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Comment by InefficientRed | Hacker News Reader

> Alcohol isn't naturally occurring in harvested produce - it's an output from a process.

Ethanol is naturally occurring.

That said, I agree that including alcohol here is bizarre. As far as I can tell there has never been a monotonic increase in ABV; instead, there is a large selection ranging from high alcohol content to even alcohol-free (which is so unpopular in the US as to be barely worth mentioning, but quite popular in Germany, and I'm now seeing large and even regional breweries in the US produce AF versions of their most popular beers).

> Unless they're talking about distillation

Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here.

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> Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process

How do you define “most”? - but I’m pretty sure non-distilled/non-fortified alcoholic beverages (wine/beer/etc) make up more of the alcoholic beverage market (whether in litres or dollars) than distilled/fortified beverages. I think they also are a lot more if you were to count SKUs (number of varieties of non-fortified wines/beers/etc > spirits/liqueurs/fortified wines/etc)

Oh, okay. Just confusion of terms.

My brain organizes things as "beer, wine, and alcohol (aka spirits)" as opposed to "alcohol, including beer and wine". And an "alcoholic beverage" is just either a spirit alone or a spirit mixed with something.

Probably because that's how my state organizes the stores (with wine/alcohol in separate stores from beer, so if you say "we need to buy beer" that means going to a different place than "we need to by alcohol").

The unambiguous word in these situations is "liquor", at least in US English.

I always thought "liquor" was stuff like Lemoncello and Amaretto.

(FWIW I'm a native US English speaker.)

You may be thinking of liqueur.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liqueur

> a usually sweetened alcoholic liquor (such as brandy) flavored with fruit, spices, nuts, herbs, or seeds

vs liquor

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liquor

> a usually distilled rather than fermented alcoholic beverage

see https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amaretto

> an almond-flavored liqueur

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoncello

> Limoncello (Italian pronunciation: [limonˈtʃɛlːo]) is an Italian lemon liqueur mainly produced in Southern Italy

Yep, liqueur is cutesy syrupy stuff made in european monasteries or whatever, typically around 40 proof. Liquor (as in "corn likker") is the stuff for getting messed up fast, typically at least 80 proof.

“Liquor” has two senses - a narrow sense in which it refers specifically to beverages produced by distillation, and a broader sense in which it refers to alcoholic beverages in general, including wine and beer. The narrow sense is stronger in the US (and I think also Canada?), whereas the broader sense is stronger in the UK and Australia (and I would assume Ireland and New Zealand too)

> Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here.

Most alcoholic beverages (beers, wines) are not distilled - distillation is typically only used to take a drink above the 20-30% ABV mark (spirit / liquor).

> Ethanol is naturally occurring.

That's... decidedly not true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95DPkPW5_PE

>> Ethanol is naturally occurring.

> That's... decidedly not true.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95DPkPW5_PE [link to video of animals becoming intoxicated on rotting fruit]

I'm confused. Perhaps you read this as "isn't"?

Indeed I did. Apologies!

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