Hey — why is 100% alcohol “200 proof”? Why is proof double the percentage by volume? First off, in looking this up I discovered Canada, the EU and the UK had all phased out the use of “proof” over alcohol by volume (ABV, written as a percentage) by 1980. The US requires ABV but allows proof in addition. So there’s a hint that it’s a matter akin to imperial vs. metric (though I doubt ABV is an SI unit).
The lore (according to Wikipedia) is that in the 1500s, England taxed spirits based on their alcohol content, and the standard of a fluid’s tax bracket was whether or not it would ignite under flame. The threshold where a fluid would ignite — which stood for sufficient “proof,” wink wink, of taxable alcohol content — was set as 100 units (i.e., I guess, “100% flammable,” but like, as in, “I’m 100% sure that caught on fire just now” and not that 100% of it burned).
In practice, flash point is dependent on temperature, and a fluid may ignite at anywhere from 96% ABV in low temperatures to just 20% in high temperatures. At room temperature (75°F, 24°C), it ignites at 50%, so at least there’s that, but then again, is England ever room temperature? During tax season no less? That aside, this whole paragraph on Wikipedia implies various quarrels between taxmen and citizen posessors of spirits, where this guy could come and literally set your whiskey on fire because how is he supposed to believe you about its alcohol content? Dost thou know how many people he hath left to visit? How many towns? And you’re like alright mate, fine, tellest me what thou wantst, let’s get this over with. Here’s the storehouse. Here’s a pint, even. Admire thee the handiwork of our coopers and smiths, why don’t thee, alright? And he takes out a tinderbox because matches won’t be invented for like 300 years and he sets your mug of whiskey ablaze. And he’s like mate it dost be on-fucking-fire, it’s above proof. And you’re like well shit, mate, it wasn’t last year. And he’s like I don’t know what to tell thee.
You end up sharing a drink, since the keg is open anyway, now, and he doth indeed admire the handiwork of your coopers and smiths so why not partake, and soon he’s like, by the way, sorry for using “thee” over “you” for all that, I wanted to be friendly but I think leading with the informal was actually kind of rude. And you’re like hey, me too, no problem. I know how it is. And he’s like you can use it for me if you want to now, though. And with the way he says so, and maybe the drink in you, you slip right into it without really noticing. And then you’re like well, wow, so, this hath been a lot. Like, dost thee have to do this with all those people in all those towns that thee mentioned? And he’s like yeah, all those people in all those towns. But I mean, I get it. Like, that’s paying taxes, right? So I’m thankful it’s just setting a pint on fire or whatever it is I do, and not, like, measuring out equal volumes of liquid and weighing them against another liquid that I have to carry with me, and doing a bunch of math to all those weights and volumes.
A couple centuries later, England standardized proof to use specific gravity rather than flash point. That is, the ratio of the weight of a certain volume of liquid over the weight of the same volume of a different liquid, namely water.
In the 1800s it was set that 100 proof spirit was one with 12/13 the specific gravity of the same volume of pure water under the same conditions, essentially 57.15% ABV. In modern usage, the English standard for 100 proof is 4/7 parts alcohol, also 57.15%.
The United States, around the same time, standardized 100 proof as 50% alcohol by volume, or equal parts alcohol and other fluids after mixing — 50% alcohol before mixing is not necessarily 50% ABV after mixing, as ingredients may dissolve one another or share space unevenly, because of like, molecular stuff, you know, and 50 parts plus 50 parts can, in reality, turn into 90-something parts.
There’s something to keep in mind there, I think.
So, anyway, the twist is, pure alcohol is 200 proof in the US, but 175 proof in the UK. I had a line up top about that but decided to hold off on it until just now. Sorry. Is it more exciting this way? Maybe you already knew that. I don’t really keep up with these things. The importance of this discrepancy is that it makes 190-proof-in-the-US Everclear ~166 proof in the UK. But the UK doesn’t use proof anyway, apparently, and doesn’t even have Everclear, either, and I haven’t even looked into the international or even intranational legality of store-bought alcohol for use in pharmaceutical labs, let alone the legality of Everclear itself just as a drink. On top of that, despite the US legally prioritizing ABV, the lab alcohol I saw yesterday, the completely pure lab supply store stuff in a black plastic bottle with a twist-off eyedropper cap and covered in all sorts of legally required informative labels, that was labelled “200 proof” up top. Probably it said “100%” or “pure alcohol” right below that but the important thing is it lead with “alcohol - 200 proof”.
The compounder used the Everclear to make a testosterone cream, and admitted it was funny, but only mentioned and showed me the pure alcohol because I asked. And now I’m here because I didn’t even know proof went to 200 until it hit me yesterday that “190 proof” being used in a lab setting meant it wasn’t the joke about the potency of Everclear that I’d always assumed it to be.
Today’s wisdom:
Put more faith in “good enough.”
