Article: A dispassionate look at alcohol. (chemistry, effects, and manufacture of alcoholic beverages)(excerpt from 'The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide')(includes related article on preventing a hangover)

We all have alcohol in our body in small amounts, and it has no effect because there is so little of it. When we suddenly increase the amount, by drinking a lot of it, then we experience some rather unusual effects - elation, to begin with, but deflation a few hours later. Were alcohol to be discovered today its sale to the public would never be permitted because of its potentially lethal side-effects.

There are people in the world, such as Muslims and Mormons, for whom alcohol is taboo. There are those who suspect alcoholic drinks of harboring unwanted chemicals, and they claim that brewers, vintners, and distillers use additives to improve the color, the clarity, ...

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