Science of Alcohol Quiz
Alcohol is so tasty – and so dangerous. There's science all over the place in alcohol world, from how alcoholic beverages are made to how it affects your brain. Test your knowledge of the science of alcohol with this quiz.
Alcohols are a whole class of chemical. Which one is the fun one?
Methanol
Ethanol
Isopropyl alcohol
Butanol
I guess it depends how you define "fun," but ethanol is the one in alcoholic beverages. Methanol, or wood alcohol, is toxic and causes blindness. Isopropyl alcohol is commonly known as rubbing alcohol. You shouldn't drink it, either.
If you heat water and alcohol, which evaporates first?
Water
Alcohol
Alcohol. This is how distilling works – by boiling off and collecting the alcohol while leaving the rest of the liquid behind. Water boils at 100 degrees C / 212 degrees F; ethanol boils at 78.4 degrees C / 173.1 degrees F.
Yeast makes beer, wine, whiskey, vodka, and everything else alcoholic. What is the yeast doing?
Turning sugar into ethanol, carbon dioxide, and energy
Turning sugar into ethanol and oxygen
Turning bread into oxygen and energy
Turning bread into carbon dioxide and energy
Through fermentation, yeast converts sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide, creating the energy the yeast needs to carry on its daily business. The same reaction makes bread rise; the alcohol evaporates in the oven.
In beers that are made by spontaneous fermentation, where does the yeast come from?
A jar of spontaneous fermentation yeast
The air
It's added by a drunk heiress with no impulse control
A handful of dirt that the brewer adds to the vat
The beer is fermented by yeast and bacteria that happen to pass by in the air. This is how Belgian lambics are made.
True/false: Alcohol is a stimulant.
True
False
Alcohol depresses the central nervous system, leading to slurred speech, drowsiness, and a foggy brain. It also messes with the parts of your brain that control judgment. That releases inhibitions, which is why many people think it's a stimulant.
What happens to the vast majority of the alcohol you ingest?
Your kidneys filter it out of the blood and expel it as urine
You breathe it out
You sweat it out
Your liver breaks it down
Your liver breaks down more than 90% of the alcohol you ingest. That's the liver's job – processing toxins – but long-term heavy drinking can lead to liver inflammation and cirrhosis. Heavy drinking also increases your risk of liver cancer.
A blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08 means roughly what percentage of the blood is alcohol?
8%
0.8%
0.08%
0.008%
A BAC of .08 means roughly .08 percent of the blood is alcohol. If eight percent of your blood was alcohol, you'd be dead. (Probably also at .8 percent.)
Who wrote this?
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
Ben Jonson
William Shakespeare
George Bernard Shaw
Mark Twain
It was Ben Jonson (1572-1637). He and Shakespeare knew each other and may have been friends.
Hmmm
You might want to do a bit of studying before your bartender's exam. Try again?
Correct
Not bad!
Correct
Whoa! You know your moonshine from applejack!
Take some more science quizzes!
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