Determination and evaluation of methanol, ethanol and higher alcohols in legally and illegally produced alcoholic beverages

In this paper, we demonstrated the results of ethanol, methanol and higher alcohols contents of the legally and illegally produced alcoholic beverage samples after analyzing headspace gas chromatographic methods conducted in Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK), Department of Chemistry, Istanbul, TURKEY between years 2015-2017. Fast and reliable analysis of the alcoholic beverages, especially in terms of methanol concentration, has vital importance primarily due to the cases of death arose from metabolic acidosis after consumption of illicit alcoholic beverages with high concentration of methanol produced in clandestine laboratories. 96 Turkish Rakı samples, 8 beer samples, 1 wine sample, 101 other strong drink samples, totaling to 206 samples, and 2 industrial ethanol samples were thoroughly investigated. An HS-GC-MS system was utilized for qualitative analysis of the higher alcohols and for scanning any volatile compound, whereas the determination of ethanol and methanol concentrations HS-GC-FID system was performed. So, after all results were investigated in detail, mentioning the key points for evaluations, it was clearly described whether the drinks comply with criteria set by Turkish Food Codex Communiqué on Distilled Alcoholic Beverages. 89 of 96 Rakı samples and 90 of 101 strong alcoholic beverages were not definitely compliant with the Communiqué since they contained either high concentration levels of methanol or tert-butanol, which is a denaturant.