| The "Federal Poisoning Program" is still in force currently in 27 CFR 19 - 21 as posted by esbranson. Industrial alcohol can contain numerous optional denaturants other than methanol, here is the latest regulation according to Cornell, showing specific denaturants and their applicable formula Nos.: http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/21.151 Among these are the SD Alcohols (SDA or Specially Denatured Alcohols) seen in shampoos and other cosmetics. Many of these denaturants are intended to be nearly impossible to remove from the product, others not as difficult or costly to separate. The federal government did not need to add poison to alcohol made by bootleggers, it was already present in the hijacked SDAs and CDAs the bootleggers were using as raw material. Depending on sophistication, bootleggers (sometimes) were removing (some of) the denaturant before clandestinely
distributing their material for beverage use. EDIT: I have single-handedly tested billions of dollars worth of industrial alcohols, and methanol is one of the big ones around here. Today methanol purity (assay) is performed internationally according to the instrumental technique that I personally developed on my own decades ago and held in confidence for years before it "leaked" from the lab. Purty good at beverage grade too, considering work for a
craft distiller presently. Also lived in two counties with borders delineated by rivers such that an island in the river was not in either
county, which allowed plausible deniability for local law enforcement during prohibition. One of these islands at one time being owned by Al Capone. |