Alcohol-Free Beverages

Alcohol-free and caffeine-free beverages have been quite successful in the marketplace, while nicotine-free tobacco products have yet to be introduced. Speculate about possible reasons. 

Lin, T. F., Chen, Y. L., and Wang, T. H. 2006a. Method for Producing Beer-like and Alcohol-free Fermented Beverage. UK patent GB2,414,486. 

Ethanol has been used widely as a beverage, a medicinal, and a solvent in numerous pharmaceutical preparations. Such common usage often overshadows the fact that ethanol is a toxic substance. Ethanol consumption is associated with a variety of long-term effects, including cirrhosis of the Uver, death of brain cells, and alcoholism. Alcohol consumed by the mother can even affect the normal development of her unborn child and result in fetal alcohol syndrome. For these reasons, over-the-counter cough and cold medications that were once prepared in ethanol are now manufactured in alcohol-free form. 

It is thus evident that because carbon-14 has been subjected to a reasonable rapid change during the last decades from 28 dpm in 1964 to the present level of aibout 20 dpm/gC (Nydal and Louseth, 1970), this change may be used to date alcoholic beverages. If ethanol recovered from alcoholic beverages is free of carbon-14, it originated from fossil fuels and thus can be readily identified. 

The trend toward beer-mix beverages, low-alcohol and alcohol-free beers is a worldwide driver of product innovations in the brewery sector. The low contents of natural preservatives such as ethanol or hop acids and the increased amounts of (fermentable) sugars have led to a higher microbial susceptibility of these products. If tunnel pasteurization is avoided or is not possible (with plastic packaging), the filling process should occur under highly controlled hygiene conditions. 

For industrial use, ethanol is often denatured (rendered unfit for drinking) by adding small amounts of methanol and other denaturants that are extremely difficult to remove. Denaturing is required by the federal government to protect the beverage alcohol tax source. Special tax-free use permits are issued to scientific and industrial users who require pure ethanol for nonbeverage uses. 

By the way, wine, non-distilled, tends to become sour once the bottle is opened. The reason is that some of these enzymes still remain in the wine (because it was not distilled), and hence the ethanol undergoes oxidation processes to turn into acetic acid. It may not be necessary to remind you that acetic acid is the main ingredient of vinegar. Distilled wine or other alcohol beverages are free of such enzymes (because distillation will remove the large molecules such as enzymes and/or destroy (denature) enzymes. 

Samsonov, O. V. Composition for manufacturing alcohol-free beverage. Russ. RU 2335992, 2008 Chem. Abstr. 2008, 149, 447086. 

Experiments have been tried in which small children have been given a free choice of good wholesome foods, with the result that they all chose somewhat differently and all thrived. But babies will get along reasonably well on many different assortments of wholesome foods, and so these experiments do not tell us as much as we would like to know. The question arises as to what would happen if babies were given free choices, not only of approved foods and food mixtures, but also, for example, of candy and sweetened and unsweetened alcoholic beverages. Would their wisdom of the body triumph The answer is almost certainly that some babies would show vast superiority over others both in their wisdom in shunning... 

The biosynthesis of fatty acids produced during alcoholic fermentation is initiated in the yeast cell by the formation of acetylcoenzyme A, which reacts with malonylcoenzyme A to form mainly saturated straight-chained fatty acids with an even number of four to 18 carbon atoms the appearance of relatively low levels of fatty acids with odd numbers of carbon atoms as well as unsaturated fatty acids depends on the fermentation conditions [6]. The volatile fatty acids contribute to the flavour of fermented beverages like wine or beer and their concentration usually lies between 100 and 250 mg 0.1 L p.e. In distilled spirits the concentration of free fatty acids is significantly lower owing to the esterification... 

Denatured Ethanol. For hundreds of years alcoholic beverages have been taxed all over the world to generate government revenue. When ethanol emerged as a key industrial raw material, the alcohol tax was recognized as a burden to many essential manufacturing industries. To lift this burden, the Tax-Free Industrial and Denatured Alcohol Act of 1906 was passed in the United States. The U.S. Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), now oversees the production, procurement, and use of ethanol in the United States. 

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