As we were setting up fondue pots, someone raised the question of “What’s Denatured Alcohol?”
Margie, our resident biologist, hemmed and hawed over broken rings and other O-chem bits, while I … hit the Internet.
Heh. Interesting answer. Denatured alcohol “’tain’t natural.” Emphasis on the “taint.” Essentially it’s ethyl alcohol which has been intentionally contaminated to make it dangerous or lethal to drink. Why? Because (a) folks will drink anything with alcohol if they can, which means that (b) anything with alcohol needs to pay an excise tax to the revenooers, and since there are industrial
uses for alcohol that don’t want to require payment of booze taxes, some industrial/not-for-consumption alcohols are (c) contaminated to be undrinkable but still usable.
And now you (and we) know.