Citation

Lachenmeier DW, Godelmann R, Sohnius EM, Musshoff F. Blutalkohol 2006; 43(4): 277-285.

Affiliation

Chemisches und Veterinaruntersuchungsamt (CVUA) Karlsruhe, D-76187 Karlsruhe, Germany

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, International Committee on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety and Bund gegen Alkohol und Drogen im Straßenverkehr, Publisher Steintor Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A new German fiscal legislation was recently introduced to protect young people from the dangers of alcohol consumption and alcohol addiction in relation to alcopops (flavoured alcoholic beverages with an ethanol content of less than 10 % vol). To evade the legislation, which only applies to alcopops derived from spirits, a number of manufacturers changed the recipes of their products to include alcoholic raw materials that are exempt from this special tax (e.g. beer and wine). A quantitative analysis of volatile congeners for forensic purposes, in which measured and expected values are compared to drinking data, must therefore take this shift of the market of alcopops into consideration. By analysing commercially available alcopops, a significant deviation of the volatile congeners between the new products containing beer or wine and the former alcopops containing spirits could be detected. Until the introduction of the law, only a few alcopops with significant concentrations of volatile congeners were available (e.g. Whiskey-Cola). In alcopops derived from wine alcohol, however, the concentrations of volatile congeners (especially methanol, 1-propanol, and 2-(beta)-methyl-butanol-1) are 10 to 100 times higher than in products derived from spirits. The possibility of a change of the recipe has tobe taken into consideration even if the brand name of the product in question was not changed. Investigating offices should be informed that ideally the beverage sample in question should be confiscated and stored. The secured sample can later be used for comparative analysis of volatile congeners.

Language: de