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The alcohol, Ethyl Alcohol (Grain alcohol), which is used in cocktails and other alcoholic drinks is regulated and sold only in State liquor stores or licensed liquor stores.

But, if someone needs ethyl alcohol for other uses, say, as a fuel, then to follow the law, it must be made undrinkable. This is generally done by mixing in a small amount of poisonous or vile-tasting compounds. This process is called, "De-nature-ing", that is, denaturing. The resulting product is called, "Denatured alcohol".

There are several approved recipes for denaturing alcohol, and which one is used depends on what the alcohol will ultimately be used for. What they all have in common is that they are a) not suitable as beverages and b) difficult to re-purify (if it was easy to extract just the ethanol portion, there would be little point in denaturing it in the first place).

As far as I know denatured alcohol is never actually measured in proof units, though at least in the US system it's easy to calculate what the proof would be based on the percentage of ethanol. This number can vary quite a lot. Some of the denaturing formulas contain considerable amounts of denaturants: SD-18, for instance, is a mixture of vinegar and ethanol "of at least 160 proof", and could potentially be as low as 64 US Proof, while SD-6b only requires 6.4 ounces of denaturant per 100 gallons of ethanol and could be as high as 199.9 US Proof.

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