Is it scientifically possible to drink a neat shot of 90 percent alcohol?
It’s possible to synthesize 100 percent ethanol, although you can’t use distillation to get to 100 percent because of the azeotrope of C2H5OH and water. Ethanol, I seem to recall, boils at around 78C. You body temperature is 37C. So your body is not hot enough to boil ethanol. Now, it is true that the vapor pressure of a liquid increases with increasing temperature, but I doubt that there would be enough vaporization of ethanol at 37C to cause any more problems than the 180 proof alcohol. Alcohols are a class of organic compounds. There are hundreds of alcohols. And one must remember that EVERY alcohol is poisonous. Every one of them. It’s just that it takes a little longer for ethanol to kill you. Consuming very high concentrations of ethanol will probably hasten the process. Methanol, or wood alcohol, CH3OH, does, in fact, attack the optic nerve. So if it doesn’t kill you outright, it will cause damage to your eyesight.
