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The use of the numbers 4,7, 100 and 175 in the first (History) section seemed pretty confusing. I have tried to clarify it. 87.194.252.37 ( talk) 06:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC) MJB 11-5-09
Is that 95% alcohol limit true. Over here in Finland the pharmacists bottles all claim 96%. Maybe the folks accross the pond just rounded that 190 proof down to the nearest ten? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 05:15, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)
Also it might (or might not) be worth explaining that two liters of 100° proof alcohol contain what would, if separated, be one liter of pure ethanol and a little over a liter of water and other things, since the liquids shrink a little when combined.
The azeotrope of water/ethanol is close to 95-96%. I'm guessing that it is just a preference thing.
At standard pressure, 95.63% is as pure as ethanol can be distilled. Pressure-swing fractioning is required for higher purities. Since beverages are nearly always watered down, the 4.37% of water left is ignored. Industrial spirit has the remaining water 4.37% removed chemically with calcium hydride. 220.240.250.5 ( talk) 03:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
It might also be worth mentioning that UK Proof is different from US Proof; Pure alcohol is 175% Proof in the UK. CS Miller 17:09, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
I reverted this article back to pre IP addressee's modifications. This article is writen in english which uses the word "proof" as an indicator of alcoholic content. In addition, Robert Boyle invented the hydrometer in the 17th century. Proofing of alcohol came soon after. The article was correct prior to our drive by's input.
As far as I'm aware ethanol is extremely hydrophilic. So, as soon as it is exposed to air, it will pull water molecules from the air and dillute the ethanol to roughly 95% alcohol. I believe you can get the percentage up to 98% by doping the ethanol with methanol, or other substances that are generally unsafe to drink. The only way to have 100% ethanol would be to put your ethanol in a vacuum, where there would be no other molecules to dillute your alcohol. Of course, as soon as you opened your 100% ethanol vacuum packed bottle, it'd almost immediately drop to 95% as the air hit it. Even if you drank it from the vacuum pack with a straw, the ethanol would grab moisture as it touched your throat, and drop to roughly 95% before it hit your stomach. So, for those of you looking for a shot of 100% ethanol, you're out of luck. (I'm about 95% sure that this information is correct. However, I'd recommend someone check with a chemist before posting this outside of the discussion page.)
It might be worth mentioning (or not) that the world outside North America and Europe doesn't use "proof" and won't have a clue what it means. It's therefore probably sensible not to give the proof of a beverage without the equivalent ABV, especially in Wiki articles describing various spirits. -- Charlene.vickers 04:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Someone should have pointed out by now, and it should be mentioned in the main article, that the word "proof", in the context of alcohol concentrations, is an archaic use of "proof" such that to prove something meant to test it. The concentration of alcohol was tested by checking whether it would burn. There are other puzzling but commonplace uses of proof with this meaning, such as "the exception proves the rule," which means that, an exceptional circumstance tests a rule. -- Janice Vian, Ph.D. ( talk) 17:45, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, I don't really see why a description of the alcohol production process is necessaRy here, in an aRticle about a unit of meaSurement. Maybe the passage here could be integrATed with saY fermentation.
This section is in the article to provide background information. It relates the ABV concept to the common types of alcoholic beverages. Readers who want to convert the ABV number to the proof number may consult History section of this article. Wahrmund ( talk) 20:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
That comment about the etymology of firewater is a load of shit. Someone with balls should remove it. LOL I wrote 'firewire' instead of 'firewater'!
I have added {{ Fact}} because when you mix 3 part of pure alcohol with 1 part of pure water, you get less than 4 parts of liquid, so diluting that mixture 1+1 with water will not give you the same result as mixing 1 part water with 1 part pure alcohol. Man with two legs 09:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
ABV, the unit that is commonly used at percent ... shouldn't that be "at present"? Maikel 15:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
To ensure that the brandy being used as payment has not been watered down or was of good quality, it was proved by dousing gunpowder in the rationed brandy, and testing to see if it would ignite. If it didn't ignite, the solution had too much water in it and the proof was considered low or "underproof". Great story. But why go to all this length and not simply light the brandy you're trying to test? I know from experience that if you want to flambée anything and therefore need alcohol that burns, you have to get the 54% ABV stuff. And according to the article, 54% ABV roughly equates 100° proof. So I suspect that "proof" simply means "alcoholic drink that burns". Maikel 15:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
The point is: wherever the term is used, in America or elsewhere, the definition is always "twice the ABV." No one thinks of it in terms of the 18th century British usage. So how is that misleading? Also, the term is not "modern" in the U.S. Wahrmund ( talk) 20:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Is there a difference between 200 proof and lab grade "anhydrous" ethanol? 4.255.55.13 ( talk) 18:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The article explains where the British relation 7:4 comes from, but does not mention why and when the American 2:1 relation was introduced. -- 194.24.138.3 ( talk) 18:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
I second this question :) -- Inez Korczyński ( talk) 04:30, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Barrel proof redirects here, but there is no mention of what it means. On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Trace_Distillery there is a chart with a column named "style notes" where some have the note Barrel proof.
The article claims "Thus, the definition amounted to declaring that (4÷7) × 175 = 100 degrees proof spirit." which means nothing, as (4÷7) × 175 equals 100 regardless of the definition of alcoholic proof. A more accurate claim would be "Thus, the definition amounted to declaring that if a fraction x of a spirit was ethanol, then that spirit is x × 175 degrees proof." Can anyone else find a better way to put it? smithers888 ( talk) 02:37, 7 May 2010(UTC)
The only difference between ABV, US proof, and UK proof is the number of parts by volume of the whole thing the alcoholic portion is compared with. These parts are respectively 100, 200, and 175. (So 100% ABV is 200 proof US and 175 degrees proof UK.) Except for that, this article and Alcohol by volume are about exactly the same thing. The fact that ABV historically had older units which are still used in places does not seem like a good reason for having two whole articles. Redirecting Alcoholic proof to Alcohol by volume (after suitably merging the contents) would avoid creating the impression that there is a more substantive distinction between the two concepts. For example the second sentence of this article says "The UK now uses the ABV standard instead of alcoholic proof," but this is misleading because the US now requires the ABV standard on all labels too, and no longer requires the proof though it permits it. Thoughts? -- Vaughan Pratt ( talk) 21:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Using the OIML scale or the Gay-Lussac scale is essentially the same as measuring alcohol by volume except that the figures are expressed in degrees, not percentages.
This states that OIML scale uses degrees, but I only see references to percentages in the referenced OIML recommendation #22. Alcohol by volume page does refer to degrees Gay-Lussac though. I realize that this is supposed to be a direct quote (can't verify) and there's not much to do in terms of editing it, but it is somewhat misleading and perhaps should be omitted. Aurimas ( talk) 00:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I once read a rather authoritative book on spirits (don't remember the name or author, sorry) that told the story of measuring the proof of rum for the Royal Navy but for a different purpose. According to this article, it was done to show the men that they weren't receiving watered down rum. But I thought the real reason was much more practical: to prove the rum on board ship was not flammable, a very important consideration in the age of wooden ships, especially if they have to go into battle. In the account I read, the ships were NOT allowed to carry rum at or above 100 proof because it was a potential fire hazard. This account much more sense than what is in the article. Does anybody else know any better? 209.179.40.208 ( talk) 23:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
The gunpowder process and the fact that sailors drank rum is attested in the sources, but no connection between the two is included. Furthermore, one of the citations specifically states that proofing was for tax purposes. I find the connection with sailor's rations dubious. Dalzay ( talk) 05:51, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
"However, the old UK proof standard is still used casually;"
I'm Canadian and I've never heard someone referring to "proof". Not even once. The standard format on labels is e.g. 40% alc./vol. and this is what people know and use. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency labelling requirements are listed here: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/labelling/food-labelling-for-industry/alcohol/eng/1392909001375/1392909133296?chap=6
Gentleman wiki ( talk) 01:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
But it's somewhat misleading: Officially, Canada follows U.S. usage in labeling .... On the contrary Canada does not follow US usage. In the US labels prominently display the proof content. In Canada they do not. I find that there is little value to add that in 1972 some people may have used proof. ABV was still the official measurement in the 1970s. Gentleman wiki ( talk) 22:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Why does the article say proof (in England) is "about 1.821 times" the ABV, and then later say 57.14% (or 57.15%) which is 1.75x (not 1.821x)?
78.149.230.39 ( talk) 20:42, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
As with most online sources, this article indicates that the ignition of gunpowder dowsed in the liquor was the original proofing test, and even lists a seemingly reliable source for such a claim... But I'm having a hard time swallowing this story. Why, in the 16th century, would tax collectors and distillers be buying and wasting gunpowder (which assumedly was expensive) on a test for which you could obtain almost the exact same results by simply lighting the alcohol itself? Why would anyone even associate alcohol with gunpowder?
It seems to me that the story of testing alcohol on naval ships to make sure it was "navy strength," and therefore would not ruin their gunpowder if it spilled, (which seems to be a very real practice) is getting confused with the basic concept of testing liquor for alcohol content by doing the obvious thing of burning it.
Based on this hunch, I checked out the PDF listed as a reference 1. It's a rather informal response to a question about the origin of "proof" written by a chemistry professor, William B. Jensen, from the University of Cincinnati. In it, Prof. Jensen claims the origin is gunpowder burning and provides as citation pages 561–575 of the book The World of Measurements: Masterpieces, Mysteries and Muddles of Metrology by H. A. Klein. However, upon doing a word search through this whole book, I can find no use of the word gunpowder at all. Reading the pages cited by Prof. Jensen the book only has this to say of the origin of proofing:<be>
I see no reason to assume this is referring to gunpowder... why would it be, especially without explicitly mentioning gunpowder anywhere in the book?
Based on all of this, I propose we: remove the Prof. Jensen reference and (at the very least) list the idea of gunpowder burning alongside the more basic concept of just burning the alcohol, the latter of which should list the H.A. Klein book as a citation. Are there any strong feelings about this? Cheers, Skoulikomirmigotripa ( talk) 19:57, 12 May 2020 (UTC)