>I think it makes sense for some country with a high rate of alcohol flush reaction to legalize using 1-butanol or oxane as a substitute for ethanol in drinks served at bars and restaurants.
The only downside is that butanol tastes pretty awful.
Do all the butanols taste bad? I see on WP that it notes that 2-butanol has a ‘burning flavor’ which seems like a drawback, but I don’t see any flavor (just ‘alcoholic odor’) mentioned in ‘butanol’ (although 1-butanol sounds like it’s so easy to get I’d expect it to mention flavor & abuse if it were a viable ethanol substitute).
The ingestion of 2M2B is unpleasant: it reportedly has a camphor-like aroma, and it produces a burning sensation in the mouth and throat. Users often dilute it in water or another liquid to mitigate unpleasant effects.
2M2B isn’t suitable as an ethanol replacement because:
it’s metabolized very slowly and isn’t exhaled like diethyl ether so it lasts a couple days, which is too long
the smell/taste is somewhat bad
...but maybe I should’ve included it in the post. (As a tertiary alcohol, it can’t be dehydrogenated by alcohol dehydrogenase, which is one way to avoid aldehyde production. It’s worth noting that tertiary alcohols produce the same effect too despite steric issues being plausible.)
>I think it makes sense for some country with a high rate of alcohol flush reaction to legalize using 1-butanol or oxane as a substitute for ethanol in drinks served at bars and restaurants.
The only downside is that butanol tastes pretty awful.
Do all the butanols taste bad? I see on WP that it notes that 2-butanol has a ‘burning flavor’ which seems like a drawback, but I don’t see any flavor (just ‘alcoholic odor’) mentioned in ‘butanol’ (although 1-butanol sounds like it’s so easy to get I’d expect it to mention flavor & abuse if it were a viable ethanol substitute).
https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/recreational-2-methyl-2-butanol-use-emerging-wave-misuse-ethanol-substitute/
2M2B isn’t suitable as an ethanol replacement because:
it’s metabolized very slowly and isn’t exhaled like diethyl ether so it lasts a couple days, which is too long
the smell/taste is somewhat bad
...but maybe I should’ve included it in the post. (As a tertiary alcohol, it can’t be dehydrogenated by alcohol dehydrogenase, which is one way to avoid aldehyde production. It’s worth noting that tertiary alcohols produce the same effect too despite steric issues being plausible.)
But is it awful at 1-2% in water, mixed with other stuff? Apparently the odor is less pleasant at higher concentrations, and hedonically neutral at 300 ppm.