Methanol is indeed nasty stuff, but how did it get into the mix? Well, without much explanation, Wikipedia does say: "Methanol and other toxic alcohols can occur naturally in distilled spirits and are called fusel oils. The methanol is concentrated in the first few percent of condensate produced in a batch. The fusel oils are mostly found at the end of a batch or run. Ordinarily these portions are discarded, though if ingested alone or included with the rest of the distilled product it may cause toxic effects. Like commercial beer, wine, and liquor, properly produced moonshine contains small amounts of methanol at levels that are not toxic. A common way to determine the "quality control" of a batch of moonshine was to see if the moonshiner would dare to drink it.".