Author: Charles Frank

Types Of Alcohol List Of Popular Drinks By Alcohol Content

types of alcohol

Port is a sweet fortified wine from Portugal, usually served as a dessert wine. Kahlua is a popular coffee liqueur made in Veracruz, Mexico with rum, sugar, vanilla bean, and coffee. Other top coffee liqueur brands include Tia Maria and Sheridan’s. See Quick Guide to Kahlua, Quick Guide to Tia Maria, and Top Kahlua Drinks. Absinthe is a green anise-flavored spirit made from distilling alcohol with botanicals like wormwood, anise, fennel and other herbs. Sherry is made with a specific type of grape called Palomino and it’s another rare wine that can be used in cocktails or as an accompaniment to some desserts.

When you distill a liquor with some herbs or botanical ingredients it becomes a liqueur. These are great to add with some of the base liquors to make a more flavorful drink. They can be used on their own but they typically don’t contain as much alcohol content as the base liquors. Base liquors are the most general category and are made up of gin, vodka, whiskey, tequila, rum, and brandy.

Alcoholic beverages fall into one of two categories — distilled and undistilled. Other beverages can be created by fermenting different types of sugars. Lambic is a wheat beer fermented through exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria in Belgian. There are several types, including gueuze, kriek, and fruit Lambic beer.

The United States has recognized that the abuse of alcohol use can lead to significant effects on your body. The National Institute of Health consistently studies alcohol use disorder to learn more about the negative side effects of alcohol abuse. In the list of liquor below you’ll find the most common alcohol brands found in bars that you can use right at home to create a delicious tasting drink. When you’re ready to start mixing up some cocktails it’s important to know the different types of alcohol you have available. The concentration of alcohol in brandy ranges from 35% to 60%.

  1. The types of alcoholic drinks  with higher concentrations of alcohol are able to cause drunkenness and alcohol poisoning more quickly and in smaller doses.
  2. Because apéritifs are served before dining, they are usually dry rather than sweet.
  3. Cachaça (used in the popular Caiprinha) is considered a type of Brazilian rum.
  4. Aperol is a sweet Italian liqueur (amaro) with a citrus flavor.

The term hard liquor is used in North America to distinguish distilled drinks from undistilled ones (implicitly weaker). Brandy, gin, mezcal, rum, tequila, vodka, whisky (or wiskey), baijiu, shōchū and soju are examples of distilled drinks. Distilling concentrates the alcohol and eliminates some of the congeners. Freeze distillation concentrates ethanol along with methanol and fusel alcohols (fermentation by-products partially removed by distillation) in applejack. Alcoholic drinks are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and spirits—and typically their alcohol content is between 3% and 50%.

Because apéritifs are served before dining, they are usually dry rather than sweet. Digestifs include brandy, fortified wines and herb-infused spirits (Drambuie). There are many different types of alcoholic beverages but all of them have the potential to cause harm and lead to addiction. Alcohol is not only intoxicating, but it also causes long term damage to the liver and other organs.

Types of Alcohol & Liquor Names (+Brandy Alexander)

Distilled alcohol is fermented ethanol that has been put through a distillation or purification process. This is done to increase the alcohol by volume (ABV) ratio of the beverages. The distillation process separates the alcohol from the fermented brew so that it becomes much more concentrated. Although it is possible to distill spirits to 95%, most drinks are about 40% ABV. Vodka, gin, brandy, whiskey, rum, and tequila are some of the best-known distilled drinks.

The only type of alcohol that humans can safely drink is ethanol. We use the other two types of alcohol for cleaning and manufacturing, not for making drinks. For example, methanol (or methyl alcohol) is a component in fuel for cars and boats. It’s also used to manufacture antifreeze, paint remover, windshield wiper fluid, and many other products. Isopropanol (or isopropyl alcohol) is the chemical name for rubbing alcohol, which we use for cleaning and disinfecting. Both methanol and isopropanol are poisonous to humans because our bodies metabolize them as toxic substances which cause liver failure.

Fermented water is clarified after the fermentation to produce a colorless or off-white liquid with no discernible taste other than that of ethanol. Distilled drinks are drinks that are both fermented and distilled. During the fermenting process, yeast or bacteria converts sugar into alcohol. During the distilling process, the alcohol is heated to create a vapor, and the vapor is condensed back into a liquid. Undistilled spirits are taken through the fermentation process to create ethanol. Distilled spirits are put through a second process where the water is removed to increase the ABV.

Other fermented beverages

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), moderate drinking is considered drinking two or fewer standard drinks for men daily. Meanwhile, women should have one or fewer standard drinks a day. Mead is a mashup of fermented honey and water and has 5–20% ABV.

types of alcohol

Ingesting as little as 10 mL can result in permanent blindness, and 30 mL can induce coma or cause death. To keep people from drinking ethanol intended for industrial use, small quantities of methanol are often added to it. This creates denatured (or contaminated) alcohol that is poisonous to the human body. Instead of a distilled spirit like liqueurs or liquors, you can also brew alcohol and that’s how you get wine, beer, and sake. Fermented water is an ethanol-based water solution with approximately 15-17% ABV without sweet reserve. Fermented water is exclusively fermented with white sugar, yeast, and water.

Different Types of Liquor

There are also flavored whiskies, like Peanut Butter Whiskey and Fireball Whisky. Fortified wine is different from regular fermented wine because it has types of spirits added to it so you’ll get more of a kick. These are more common to drink because they don’t have as high of an alcohol content so they don’t have as large of an effect on the body.

If you or a loved one is struggling with alcoholism, contact a treatment providertoday and learn about the different treatment options for recovery. In fact, after water and tea, beer is the most commonly-consumed drink in the world. Beer is also most likely the oldest alcoholic drink in history. A standard beer, whether it be a lager or an ale, has between 4% to 6% ABV, although some beers have higher or lower concentrations of alcohol.

See Quick Guide to Baileys Irish Cream and Top Irish Cream Cocktails. Jägermeister is a German digestif liqueur made with 56 different herbs and botanicals, invented in 1934. It’s thick and syrupy, with strong anise notes on the finish. Chartreuse is a French herbal liqueur that’s been made by monks since 1737 with a blend of 130 plants. Benedictine is an herbal liqueur made in France with 27 different herbs, flowers, berries and spices.

Alcoholic beverage

Drinking even a small amount of methanol or rubbing alcohol can be fatal. Alcohol is the ingredient found in beer, wine, and spirits that causes intoxication. The alcohol chemical binds with other atoms to create secondary alcohols.

Types of Alcohol & Liquor Names

Drinking too much alcohol can lead to dangerous physical and mental side effects. To avoid these side effects, consider drinking in moderation or abstaining from any alcoholic beverage completely. The names of some alcoholic drinks are determined by their raw material. Liqueurs are flavored with natural or artificial sweeteners and are often used alongside base liquors to create cocktails. Liqueurs typically have a higher calorie count than base liquors. One shot (44 mL or 1.5 fl oz) of gin typically contains 40–55% alcohol and about 97 calories.