Why do we use 95% alcohol in Liqueurs?

Not exactly a beer homebrew question but...

I heard from many people that drinking 70-96% alcohol (not rubbing alcohol but distilling grapes).

For example Cyprus traditional drink zivania is made by distilling grapes and the first few batches are pure alcohol that they say is good only for cleaning because of the toxins it has is bad for your health and also can get you blind. On the other hand, in a lot of liqueur recipes, like limoncello, they use 96% alcohol and then they dilute it with syrup to drop down around 40%.

Are those toxins removed from the alcohol so it is safer? I know that you can use vodka but they say that 96 proof has a much better flavor.

Thanks

Topic distillation alcohol liquor alcohol-content homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

The alcohol in limoncello or other liqueurs is almost always industrially produced, and thus fit for consumption. It does not contain methanol or fusel alcohols. So, made this way, liqueurs are not poisonous.

When a fermented wash is distilled, the methanol and fusel alcohols escape first because they have a lower evaporation temperature than ethanol. So the first few percent of the distillation are discarded, and then the ethanol is gathered, and the last few percent are also discarded.

If you talk about the first few batches, I presume that you are talking about industrial distillation.

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