you can inhibit bacterial growth at 4% but it will eventually find a way. 12% will generally halt any bacterial activity. incidentally, that’s why we have port today, because Portuguese wine merchants fortified their low wines with distilled spirits to preserve them on long voyages.
Interesting. Thanks.
I know that one of the things I have to be careful about is fruit flies. They carry acetobacter.
The Romans knew. Sometimes wine (vin) would go bad (gar), because fruit flies and acetobacter had infected it. That bacteria changes ethanol to acetic acid. What we call vinegar.