparting flavour of its own and substituted for other spirits in cocktails not requiring the specific flavour of the original spirit. Popular vodka drinks include the screwdriver, made with orange juice; the Bloody Mary, with tomato juice; vodka and tonic, a tall drink; and the vodka martini, with vodka substituted for gin.
A piña colada, a bottle of brown liquor, a full shot glass, a cocktail in a coupe glass, and a bottle of gin sit on a bar. A sign labeled Britannica Bar hangs above them.
What makes these alcoholic spirits different? To find out, we hit the bar.
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Vodkas are sometimes flavoured with such ingredients as buffalo grass, lemon peel, berries, peppercorns, and caraway.vodka 70% alcohol?
Vodka is a clear, high purity liquor. To be called vodka, a liquor must be distilled to 190 proofs (95% ethanol) and then diluted to 70-80 proof for distribution. In the United States, it must be at least 80 proof, having an alcohol content of 40%. Most vodka is produced from grains such as corn, whey or potatoes. Repeated distillation of vodka will make its ethanol level much higher than is acceptable to most end users, whether legislation determines strength limits or not. Depending on the distillation method and the technique of the still master, the final filtered and distilled vodka may have as much as 95–96% ethanol. For this reason, most vodka is diluted with water before bottling.
Flavoring
Main article: Flavored liquor
A vodka distillery in Bialystok, Poland, where the bison grass vodka "Żubrówka" is produced
Finnish-grown six-row barley and glacial spring water, Finlandia Vodka
While most vodkas are unflavored, many flavored vodkas have been produced in traditional vodka-drinking areas, often as home-made recipes to improve vodka's taste or for medicinal purposes. Flavorings include red pepper, ginger, fruit flavors, vanilla, chocolate (without sweetener), and cinnamon. In Russia, vodka flavored with honey and pepper, pertsovka in Russian, is also very popular. In Poland and Belarus, the leaves of the local bison grass are added to produce żubrówka (Polish) and zubrovka (Belarusian) vodka, with slightly sweet flavors and light amber colors. In Lithuania and Poland, a famous vodka containing honey is called krupnik.
This tradition of flavoring is also prevalent in the Nordic countries, where vodka seasoned with herbs, fruits, and spices is the appropriate strong drink for several seasonal festivities. Sweden has forty-odd common varieties of herb-flavored vodka (kryddat brännvin). In Poland and Ukraine, a separate category (nalyvka in Ukraine and nalewka in Poland) is used for vodka-based spirits with fruit, root, flower, or herb extracts, which are often home-made or produced by small commercial distilleries. Their alcohol contents vary between 15 and 75%. In Estonia, vodkas are available with barberry, blackcurrant, cherry, green apple, lemon, vanilla, and watermelon flavors.[43]
In most cases, vodka flavoring comes from a post-distillation infusion of flavors. Through the fermentation process, grain mash is transformed into a neutral alcohol beverage that is unflavored. The process of flavoring vodka so that it tastes like fruits, chocolate, and other foods occurs after fermentation and distillation. Various chemicals that reproduce the flavor profiles of foods are added into vodka to give it a specific taste. ... Type
Distilled alcoholic beverage
Country of origin
Poland and Russia
Region of origin
Central, Northern and Eastern Europe
Alcohol by volume
35–40%
Proof (US)
70–80°
Color
clear
Ingredients
Water, grains
Related products
Flavored vodka, nalewka
Since the 1890s, standard vodkas have been 40% alcohol by volume (ABV) (80 U.S. proof).[3] The European Union has established a minimum alcohol content of 37.5% for vodka.[4][5] Vodka in the United States must have a minimum alcohol content of 40%.[6]
Vodka is traditionally drunk "neat" (not mixed with water, ice, or other mixers), and it is often served freezer chilled in the vodka belt of Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Ukraine.[2] It is also used in cocktails and mixed drinks, such as the vodka martini, Cosmopolitan, vodka tonic, screwdriver, greyhound, Black or White Russian, Moscow mule, Bloody Mary, Caesar and Red Bull Vodka.
Since 1960s, the unflavoured Swedish brännvin also came to be called
