Aussie red wines are better than american red wines

I wouldn't touch DEG with a barge pole, but the lethal dose of DEG is higher than the lethal dose of ethanol.

High doses of ethanol can be lethal, and persistent lower doses will wreck your liver and your nervous system - I'm not claiming that DEG is safe, but rather that ethanol is somewhat more dangerous than most people like to think

You'd be better off drinking spirits - there are a lot more higher alcohols in wine than there are in distilled spirits. The distillation process does get rid of a lot of the water content of yur wine, but it gets rid of a much hgher proportion of the higher alcohols, organics acids, aldeydes and ketones which you find in wine.

The concentrations of DEG in wine were much too low for the wine to serves as a useful anti-freeze

-------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Human Health Effects from Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)

Keep enjoying your DEG!

-- ================================================= Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at

Yes, the proposition was essentially comic, though I was making the serious point that it is a bit silly to get upset about DEG when there are a number of other interesting and moderately toxic organic chemicals in a glass of wine.

They tend to make a point of using single pot stills, though the fine brandies and whiskies do seem to be doubled distilled. If you want to know exactly what goes on, see

The process does concentrate the ethanol vis-a-vis the other organic compounds, though the fraction rejected is lower than it is for water.

Nobody is objecting to these substances, but they are probably more toxic than DEG, not that it matters.

It may seem ridiculous to you, but they do offer more ethanol per unit congener than wine, and are - in that sense - more pure and somewhat safer. Serious alcoholics take advantage of this to ingest more ethanol per unit hangover, so the "safety" is moot.

Vodka is an extreme case - IIRR it is filtered through activated carbon to get rid of most of the residual congeners - though it isn't chemically pure. Alcoholic chemists drink "spectroscopic" ethanol (cut with water) which comes closer to the ideal.

----------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Is this meant in jest? There are aldehydes and ketones with boiling points quite close to that of ethanol, and more than a few that azeotrope with water. I don't think that most distillers are using spinning band columns. And who says that those substances are doing anything more nefarious than adding bouquet and flavor? Ketones are generally considered quite non-toxic, which is a good thing considering the number of them which occur as metabolic intermediates in the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Aldehydes in wine are rapidly scavenged from solution by the crosslinking of polyphenols. The organic acids such as malic, lactic and tartaric are essential components of a properly balanced wine.

This is not to say that I have anything against distilled spirits, but viewing them as any more safe or pure than wine (except for vodka, which is as close to dilute grain alcohol as modern technology can get) seems ridiculous to me.

Mark Lipton

Who cares - its just flavoured alcohol........

Andrew VK3BFA.

in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Years ago I worked in a lab that used pure ethanol routinely as a cleaning solvent (in physics experiments involving various metals). Problem was, the squeeze bottles of alcohol kept somehow acquiring a lot of water, which ruined the alcohol for the intended use. Some late-night maintenance employees had taken to helping themselves to the alcohol, and making up the volume with water. So the bottles got re-labeled Final Anode Cleaning Solution. They didn't touch that.

Since then, I've been extra wary of over-emphasis on labels rather than content.

Cheers -- Max

And integrated circuits are just doped silicon.

-------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

"Max Hauser" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

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Hmm. Good idea. I think I am going to clean my Anode now. With some Glennfiddich Anode Cleaner.

Red wine (often) gives me a bellyache.

Yes, but your heart will be fine.

:-)

I bet they wouldn't if they knew that "Final Anode Cleaning Solution" contained benzene. IIRC ethanol/water can't be distilled ~95% ethanol and benzene is added as a "drying agent". The benzene/water is distilled off, but there is some left (a few ppm).

I prefer South American wines.

Red wine IS a very good anti-oxidant. AND I like Wolf Blass reds ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

Red wine gives me a headache.

Al

contained

That used to be true. Ethanol distills as a 95:5 azeotrope with water. Removal of that 5% residual water was accomplished by azeotroping it with benzene, which forms a 91:9 azeotrope with water that boils at lower temperature than the ethanol-water azeotrope, but trace amounts of residual benzene were inevitably present in the "absolute ethanol" produced. Nowadays, the removal of water is accomplished with zeolites, so no benzene is present in commercially produced absolute ethanol.

Mark Lipton

I'll look for it. Is it from Oz?

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

Can you get GREG NORMAN ESTATES in Phoenix ??

The Cabernet Merlot 2001 is one of my favorites.

Donald

My daily morning 2 mile walk that takes about 40 minutes takes care of that.

Al

You probably chose your parents carelessly. A couple of my relatives can't drink red wine because it gives them horrible indigestion, whose symptoms include - but are not limited to - a fierce headache.

The problem has been investigated by a Australian biochemist (who happens to be the husband of one of my aunts). He found that one of the chemical present in red wine reacted adversely with one of the chemicals in the bile produced by the victims of this syndrome - presumably the victims have a single-nucleotide polymorphism in the gene that codes for the relevant component of the bile.

I'll have to get his e-mail adress from my mother or one of his family and see if I can get a refernce to the publication (which probably predates single-nucleotide polymorphisms).

-------------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen