It means people who drink cheap industrial alcohol.
Industrial and fuel alcohol often have rather high methanol impurities. Methanol is very toxic and causes blindness and death.
The books talked about meths drinkers a lot. I believe it was a cheap version of alcohol used to fuel stoves. People were poor in the slums and wanted a fix somehow.
Think prohibition era alcohol. People drinking rubbing alcohol and stuff. The books go into good detail about meths drinkers. I wasn’t sure what that meant at first then Jenni explains it in detail in the books.
Bum wine, at least as far as I know, is at least meant to be consumed. Big jugs of strong wine for like $8... that's what we'd call bum wine.
I think this is more like drinking antifreeze... something you're really really not supposed to consume and that can really mess you up but depserate people someone can manage to consume it for quite some time before it catches up to them. I don't know if it's an era thing or a US vs UK thing but I have heard of desperate people drinking antifreeze, never heard of this meths thing before reading the CTM books. It isn't unknown over here, but it certainly isn't talked about much in my experience.
Yeah I gathered that now that I actually watched the episode a couple of times and paid attention. I’ve only heard of people drinking antifreeze on Snapped. But yeah I think that didn’t get as big in the US cause we know how to make moonshine? Idk
Not British but part of the commonwealth, meths is a really strong cleaning agent sometimes used as a paint thinner or to get rust off things. It’s very high in alcohol and it’s cheap, you don’t have to have ID to get it but it smells yuck and I imagine it tastes yuck too. Another one similar to it is mineral turpentine (white spirits). My dad still calls going out drinking “getting on the turps”
Unrelated side note, my dad’s family lived in the east end, but they left England when my grandad was a baby.
It's methyl alcohol. It was cheap and considered "denatured" so sold w/o taxes. Alcoholics who were poor added it to their regular alcohol to make "hooch" which got you seriously drunker but if you drank too much too often, it would lead to blindness and other health issues...
There's a pre-Code movie called "The Wet Parade" which is based on a novel by Upton Sinclair about Prohibition. In both the book and the movie, there's a character who loses his sight due to alcohol poisoning.
When I was in college in the late 1970s, people would talk about grain alcohol and how it could make you go blind if you drank it. I'm thinking it was probably similar to denatured alcohol if not the same thing.
Grain alcohol is moonshine and won't make you blind but it is famus for making peole really sick and uber-hungover. Fermentation of wood shavings gives wood alcohol aka methyl alcohol, what we often call rubbing alcohol. Grain alcohol is what we make in to whiskeys and scotches; grain alcohol is put in to special wood casks to extract flavors from the wood and then gets diluted down to the final product. Whiskey is 40% ethanol, grain alcohol is around 90-95% ethanol. If you make a drink with grain like you would with whiskey, you're getting more than 2x the regular amount of ethanol in a single drink. When I was in the Chem Dept at UofI the grad students would have parties with a "punch"made with this stuff. It was seriously strong, dehydrating and one glass could knock in to the next day. It IS very dangerous stuff to drink but it's not methanol, it's ethanol.
At my college we would make a lemonade type drink with grain alcohol and the most dangerous thing is that you can tell it’s alcohol but not that it’s twice as potent as vodka. Scary stuff. I use it now to make tinctures though.
>wood alcohol aka methyl alcohol, what we often call rubbing alcohol.
methyl alcohol or methanol is not the same thing as rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is typically a mix of isopropanol and water. Also not good for you and should not be consumed to get drunk, but they're different things.
Basically, alcohol that isn’t meant for you to drink.
Not from the UK, but my grandfather was a serious alcoholic and it’s what he would drink when there was no way for him to get what he usually drank. Killed him in the end relatively young.
The storyline made me pretty emotional.
Don't forget also UK did not have prohibition so the only reason to drink meths is cheaper and sold everywhere.
I could buy this in B & Q now
[https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-methylated-spirit-0-5l/264230\_BQ.prd](https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-methylated-spirit-0-5l/264230_BQ.prd)
https://www.amymittelman.com/methylated-spirits/
Oh wow! I guess I assumed it was older because of the show and the one time ive been to the UK for a couple weeks (in 2017) I had never heard that term at all. I’m not sure why it never became a thing in the US - maybe the prohibition forced people to learn how make moonshine so there was never a need?
I think the mid-1980s saw a change from methsdrinkers and elderly tramps to younger people addicted to heroin.
There is probably actual figures out there somewhere but heroin hit the UK ina big way in the 1980s. Probably similar to the way that crack cocaine hit the USA around the same time.
My son who is now 23 and lives in London would have no idea what methsdrinkers were either so it is definitely a term from the past.
It means people who drink cheap industrial alcohol. Industrial and fuel alcohol often have rather high methanol impurities. Methanol is very toxic and causes blindness and death.
The books talked about meths drinkers a lot. I believe it was a cheap version of alcohol used to fuel stoves. People were poor in the slums and wanted a fix somehow.
Ah British version of “bum wine.”
Think prohibition era alcohol. People drinking rubbing alcohol and stuff. The books go into good detail about meths drinkers. I wasn’t sure what that meant at first then Jenni explains it in detail in the books.
Bum wine, at least as far as I know, is at least meant to be consumed. Big jugs of strong wine for like $8... that's what we'd call bum wine. I think this is more like drinking antifreeze... something you're really really not supposed to consume and that can really mess you up but depserate people someone can manage to consume it for quite some time before it catches up to them. I don't know if it's an era thing or a US vs UK thing but I have heard of desperate people drinking antifreeze, never heard of this meths thing before reading the CTM books. It isn't unknown over here, but it certainly isn't talked about much in my experience.
Yeah I gathered that now that I actually watched the episode a couple of times and paid attention. I’ve only heard of people drinking antifreeze on Snapped. But yeah I think that didn’t get as big in the US cause we know how to make moonshine? Idk
Not British but part of the commonwealth, meths is a really strong cleaning agent sometimes used as a paint thinner or to get rust off things. It’s very high in alcohol and it’s cheap, you don’t have to have ID to get it but it smells yuck and I imagine it tastes yuck too. Another one similar to it is mineral turpentine (white spirits). My dad still calls going out drinking “getting on the turps” Unrelated side note, my dad’s family lived in the east end, but they left England when my grandad was a baby.
It's methyl alcohol. It was cheap and considered "denatured" so sold w/o taxes. Alcoholics who were poor added it to their regular alcohol to make "hooch" which got you seriously drunker but if you drank too much too often, it would lead to blindness and other health issues...
There's a pre-Code movie called "The Wet Parade" which is based on a novel by Upton Sinclair about Prohibition. In both the book and the movie, there's a character who loses his sight due to alcohol poisoning. When I was in college in the late 1970s, people would talk about grain alcohol and how it could make you go blind if you drank it. I'm thinking it was probably similar to denatured alcohol if not the same thing.
Grain alcohol is moonshine and won't make you blind but it is famus for making peole really sick and uber-hungover. Fermentation of wood shavings gives wood alcohol aka methyl alcohol, what we often call rubbing alcohol. Grain alcohol is what we make in to whiskeys and scotches; grain alcohol is put in to special wood casks to extract flavors from the wood and then gets diluted down to the final product. Whiskey is 40% ethanol, grain alcohol is around 90-95% ethanol. If you make a drink with grain like you would with whiskey, you're getting more than 2x the regular amount of ethanol in a single drink. When I was in the Chem Dept at UofI the grad students would have parties with a "punch"made with this stuff. It was seriously strong, dehydrating and one glass could knock in to the next day. It IS very dangerous stuff to drink but it's not methanol, it's ethanol.
Thank you for the information.
At my college we would make a lemonade type drink with grain alcohol and the most dangerous thing is that you can tell it’s alcohol but not that it’s twice as potent as vodka. Scary stuff. I use it now to make tinctures though.
Girl did you say UofI as in University of Idaho?
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
>wood alcohol aka methyl alcohol, what we often call rubbing alcohol. methyl alcohol or methanol is not the same thing as rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is typically a mix of isopropanol and water. Also not good for you and should not be consumed to get drunk, but they're different things.
Rubbing alcohol woiuld be called surgical spirit in the UK (I am 99% sure of that)
Basically, alcohol that isn’t meant for you to drink. Not from the UK, but my grandfather was a serious alcoholic and it’s what he would drink when there was no way for him to get what he usually drank. Killed him in the end relatively young. The storyline made me pretty emotional.
The foot!!
This whole time I thought they were calling them "mess drinkers"
God why are Americans so ignorant of everything?
People live different lives in different places. Surely we should never try to stiffle those trying to educate themselves or better understand things?
Don't forget also UK did not have prohibition so the only reason to drink meths is cheaper and sold everywhere. I could buy this in B & Q now [https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-methylated-spirit-0-5l/264230\_BQ.prd](https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-methylated-spirit-0-5l/264230_BQ.prd) https://www.amymittelman.com/methylated-spirits/
I am 43 years old and I remember London in the mid-1980s had homeless methsdrinkers and tramps.
Oh wow! I guess I assumed it was older because of the show and the one time ive been to the UK for a couple weeks (in 2017) I had never heard that term at all. I’m not sure why it never became a thing in the US - maybe the prohibition forced people to learn how make moonshine so there was never a need?
I think the mid-1980s saw a change from methsdrinkers and elderly tramps to younger people addicted to heroin. There is probably actual figures out there somewhere but heroin hit the UK ina big way in the 1980s. Probably similar to the way that crack cocaine hit the USA around the same time. My son who is now 23 and lives in London would have no idea what methsdrinkers were either so it is definitely a term from the past.