Methanol is a kind of alcohol, but not the alcohol in beer or wine. That drinking alcohol is ethanol. Methanol is poisonous: even a small amount can damage the eyes — people can go blind — or kill you. It used to be made from wood, so older books call it wood alcohol. Today factories make it, and it is used in industry: as a liquid that dissolves other things, in some fuels, and to make other chemicals. Criminals sometimes put methanol into fake spirits; that is how people get hurt at illegal drinking parties. It burns with a pale flame that is easy to miss. Chemists name it from methane plus -ol, the usual ending for alcohols. Though actually, the sister-word look of methanol and ethanol is exactly why the danger is so easy to miss: they sound like a pair, but only one of them belongs in a drink.