is there moonshine with 100% alcohol (200 proof) or will it make you go blind when it touches your tongue?

Answer 1

While it's not "impossible" to make 100% alcohol, it's really difficult. Moonshiners can easily rig up a still that will make 95% alcohol reliably, and consistently. To strip out that last 5% requires additional chemical treatment or using a "molecular seive" that traps the water molecules while leaving the ethanol molecules behind (such as Zeolyte used in making fuel ethanol). This takes a lot of time, effort, and cost, and due to the nature of ethanol attracting water (hygroscopic) that as it's left open, it will suck the water right out of the air until it equalizes at 96.5%.

It's not the ethanol (drinking alcohol) that makes one go blind...it's the impurities (lead, methanol, antifreeze, whatever) that was put into cheaply made moonshine during prohibition (the 1920s). Anymore, that's not really an issue.

Answer 2

Moonshine can make you go blind due to side-effects of repeated consumption but not "when it touches your tongue"
No, there is not 200 proof moonshine because alcohol and water form an azeotrope mixture which evaporates faster than they do seperately, so there will always be water in alcohol from distillation. A distilled liquor cannot be stronger than 95% (190 proof); Only extremely advanced scientific methods can create "pure" alcohol. Also 100% ethanol does not stay 100% for very long, because it is hygroscopic and absorbs water out of the atmosphere.

Also I don't see how 1 oz of pure alcohol can cause comas and such if a person can drink 5 or more shots of 40% alcohol (or 1 to 3 shots of 95%) at a time (within a minute) and not suffer the same effects. The math doesn't add up.

Answer 3

Moonshine Proof

Answer 4

What Proof Is Moonshine

Answer 5

It is the Methanol, AKA "wood alcohol" that causes blindness, or rather when the liver breaks it down into formic acid and formaldehyde, which attacks the optic nerves that cause blindness. Methanol can enter the body by ingestion, absorption or inhalation. It is almost impossible to create a "pure 100% alcohol" but that really doesn't matter, methanol can be produced regardless of the proof, it is sloppy or deliberate distilling methods that result in methanol poisoning.

Answer 6

THose who make moonshine doesn't have the equipment to make 100% alcohol. Simple ditillation won't get the last drop of water out.

Answer 7

Anything distilled from grains, sugars, etc cannot and willnot cause blindness. It is in the method of distilling and rectifying that illness or death can occur. In the old days, distillers concerned with only quantity and speed of distillation used automobile and farm machinery radiators and piping soldered with lead that caused blindness, so called "jake leg" and worse. I have been enjoying home made spirits for a long time and have never had more than a hangover.

Answer 8

1000 Proof 1000% hahahaha miners well get that high hahahaha

Answer 9

Moonshine will not blind you imediately but 1oz can cause cunvulsion, blood poisioning and possible damage to your organs, 2oz will put you in the hospital and if you get to 3 you could wind up in a coma or dead.
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http://www.ibiblio.org/moonshine/drink/jake.html
Serious medical symptoms, different from the ones associated with legally manufactured alcohol, often result from drinking moonshine. Often these symptoms are immediate, sometimes they're temporary, but sometimes they're permanent. People go blind from drinking moonshine, or suffer nerve damage or develop sores or ulcers.
In the 1930s, though, a specific affliction struck moonshine drinkers in a number of Southern states. It is estimated that some 50,000 people were crippled with partial paralysis, mostly in their legs, as a result of drinking "jake". In some cases the paralysis proved to be temporary, but nearly all victims were forced to walk with in high-stepping, foot-slapping style that quickly became known as the "jake walk" or the "jake leg

Answer 10

It will make you go blind if your tongue is in your eye.