Alcoholic Beverages

Volume 7: The Science of Beverages

Alexandru Grumezescu, Alina Maria Holban

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780128152690
• eBook ISBN: 9780128157015
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Alcoholic Beverages, Volume Seven in The Science of Beverages series, is a multidisciplinary resource for anyone who needs deeper knowledge on the most recent approaches in beverage development, technology, and engineering, along with their effects on beverage composition, quality, sensory and nutritional features. The book discusses main alcoholic beverages, such as spirits and wines that are thoroughly analyzed in terms of production, sustainability, and future perspectives. It offers examples of the new trends and the most recent technologies and approaches in the industry of alcoholic drinks.- Includes a variety of trending ingredients for novel beverage production- Provides different approaches for the identification of adulterations and contaminants in alcoholic beverages- Includes research examples and applications of different products, such as beer, wine, and spirits

1

The Threat to Quality of Alcoholic Beverages by Unrecorded Consumption

Alex O. Okaru^⁎,†; Jürgen Rehm^‡,§; Katharina Sommerfeld^†; Thomas Kuballa^†; Stephan G. Walch^†; Dirk W. Lachenmeier^{† ⁎} Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
^† Chemisches und Veterinäruntersuchungsamt Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
^‡ Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada
^§ Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Abstract

The World Health Organization estimates that globally out of the 6.2 L of pure alcohol consumed per person (15 + years), 25% is unrecorded alcohol. Unrecorded alcohol is defined as alcohol not registered in the legislation where it is consumed and includes homemade, surrogate, and counterfeit alcohols. Since the production, distribution, and consumption of unrecorded alcohol is not under official quality control and regulation, the risk of unrecorded alcohol containing potentially hazardous substances [e.g., methanol, acetaldehyde, aflatoxins, heavy metals, toxic denaturants such as diethyl phthalate (DEP)] may be higher than that for recorded alcoholic beverages. Consequently, the consumption of such beverages may expose drinkers to morbidity and mortality. For example, research conducted in 2017 on Kenyan artisanal beers collected from slums found 50% aflatoxin contamination. In this chapter we extensively review the epidemiology, chemical composition, health consequences citing a case story of the problem of unrecorded alcohol from Kenya, and also suggest plausible policy interventions to address the challenges posed by unrecorded alcohol.

Keywords

Unrecorded alcohol; Risk assessment; Health policy; Methanol; Ethanol; Contamination

Acknowledgments

This chapter is mainly based on two previous reviews on unrecorded alcohol (Lachenmeier et al., 2013; Rehm et al., 2014). The original material from Lachenmeier et al. (2013) is reused and updated with permission from Oxford University Press, while the original material from Rehm et al. (2014) is reused and updated with permission from John Wiley and Sons.

1.1 Introduction

Alcohol consumption can be broadly classified into recorded and unrecorded consumption, based on whether the alcohol consumed is officially registered or not. In the last decade unrecorded alcohol consumption has become the focus of increasing attention, as World Health Organization (WHO) estimations have shown that about one-fourth of global consumption is unrecorded (WHO, 2014). As the major ingredient of unrecorded alcohol is most typically ethanol, similar to recorded alcohol, all of the health consequences of alcohol consumption in general also apply to unrecorded alcohol (Lachenmeier et al., 2013). Nevertheless, unrecorded alcohol poses some specific problems apart from recorded alcohol, which are reviewed in this chapter.

1.2 What Is Unrecorded Alcohol?

Unrecorded alcohol comprises homemade, illegally produced or smuggled alcohol products as well as surrogate alcohol that is not officially intended for human consumption (e.g., mouthwash, perfumes, and eau-de-colognes) (Fig. 1.1). Unrecorded alcohol consumption is highest in Eastern Europe and Africa (Rehm et al., 2016; Rehm and Poznyak, 2015; WHO, 2014). Its major economic impacts are losses due to smuggling and tax fraud. The level of illegal trade and smuggling predominantly depends on the level of governmental enforcement. The implementation of Europe-wide tax stamps and mechanisms to track the movement of all alcohol products in the distribution chain were suggested to combat illegal trade. Especially in settings with higher levels of unrecorded production and consumption, increasing the proportion of consumption that is taxed may represent a more effective pricing policy than simple increase in excise tax.

Fig. 1.1 Categories of unrecorded alcohol. Reproduced from Rehm, J., Kailasapillai, S., Larsen, E., Rehm, M.X., Samokhvalov, A.V., Shield, K.D., Roerecke, M., Lachenmeier, D.W., 2014. A systematic review of the epidemiology of unrecorded alcohol consumption and the chemical composition of unrecorded alcohol. Addiction 109, 880–893 with permission from John Wiley and Sons.

The health effects and toxicity of unrecorded alcohol were found to be very similar to commercial alcohol, predominantly caused by ethanol itself (Rehm et al., 2014, 2010b). The major problem is certainly that unrecorded spirits are often sold at higher alcoholic strength (> 45% vol) but in some cases for half the price of legal beverages, possibly leading to more detrimental patterns of drinking and overproportional health hazards. Health effects beyond ethanol are seen in exceptional cases where methanol is intentionally added to the alcohol or when surrogate alcohol contains highly toxic ingredients (such as methanol in denatured alcohol, coumarin in cosmetic alcohol or polyhexamethylene guanidine in disinfectant alcohol).

To improve the knowledge base about unrecorded alcohol, better estimates of the size of the market and the amount of consumption need to be provided. Insight into the distribution of consumption between the categories of unrecorded alcohol would be also required to provide a targeted country- or region-specific policy response.

Unrecorded alcohol denotes alcoholic drinks produced and/or consumed that are not recorded in official statistics of sales, production, or trade. In some countries, unrecorded drinks account for the majority of alcohol consumption (Rehm et al., 2004). Unrecorded alcohol stems from a variety of sources (Giesbrecht et al., 2000; IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, 2010): home production, illegal production and sales, illegal (smuggling) and legal imports (cross-border shopping), and other production of alcoholic drinks that are not taxed and/or are not included in official production and sales statistics. A portion of unrecorded alcoholic drinks derive from different local or traditional drinks that are produced and consumed in the community or homes (Lachenmeier et al., 2013). The production may be legal or illegal, depending on the jurisdiction and in some cases on the strength of the drink. Worldwide, information on these alcoholic drinks and their production or consumption volumes is scarce (IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, 2010). Due to the wide diversity of products that may fall under unrecorded alcohol, there has been no consistent definition or usage of this term in the literature. Some authors use the terms illegal, informal, artisanal, homeproduced, nonbeverage, or surrogate alcohol; however, these terms often only describe subgroups of unrecorded alcohol (Lachenmeier et al., 2013). The industry prefers the term “noncommercial alcohol” (Adelekan, 2008). The WHO provided the following nomenclature and classification (Fig. 1.1; see also the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health—GISAH—at: http://www.who.int). The term “unrecorded alcohol” comprises four major categories: (1) illegally produced or smuggled alcohol; (2) surrogate alcohol, that is, alcohol not officially intended for human consumption, such as perfume; (3) alcohol not registered in the country where it is consumed; and (4) legal unregistered alcohol (e.g., homemade alcohol in countries where it is legal) (Lachenmeier et al., 2013). There are various subcategories within these broad categories. For instance, illegally produced alcohol can stem from the same factory as legal alcohol (i.e., beer factories, distilleries, wineries), but a proportion of the alcohol produced is not declared to the authorities in order to evade taxation. It should be noted that homemade alcohols are usually illegally produced but there are exceptions such as in countries where home production is not illegal but would still be part of unrecorded consumption (Lachenmeier et al., 2013). Some common examples of surrogate alcohols include mouthwash, perfumes, and eau de cologne, which are alcohol products manufactured on a large scale (Lachenmeier et al., 2007, 2009b). Such alcohols may be produced with human consumption in mind but to evade taxation may be officially classified as “shaving water” or “mouthwash” (Lachenmeier et al., 2011b). In Russia (e.g., Savchuk et al., 2006), surroga...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Series Preface
• Preface
• 1: The Threat to Quality of Alcoholic Beverages by Unrecorded Consumption
• 2: Technology of Vermouth Wines
• 3: New Trends in Spirit Beverages Production
• 4: Mescal an Alcoholic Beverage From Agave spp. With Great Commercial Potential
• 5: Sotol, an Alcoholic Beverage With Rising Importance in the Worldwide Commerce
• 6: Medicinal Fungus Ganoderma lucidum as Raw Material for Alcohol Beverage Production
• 7: Application of a Two-Stage System With Pressurized Carbon Dioxide Microbubbles for Inactivating Enzymes and Microorganisms in Unpasteurized Sake and Unfiltered Beer
• 8: Electromagnetic Characterization of Beers: Methodology, Results, Limitations, and Applications
• 9: Tapping Into Health: Wine as Functional Beverage
• 10: The Evolution and the Development Phases of Wine
• 11: New Trends in Sparkling Wine Production: Yeast Rational Selection
• 12: Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Lachancea thermotolerans: Joint Use as an Alternative to the Traditional Fermentations by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Oenococcus oeni in Oenology
• 13: Emerging Trends in Fortified Wines: A Scientific Perspective
• 14: Emerging Functional Beverages: Fruit Wines and Transgenic Wines
• Index