Does chloral hydrate have a distinctive smell?
Chloral hydrate itself doen’t have much of a smell. When I was in medical school (1960s) it was mainly used to help the alcoholics get some sleep because it is not metabolized by the liver but through the lungs. That produced a VERY strong smell in their breaths which everybody called alky-breath! It is not hard to tell who took chloral hydrate because of this strong distinctive odor you never forget. But that is the metabolic breakdown products-not the thing itself. Hope this helps you somehow.
