How to distinguish fake alcohol from real alcohol by external signs? How to distinguish real alcohol from fake

Nowadays there are so many elite varieties alcohol previously unavailable to the common man. And what about the advertising that just beckons you to try the real thing? scotch whiskey, Expensive french cognac, Mexican tequila and other popular alcoholic drinks. Naturally, the price of such products is off the charts, and unfortunately, scammers shamelessly take advantage of this, pushing cheap counterfeits under the guise of elite types of alcohol.

You can often run into such a surrogate on the eve of the holidays, when the need for first-class alcohol increases significantly. People who are tempted by a low price very often become victims of scammers, but as we know: free cheese can only be found in a mousetrap. And it's good if fake alcohol It will just taste significantly different from the real thing. In some cases, such a fake can cause serious harm to health and you can pay for it at the cost of your own life.

How can you avoid falling for this bait and becoming a victim of deception? How to distinguish a fake from an original without resorting to any specialized tests?

Is it possible to recognize a surrogate product by its appearance? These and other questions will be answered in the next article.

Signs of counterfeit products

Of course, first of all, branded products are subject to falsification, for which you can earn a decent amount of money with minimal costs. The buyer of such a counterfeit will be very lucky if he gets away with only deep disappointment and does not experience a severe hangover in the morning, or, even worse, poisoning with low-quality alcohol.

Usually the deception is revealed after the bottle is uncorked and its contents are poured into glasses. The smell and taste of counterfeit products are significantly different from the original products. And what kind of embarrassment will happen if such alcohol was bought as a gift? But the fact is that it is impossible to recognize a fake by taste or smell before purchasing, but there are a lot of other signs that, when looking at a bottle, elite alcohol You can understand whether it is original or not before purchasing, thereby saving money and preserving your own health.

The first thing you should pay attention to when purchasing any alcohol is: label, cost and excise stamp.

It is by these signs that you can easily distinguish counterfeit products:

Label. The original sticker is always applied neatly and evenly, while on the fake it is slanted and crooked. On company label It must contain all the information about alcohol, and a fake contains only a small part of it. In addition, the sticker on high-quality alcohol is always made of good paper, often with complex elements or embossing, and the inscriptions on it are accompanied by a registered trademark icon.
Real elite alcohol always has a high price, so you shouldn’t be tempted by a cheap product, because it’s just wasted money. There is practically no point in counterfeiting cheap alcohol, since a lot of money is made precisely by counterfeiting elite varieties of alcohol, for which the buyer is willing to fork out money. Therefore, you should always know the approximate price of the desired alcohol, so as not to stumble upon scammers.
Excise stamp. It is always glued parallel to the cork and neck so that it is not damaged when opening. At the same time, it must be glued absolutely evenly, the numbers and barcodes on it must be easy to read.

For quick and reliable relief from alcoholism, our readers recommend the drug "Alcobarrier". This is a natural remedy that blocks cravings for alcohol, causing a persistent aversion to alcohol. In addition, Alcobarrier triggers restoration processes in organs that alcohol has begun to destroy. The product has no contraindications, the effectiveness and safety of the drug has been proven by clinical studies at the Research Institute of Narcology.

Choice of expensive alcohol

Different types of alcohol have their own characteristics, which are clearly visible on counterfeit goods. If you know what exactly to look for when purchasing a product, you can significantly protect yourself from possible counterfeiting.

Features of the original vodka

- This is the alcohol that is most often adulterated. In addition, fake vodka contains many toxic oils and harmful substances, which cause poisoning and cause irreparable damage to the health of the body.

How to avoid falling for scammers’ tricks when choosing vodka:

When purchasing, you should pay attention only to alcohol from well-known brands.
It is necessary to purchase alcohol only in licensed and specialized stores, supermarkets, and under no circumstances buy from dubious stalls and run-of-the-mill stores.
An original product will not be cheap; the price for quality and a well-promoted brand is always off the charts. And if we add excise tax, VAT, production costs and trade markups to this, then the price for a half-liter bottle of high-quality branded vodka there will be at least three hundred rubles.
A twisting or loosely closed lid immediately indicates a counterfeit. On original product it is tightly attached to the neck, which prevents accidental unwinding.
Excise tax on high-quality vodka is pasted in the form of the letter G or letter P, necessarily crossing the neck and cap of the bottle. When uncorking a bottle, the excise stamp must not lose its integrity, come off or be damaged. The excise stamp, which comes loose from the bottle and leaves no traces of glue on it, indicates that such vodka is a surrogate, or that the plant that produces such products does not comply with technology, standards and workmanship.
Expensive alcohol always has a certificate, which must indicate the number and series of the excise tax, which coincides with this information on the bottle. Besides, original bottle expensive vodka contains laser markings at the base of letters and numbers, stamped upon release in the form of small black dots. It should be noted that such an inscription does not erase, which makes it one of the signs of original products.
Label quality alcohol contains the license number under which the alcohol was manufactured. In addition, the manufacturer's plant code and production date are indicated there. The absence of any of these standards indicates counterfeit products.
Expensive quality vodka must not contain impurities, sediment and white plaque. It should be transparent, clean and colorless. To check this, you just need to turn the bottle upside down and hold it up to the light. If any formations remain at the bottom, it means the alcohol is of poor quality or is diluted with water.
Also check real vodka or not, you can do it this way: turn the bottle upside down and shake a little in a circular motion. If you have the original in front of you, a characteristic “snake” of small bubbles should appear. If the bubbles are too large or disappear immediately, then this means that this is a fake.
In any case, the buyer always has the right to demand from the store a certificate of compliance with standards, or a certificate proving the authenticity of the product and its quality.

How to choose real wine

Luxury wines are not as often counterfeited as vodka, as there are not many exclusive brand names currently available, making wine more difficult to counterfeit.

Features of the original wine:

Luxury wine producers protect their products with holograms or special markings containing small symbols. Such tags are quite expensive in cost, so counterfeiting them is absolutely not profitable.
Expensive blended wines contain special labels attached to the base of the bottle, which are marked “Additionally aged” or “Collectible”. In addition, such wine always has a necklace indicating the year of the grape harvest that was used to make such a drink.
You definitely need to pay attention to wine cork. In high-quality expensive alcohol it is usually made from whole piece wood, does not crumble, peel or fall into the drink. Cheap fakes or low-quality wines are usually sealed with compressed wood waste or a regular plastic cork.
Exclusive traffic jams expensive wines Among other things, they also contain an imprint that contains information about the grape variety and the release date of the product. At the same time, a high-quality cork has a pleasant berry aroma, inherent good wine, a fake often smells of dampness or mold.
You should also pay attention to the back label, which on elite wines contains a diagram of the region in which this batch was produced. There is also information about the vineyard, the fruits of which were taken to prepare the product.
Just like with vodka, it is necessary to check the availability of excise stamps and certified documents proving the quality and authenticity of the wine.
Cheap wines are often a surrogate, so you should opt for a more expensive product.
Dry or semi-dry wine, as well as brut, are much harder to counterfeit than sweet or fortified ones. Because it is in sweet wines that it is easiest to hide defects that will be invisible due to the presence of sugar.
Expensive wine can also be checked for the presence of artificial colors, but this can only be done after purchasing it at home. To do this you need: pour wine into a small bottle, cover the opening of the vessel with your finger and lower it into a small amount of clean water, then remove your finger. If the wine dissolves in water, it is fake. You can also drop a few drops of alcohol onto a piece of white chalk. If, after some time, the chalk changes its color, it means that the bottle you bought contains unnatural dyes and other additives.

How to distinguish real cognac from a fake

When purchasing, you should pay attention to the following signs:

You definitely need to pay attention to the thickness of the product. To do this, you just need to turn the bottle over and see what happens next. If, after these manipulations, a large drop of the drink comes off the bottom and falls, then the density of the purchased cognac corresponds to the standards of expensive high-quality alcohol. This also speaks about the aging of the drink, which is at least five years.
You can also check the density by the bubbles that form immediately after turning the bottle over. In a high-quality original product, large bubbles first appear, which gradually disintegrate into small ones.
Elite varieties of cognac have a pleasant blended aroma and refined taste. The characteristic alcohol scent when opening the bottle indicates counterfeit. This is also evidenced by the vanilla taste, which is often added in order to drown out unpleasant odors artificial colors or flavors.
Just as in the case of wine or vodka, elite varieties of cognac must have certified documents confirming the authenticity of the drink.

What makes real whiskey different?

What should you consider when choosing:

The first and most important thing when choosing such a product is transparency, the absence of sediment and various impurities. It doesn’t matter what color or shade the product is, but it is the transparency that speaks of the quality of water used for its production and the observance of the technologies for its preparation. High-quality alcohol should not be thick and cloudy, and should not contain any coating or sediment.
When the original whiskey is shaken, large bubbles form in the bottle. They remain for a long time and do not disintegrate into small fragments. In addition, bubbles slowly flow down the walls of the container, which indicates the quality of the product. In the surrogate, there are no characteristic traces of alcohol left when it drips.
Natural whiskey has an exclusive oak and malt aroma. The pungent smell of alcohol indicates a low-quality product.

Typical signs of counterfeit products

Is the most counterfeited of them all various types cognac products. According to statistics, sales of this alcoholic drink far exceed its production. Thus, it turns out that approximately eighty percent of all products sold are fake. Original products account for one out of four bottles sold.

When purchasing, you need to pay attention to the following:

the original “Hennessy” is sold in bottles with a capacity of 0.7 liters and 0.33 liters, all other containers are considered counterfeit;
a lid that is not tightly closed or rotates indicates clandestine production of the product;
The original is characterized by the presence of a brand logo - “a hand with a raised halberd”, which is almost always absent in fake alcohol.

Irish whiskey "Jameson"

Distinctive features of the original Irish whiskey:

the real "Jameson" distinguishes metal cover, not covered with any shell;
the original is characterized by the presence of two raised inscriptions on the bottle: “Product of Ireland”, located below the label at the bottom and “John Jameson” - below on the reverse side.

Mexican tequila "Olmeca"

The following differences can be distinguished:

the cover of the original is smooth;
a bottle of such alcohol is characterized by relief and roughness, creating a pleasant tactile sensation;
The label design features two small circles located between the bends, while counterfeit products contain ovals instead.

American bourbon "Jim Beam"

A true American is characterized by the following characteristics:

the cover of the original is smooth and devoid of ribbing;
the lower part of the neck contains facets, unlike a fake, where the entire neck is faceted, and not just its base;

Anyone can encounter counterfeit products. The share of counterfeit alcohol on the market is growing inexorably, so no one is immune from this. But you shouldn’t despair, because, knowing some of the nuances and features characteristic of both the fake and the original, you can safely go shopping without fear of becoming a victim of scammers. In any case, forewarned is forearmed!

Surrogate alcohol, popularly known as “scorched vodka,” is falsified alcohol that has not passed the appropriate quality tests. Doctors claim that this particular drink carries a mortal threat, and people who drink it do not live to see 40 years of age. And we are not talking only about overdoses and poisoning. Almost all addicted people drink exclusively “scorched” alcohol, which is inferior in price to high-quality alcohol. Treatment of alcoholism in this case is complicated by many health problems, as well as the patient’s rather low social status.

People who often take " burnt vodka» destruction in the body occurs at a faster pace. Heart attacks and strokes develop, and blindness often occurs. It is also fraught with somatic disorders such as abdominal pain, intestinal dysfunction, and frequent headaches.

There has also been an increase in cases of epilepsy due to the use of surrogate alcohol. In this case, a person’s age does not play a role at all; this can happen to both a 20-year-old youth and an elderly person. This kind of alcohol causes sleep disturbances and various neuralgia. Doctors who treat young alcoholics note a tendency that a person aged 30-35 years is not even able to convey the meaning of a simple text, as if he had used the strongest psychotropic drugs.

After using the “palenka”, the man becomes impotent.

Unfortunately, today it is difficult to say. That burnt vodka cannot be bought in a store. According to statistics, in Russia from 50% to 70% of all alcohol is counterfeit. Laboratory tests periodically carried out by independent experts and the state show that vodka is made from questionable ingredients that are unimaginable, such as manure. If you look at the statistics, out of 10 thousand bottles of cognac, only 2 meet the standards. The picture with wine is even worse: out of 100 thousand bottles, only 4 meet the standards.

High-quality alcoholic drinks undergo several levels of purification, and even after this they contain impurities harmful to the body. Surrogate alcohol goes on sale at all, without purification or testing. Most often, they are made using alcohol that is dangerous to humans - propyl or amyl. There are often cases when they add to burnt vodka methyl alcohol. 30 ml of methyl alcohol can take a human life forever.

To avoid poisoning and serious consequences from low-quality alcohol, there is one miracle cure - abstaining from drinking. It is impossible to imagine drug addiction treatment, after which one-time drug use will be allowed, including alcohol.

Rehabilitation center is a new beginning for a sober life.

In 2016, more than 9 thousand Russians died from poisoning with surrogate alcohol, and another 36 thousand were poisoned. How to avoid being included in this sad statistic?

"Elite alcohol" at cheap prices via the Internet

At the end of 2015, a high-profile incident occurred - in Krasnoyarsk, 14 people died from poisoning with surrogate whiskey and about a hundred lost their health. They didn't drink cleansing liquids, bath lotions or suspicious tinctures - they just bought whiskey famous brand in the Internet. And some ended up in a hospital bed, and some in the morgue. By law, distance selling of alcohol is prohibited, but on the Internet you can find dozens of sites selling alcohol. There are drinks supposedly from famous manufacturers, you can buy 5–10 times cheaper. But what is this “elite alcohol” made of and isn’t it fraught with danger?

Nobody knows what's inside
Alcohol surrogates are several types of alcohol-containing products: for example, these include medications containing ethyl alcohol (including the famous hawthorn tincture), household liquids, technical alcohols - butyl, methyl, ethylene glycol, etc.

The latter are the most dangerous. For example, ethylene glycol leads to kidney and liver failure, and methylene leads to blindness. The outcome may depend on the dose and on what exactly is mixed in the counterfeit drink: for example, the presence of ethyl alcohol reduces the severity of poisoning - it partially neutralizes the effect of methyl alcohol.

Just 50–100 ml of liquid with methanol is enough to poison you to death.

Narcologists say that methyl alcohol tastes almost indistinguishable from ethyl alcohol. On the Internet you can find a lot of advice on how to determine the presence of technical alcohols in a drink using improvised means, but experts say that none of them can be called reliable. Without special tests, it is impossible to determine what the surrogate actually consists of.

Something went wrong: how not to miss a poisoning
It turns out that in the case of alcohol, the victim has no chance to suspect something is wrong in time. And so do the people around him, since outwardly, during poisoning, nothing strange or suspicious happens to him: he gets drunk, behaves and falls asleep as usual. He just might not wake up. Or wakes up, and in feeling good, and then suddenly symptoms of poisoning begin - nausea, vomiting, headache, severe thirst, agitation, breathing and vision problems. Unfortunately, in this case, not everyone goes to the doctor and may attribute poor health to drinking alcohol the day before. Alas, death almost always occurs before the victim of burnt alcohol reaches the doctors.

The sooner a person who has been poisoned by a surrogate gets to the doctors and receives help, the greater the chance that he will not lose his health or even his life. Unfortunately, both are quite real. Therefore, it is important to suspect something is wrong in time and call an ambulance.

What should you be wary of?
- Although in the early stages, poisoning by surrogates does not manifest itself in any way, you can suspect something is wrong by how intoxication comes and goes. If it is unusually slow, this should alert you.

Sleeping too long after drinking alcohol is a very alarming sign. Relatives of a person who has been drinking alcohol should watch them while they sleep.

You need to pay attention to any signs of poisoning 1-2 days after drinking alcohol - and go to the hospital immediately if this happens.

A particularly alarming symptom is any visual impairment (double vision, the picture is cloudy, flies, etc.).

How not to run into burnt alcohol
Not all counterfeit alcohol is a deadly drink.

This also includes high-quality, but illegally produced alcohol. By different estimates, a truly dangerous surrogate on the alcohol market is less than 5 percent, and the risk of running into it, guided by common sense when choosing, is small. However, advice simply not to drink something that is not intended for this is, unfortunately, no guarantee that a deadly product will not fall into your hands.

Here are tips to reduce this risk.

1. Buy where it is allowed to sell alcohol Do not buy alcohol either in kiosks, or on the Internet, or in the market, or from hand - selling alcoholic beverages anywhere else, except for shops and licensed catering establishments, is prohibited.
For self-defense purposes, it makes sense to ask other people not to give strong alcohol and do not accept it as a gift - since there are known cases of fatal and severe poisoning with just such “presents”.

2. You need to choose your drinks carefully
In terms of surrogate, the most dangerous are strong drinks, and among them are combined drinks: whiskey, cognac, rum, etc. These are the easiest to “hide” dangerous alcohols and any additives in general. Therefore, if you choose complex drinks, you must be one hundred percent sure of their legality and quality. Any doubts - wrong color, strange smell, sediment, suspicious label or excise tax - should be interpreted in favor of refusing to use, even if the place of purchase seems reliable.
You should also be careful when ordering strong alcohol in dubious cafes and restaurants, where it is impossible to verify its origin.

3. Read what you buy
According to statistics, only 41 percent of alcohol consumers buy products from well-known manufacturers, paying attention to the brand, and 31 percent do not read labels at all. The former have incomparably less chance of running into a surrogate.

4. Check every bottle
Each legal bottle of alcohol in Russia must have a federal special stamp (if the product is domestic) or an excise stamp (if imported), which is a carrier of Unified State Automated Information System information. You can check a brand for authenticity directly in the store using a mobile device and a special application “Anti-counterfeiting Alco” or on the Rosalkogolregulirovaniye website in the “Verification of brands” section.

No dubious shops or run-of-the-mill stalls. Buy alcohol from retail chains that monitor their reputation and carefully select suppliers. Roughly speaking, if there is expired goods on the shelves in a supermarket, then the alcohol there must be chosen with particular pickiness.

When buying alcohol, you should always be given a receipt, and ideally, ask for a passport, even if you don’t look like a schoolboy for a long time.

Price

A very good thing is not cheap. If you are offered aged French cognac for 800 rubles, there is something wrong. If you want to buy an expensive one, first look at how much it costs, compare prices on the Internet, do not run after a good price.

It’s not interesting to counterfeit very cheap alcohol from unpromoted brands; it’s more likely that it will be there in the first place Bad quality. So take it good drinks, checking the authenticity.

Bottle

Branded alcohol is bottled in special bottles with unusual shape, edges on the neck, relief inscriptions. If you want to buy alcohol from a specific well-known brand, try to find the manufacturer’s website and evaluate how the bottle differs from any other.

Pay attention to:

Cover material. Made of plastic, metal or cork, whether the lid is wrapped or not, smooth or embossed, flat or convex. Lid good alcohol does not scroll, does not leak. On the caps of vodka bottles there is a number by which the bottle can be verified for authenticity on the manufacturer’s website.
Neck shape. Long or short, with or without edges. A bottle with a dispenser is a sign that it was made in a factory and not underground.
Bottle shape. Pay attention to the curves, shoulders of the bottle, and bottom topography.
Relief inscriptions and images. On expensive alcohol there are often inscriptions with the name of the drink, symbols of the trading house, and other designations. On fakes, these inscriptions are either not repeated at all, or not all are reproduced, or the place of application is confused.

Excise stamp

The excise stamp is printed on special paper with colored fibers; all numbers and codes on it are clear, clearly visible and readable. The stamp must be applied absolutely evenly.

Organizations that have a license to sell alcohol must check excise stamps. For you and me there is the service of the Unified Social Portal of the Alcohol Market.

Enter numbers from excise stamp and check whether the brand matches the product. The service operates in test mode, that is, apparently, its data does not always correspond to reality. However, we tested five bottles produced and purchased in different places, and they all passed the test.

Label

The label of quality alcohol is made on good paper, often with embossing or complex elements.

If you are looking for a specific brand, compare the order in which the information on the label should appear. On branded products, all labels repeat the pattern, and product names are accompanied by a registered trademark icon.

It is mandatory to indicate the address of the manufacturer (legal and place of production), composition, and there must be links to regulatory documents.

Bottle contents

It can help if you buy alcohol in a clear glass bottle and know what the drink you want looks like.

Cognac, if you turn the bottle upside down, leaves oily streaks on the glass. They are called cognac legs.
Good whiskey behaves in the same way. We must remember that whiskey is a clear drink, there should be no sediment or flakes.
Vodka - only clear, without sediment.

But on appearance The drink can only be distinguished as a completely artisanal fake.

Here we are only talking about fakes, but there is also simply low-quality alcohol, for example, wine made from a mixture of alcohol with dyes and flavorings. The only thing that will help here is to read the label with the composition and indicate the GOST standards according to which the alcohol is made. And your feelings. If you open a bottle and something doesn't seem right, don't finish it or check. It's better to lose money than health.

The most effective way to protect yourself from bad alcohol

They can counterfeit everything, even excise stamps. Therefore the most effective method protection against bad alcohol - the choice of place of purchase and alcohol, which you can check on the manufacturer's website.

How to recognize methyl alcohol

No way. Although there are recipes for determining methanol.

Dipping heated copper wire into alcohol, for example. When methanol reacts with copper, it will release formaldehyde and you will notice a pungent odor. Ethanol doesn't behave that way. But ethanol will also smell, although not as disgusting. There is another option with setting the alcohol on fire and revealing the shade of the flame (methanol burns greenish).

These methods work if you are comparing two clean looking alcohol And methanol can be added to alcohol in different proportions, diluted and mixed with dyes, flavors and ethanol.

Symptoms of methyl alcohol poisoning

At first, methanol poisoning is no different from alcohol poisoning: dizziness, nausea, headache. Then warning signs appear:

Pain throughout the body.
Loss of vision.
Dyspnea.
Cardiopalmus.

What to do to avoid methanol poisoning

Drink only alcohol from trusted places and only high-quality alcohol.
Never get so drunk that you miss the first signs of poisoning, that is, until you lose your footing and feel sick.
If you have symptoms of poisoning, immediately call an ambulance and get to the doctors.
Before the doctors arrive, provide first aid.

Although regular ethanol helps slow down poisoning technical alcohol, do not self-medicate with alcohol.

Every day the demand for expensive and elite drinks. As a result, many counterfeits have appeared on the market, the use of which often leads to severe poisoning. As a rule, counterfeit alcohol is quite tolerable alcohol. But at the same time, many pay for it as for elite alcohol. So how to distinguish burnt alcohol?

Where should you buy alcoholic drinks?

You can protect yourself from poisoning only by carefully choosing alcoholic drinks. Such products should be purchased only from those organizations that have the appropriate rights and certificates. Most often, burnt alcohol is sold by private individuals who make it themselves. However, some types of alcohol can be sold not only by certain companies, but also by individual entrepreneurs. Such drinks include mead, cider, beer, and so on.

You should buy alcohol exclusively at stationary retail outlets. When purchasing, the seller must issue a receipt. It is worth keeping if the quality of the product is in doubt. Other places selling drinks containing alcohol are illegal. You should not purchase alcohol through online stores, or from your own hands.

Price is the best guide

Burnt alcohol is often bottled in elite bottles and it is very difficult to distinguish by color or smell when purchasing. Therefore, first of all, you should pay attention to the cost of the product. Agree, a bottle cannot good whiskey or cognac cost no more than 500 rubles. Often such goods can be seen even in small stalls. This simply cannot be.

Of course, remembering all the packaging features of elite types of alcoholic beverages is not so easy. In addition, a large assortment is very difficult to navigate for a person who rarely drinks alcohol.

Stickers and tax stamps

If necessary, you can request alcohol certificates from the seller. However, if you are not a professional commodity expert, you are unlikely to understand the provided papers. Particular attention should be paid to excise stamps and stickers. You should pay attention to this even when purchasing elite alcohol in supermarkets and specialty stores.

An excise stamp is a kind of quality guarantee. To avoid buying burnt alcohol, always ask for a receipt. They simply won’t let you know if it’s counterfeit.

What could be in the bottle?

Burnt alcohol poisoning is very difficult to tolerate. Death often occurs after drinking such drinks. Therefore, you should be careful when choosing alcohol. Of course, if the bottles contained just vodka, painted over, then such a product does not pose a great danger.

However, there are situations when methanol is sold under the guise of elite alcohol. This is very dangerous product. In fact, methanol is wood or which belongs to the category of technical liquids. This is a very dangerous and terrible poison. Because of it, people become disabled or die. practically no different from usual. It is impossible to detect the presence of this substance in the drink even after opening the bottle. Methanol is similar in color and taste to regular alcohol.

The first signs of poisoning: severe weakness, nausea, dizziness, pain throughout the body, slow breathing and heartbeat, a coma in which a person does not respond to stimuli.

Effective methods

It is very difficult to distinguish burnt alcohol from real alcohol. However, there are several proven methods:

First, light the drink. Ethanol burns with a blue flame, and wood - with a green flame.
If the alcohol is clear, then you can throw it in fresh potatoes. In methyl it will remain white, but in methyl it will take on a pinkish tint.
You can lower a hot wire into a container with a drink. Ethyl alcohol will not smell, but methyl alcohol will smell strongly of formaldehyde.