Disambiguation : wine alcohol vs adulterated, falsified, denatured alcohol

International audienceDuring the prohibition time, from the vote of the Volstead act (National Prohibition Act, U.S. law enacted in 1919 to provide enforcement for the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages) until its repealing in 1933 by the 21st amendment a widespread smuggling and bootlegging of counterfeited alcoholic beverages were smuggled throughout the US. In order to prevent use of stolen Industrial alcohol the Congress and the White House decided that industrial ethanol would be denatured using poisonous methyl alcohol to Ethanol. As bootleggers were able to remove most of the added methanol the government increased the amount of methanol to 4% and added other chemicals such as putrid pyridine and toxic benzene. The added poisonous substances was meant to discourage people from drinking bootleg products. In response bootleggers hired chemists to remove the poisonous chemicals. The casualties resulting from this outbidding of poisons and counterfeited alcohol products have been estimated to be as high as 10 000. In 1933 after establishing that a total ban on alcohol was not working the 21th amendment was voted repealing the 18th