Drinking weird booze out of dirty shooter glasses is pretty much half the fun of traveling to south east asia.
Its tragic but I wouldn’t assume its a common thing. A lot of booze has been drunk by backpackers.
WineYoda on
This comes from dodgy homebrew spirits that are poured into empty mainstream vodka/gin and passed off as the real thing to make more money. It’s very common in SE Asia.
Spirits are made by distilling, water turns to vapour at 100 degrees Celcius, while ethyl-alcohol (the one we want) evaporates at 79C. Methanol (much more toxic) evaporates at 69C, those making proper spirits discard the first and last parts of the distillate and control the temperature of the still carefully.
BazilBroketail on
…was it one of the snake ones?
[deleted] on
[deleted]
phenmacq on
Maybe people traveling through Laos are warned about this especially when going with travel groups, or talking with other tourists. Very sad to hear this. When I traveled Laos back in 2012 we were warned not to drink the home brewed type of alcohol due to this very reason.
wombat74 on
It’s been pretty big news here in Australia. Laos has been a popular “adventure” destination for years and had been trying to say they’d cleaned up a lot of the shonky operators who had done stuff like this in the past. Sadly, I guess not.
Zodiamaster on
I can’t help to think about what kind of parents allows and finances a trip to send their 19-20 year old first world daughter to travel to some of the backward regions on the planet
Dry_Divide_6690 on
I got drunk on Laos whiskey and I’m sure it was part gasoline. Jesus it was awful, but I survived and will never forget that trip.
sjbfujcfjm on
A lot of fake alcohol in China too. Those hangovers are terrible
grobblebar on
The cure for methanol poisoning is apparently ethanol. Just keep drinking it out of your system.
Fiss on
Sucks. 6 people dead so the bar would make a few more dollars
12 Comments
Don’t take free shots from shady people.
Drinking weird booze out of dirty shooter glasses is pretty much half the fun of traveling to south east asia.
Its tragic but I wouldn’t assume its a common thing. A lot of booze has been drunk by backpackers.
This comes from dodgy homebrew spirits that are poured into empty mainstream vodka/gin and passed off as the real thing to make more money. It’s very common in SE Asia.
Spirits are made by distilling, water turns to vapour at 100 degrees Celcius, while ethyl-alcohol (the one we want) evaporates at 79C. Methanol (much more toxic) evaporates at 69C, those making proper spirits discard the first and last parts of the distillate and control the temperature of the still carefully.
…was it one of the snake ones?
[deleted]
Maybe people traveling through Laos are warned about this especially when going with travel groups, or talking with other tourists. Very sad to hear this. When I traveled Laos back in 2012 we were warned not to drink the home brewed type of alcohol due to this very reason.
It’s been pretty big news here in Australia. Laos has been a popular “adventure” destination for years and had been trying to say they’d cleaned up a lot of the shonky operators who had done stuff like this in the past. Sadly, I guess not.
I can’t help to think about what kind of parents allows and finances a trip to send their 19-20 year old first world daughter to travel to some of the backward regions on the planet
I got drunk on Laos whiskey and I’m sure it was part gasoline. Jesus it was awful, but I survived and will never forget that trip.
A lot of fake alcohol in China too. Those hangovers are terrible
The cure for methanol poisoning is apparently ethanol. Just keep drinking it out of your system.
Sucks. 6 people dead so the bar would make a few more dollars