A Boozy Christmas?

[Kevin Farnell]

With the big day almost upon us, I thought I'd give a warning about the alcohol content of some dishes and sauces. We've all heard TV Chefs saying that the alcohol is 'burned off' during cooking (e.g making red wine gravy). This is untrue! Alcohol (Ethanol) forms an 'Azeotrope' with water. An azeotrope is a mixture of two or more liquids that boil off at a constant temperature. I.e. the proportions of the liquids cannot be changed by boiling off some of the liquid (the vapour has the same proportions of the constituents as the liquid). As such, the percentage of alcohol present will remain unchanged no matter how much is boiled off.
This is something to be aware of, if you are going to be driving after Christmas dinner. If you've been good and allowed yourself a single glass of wine (although, I'd advise zero alcohol if you're going to drive), you may be at risk of being over the limit, due to alcohol present in other parts of the dinner.

Hopefully, I've not ruined your Christmas dinner.

Kevin

[Airspeed]

.....
Hopefully, I've not ruined your Christmas dinner.

Kevin

Thankfully, this arrived AFTER our lunch.
Seriously, good advice though, Kevin.

[Tomliner]

Good advice particularly north of the border where the limit is lower than in England. I’ll be employing my chauffeur later after visiting our daughter and son in law for the day. The chauffeur? SWMBO who doesn’t drink.Very handy as son in law is a policeman. EricT

[adysmith]

Good advice particularly north of the border where the limit is lower than in England. I’ll be employing my chauffeur later after visiting our daughter and son in law for the day. The chauffeur? SWMBO who doesn’t drink.Very handy as son in law is a policeman. EricT

Similar situation, SWMBO doesn't drink and son-in-law is a Policeman.

Trouble is that SWMBO doesn't drive either!

[AllanL]

Good point, north of the border it is also worth noting that most drink drive convictions are the morning after - when folk think the drink has worn off.

As advised, the best approach is no drink if driving. When I used to fly the advice was 8 hours bottle to take-off. (Some say throttle but that was in the tug when gliding!)