fusel oil

Partial calque of German Fuselöl, from Fusel, referring to low-quality alcoholic beverages in general, especially to inferior wines and spirits distilled with inadequate equipment.

fusel oil (plural fusel oils)

1. A mixture of several higher-order alcohols (having more than two carbon atoms) formed as byproduct in the normal fermentation process, captured as part of the tailings in distillation. An excessive concentration, as in low-quality moonshine, causes unpleasant taste.

   Synonyms: fusel, fusel alcohol, fuselol, potato oil

   • 1959, Ian Fleming, chapter 11, in Goldfinger:

     As for drinking, I am something of a chemist and I have yet to find a liquor that is free from traces of a number of poisons, some of them deadly, such as fusel oil, acetic acid, ethylacetate, acetaldehyde and furfurol.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Against the Day”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 756:

     […] and many simply blamed on the Doosra's known enthusiasms for opium, ganja, and any number of local fusel oils, singly or combined, named and nameless.

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