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Almost 50 dead in Nigeria after drinking alcohol suspected to contain methanol (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by mc900ftJesus@lemy.lol to c/world@quokk.au

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[–] archaicpixels@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Improperly managed distillation process. Methanol comes off at a lower temp and they apparently didn’t correctly separate it from the alcohol.

[–] SillyDude@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago

You'd have to run industrial scale distilling to get enough methanol off sugar fermentation to be dangerous.

Locals told the AP they suspected a popular herbal drink with high alcohol content, known as “Monkey Tail,” was mixed with methanol, causing the deaths.

A trader who sells the concoction in Odigbo, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested, told the AP there are two versions of Monkey Tail: an original, safe version, and another version which is unsafe.

[–] bigboismith@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I've understood that's a myth. In a solution of both methanol and ethanol, both their boiling points changes based on their respective concentrations, hence it's really hard to separate the two. Most brews however contain a very small amount of methanol, and as long as the ethanol content in a couple of magnitudes higher, the methanol is safe to consume