Your health, he said, handing Pereda the glass, which he half filled with a clear liquid that seemed to be pure alcohol.

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Whereas Scotch whisky, even at full strength right off the still, tastes distinctly of the malted barley from which it is made, gin is essentially made from pure alcohol.

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Because the initial distillation takes it to a very high proof, in excess of 90% pure alcohol, the base ingredient hardly matters because the taste is lost as it converted to practically neutral alcohol.

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Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that consumption had fallen from 4.62 litres to 4.56 litres of pure alcohol per capita per year, the lowest result since 1947-48, the year of Don Bradman's last test.

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The industry has opposed the idea of defining serving size by fluid ounces of pure alcohol or as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor on the grounds that you may get more than 1.5 ounces of liquor in a cocktail depending on what else is in the drink and the accuracy of the bartender.

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That work is still ongoing at MIT, but the pair left, with the idea of using the same silicon micromachining technology to build tiny "reformers" that could separate pure hydrogen from alcohol for fuel cells.

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Over the course of time, the Amaro alcohol was made pure and more palatable, perfecting it into a distinctively delectable beverage.

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