Beach clubs, restaurants and bars—of course, holidays in Bali often involve alcohol. Here you can try cocktails, local drinks, and well-known global brands of spirits.
Unfortunately, the problem of counterfeit alcohol remains in its worst form: methanol poisoning. The mass incidents that used to make the news have almost disappeared, but that doesn’t mean the problem is gone—it has simply become less visible. Isolated cases happen regularly, although not all of them reach the news.
According to Methanol Awareness and the Methanol Poisoning Initiative, dozens of methanol poisoning cases are recorded in Indonesia every year, including fatal ones. A significant share of these incidents never becomes public—people are poisoned, but the stories don’t reach the media or are attributed to other causes.
Drinking methanol is deadly, even in relatively small amounts, and poisoning can lead to blindness. Just 10–30 ml of this toxin can kill a person or leave them disabled. The fatality rate for methanol poisoning is estimated at around 20–40%, and survivors often suffer irreversible consequences, including loss of vision.
It’s important to understand that producers of illegal booze are not trying to become mass murderers, and they do not add methanol to their drinks for inhumane reasons. Usually, dangerous methanol levels in a drink are the result of poor distillation or a dosing mistake: methanol is cheap and, if used incorrectly, can increase the strength of counterfeit alcohol. In a weak mix, it remains the same poison, but may not cause severe consequences.
For example, methanol is mixed with local palm vodka arak and other chemical substances. This kind of cocktail gets you drunk very quickly and costs next to nothing. Precisely because it’s cheap, this drink is very popular in many villages. It’s called arak oplosan, and we do not recommend drinking it. In short, as often happens, the root cause is greed.
For many years, Indonesia has been among the countries with the highest number of methanol poisoning cases in the world. It’s not just Bali—major incidents regularly happen on other islands too, including Java. Nationwide, the death toll from illegal alcohol runs into the hundreds.
For example, in 2026 in Jepara (Java), six people died after a party at a karaoke café: they were sold homemade alcohol that included industrial-grade спирт. Two more survived but were taken to hospital with classic symptoms—vomiting, dizziness and blurred vision. Police later tracked down the people who mixed and sold the alcohol directly at the venue.
A similar story happened in Kediri (East Java) in 2025: three people died after drinking a homemade beverage. The seller mixed 96% спирт with the herbal drink beras kencur and syrups. One person survived, and the investigation separately noted that the спирт used was not intended for drinking and may contain dangerous impurities, including methanol.
In Magelang (Central Java) the same year, six people died after a meal where illegal alcohol was served. One survivor described a typical pattern: first a severe headache, then almost complete loss of vision—symptoms characteristic of methanol poisoning.
This is a systemic problem: over the last five years, there have been around 400 known methanol poisoning incidents worldwide, affecting about 11,800 people, and 4,500 of them died. A significant share of these cases is in Asia, including Indonesia.
Today, the main risk has shifted towards small venues—warungs and bars with suspiciously low prices. That’s where non-certified alcohol or mixes of unknown origin are most often used, and visually they cannot be distinguished from normal drinks. It’s also important to understand an unpleasant fact: it’s virtually impossible to detect methanol “by eye” or by taste—there is no strong smell, and it is easily masked in cocktails.
Here are a few tips to avoid poisoning:
Be wary of cheap cocktails. If a Long Island costs 150k everywhere else, but in one place it’s 50, it’s easy to guess the ingredients won’t be the best quality.
Does the drink seem to have a strange taste or a suspicious smell? Don’t try to be brave—you may be right. Just don’t drink it. Even if there’s no methanol, it may indicate a fake, and that won’t do you any good anyway.
Avoid cheap, dubious-looking, home-made alcohol—especially if there are no excise stamps on the packaging. If you really want to try Balinese arak, buy it from certified official producers. Yes, it’s much more expensive than a plastic bottle from a corner shop, but the risk of poisoning is almost nonexistent.
Don’t drink in questionable small “locals-only” bars. Alcohol quality is clearly not their top priority, and cheap counterfeit booze is the main source of trouble. They often also serve the arak oplosan mentioned above. Even if the methanol dose is not life-threatening, the toxin may have a cumulative effect.
The simplest advice: stick to beer, wine and low-strength drinks—methanol is virtually never found there; it is mainly used for strong spirits.
Just in case, here are the symptoms of methanol poisoning: it causes severe intoxication from the first sips. If you immediately feel an unusual kind of drunkenness, that’s a reason to be cautious.
If your hangover doesn’t ease by morning but instead gets worse, that’s also a reason to go to hospital. Poisoning can develop over several hours, and your condition gradually deteriorates.
If your vision becomes blurred, go to a clinic immediately.
Weakness, vomiting, headache, an unusual mental state—yes, this can also be a normal hangover, but if it feels different from usual, don’t take the risk; see a doctor.
The mechanism of methanol poisoning is this: methanol entering the body is not the main danger—the threat lies in its breakdown products. The liver processes methanol using a specific enzyme, which converts methanol first into formaldehyde and then into formic acid—this is what causes blindness and death.
Interestingly, ordinary alcohol competes with methanol for the same enzyme, and is 10–20 times stronger. That is, if there is enough ethanol in the blood, the enzyme will be occupied, and methanol will simply circulate without being converted into toxins. During this time, the kidneys and lungs slowly remove methanol from the body in a relatively safe form.
It’s important to understand that ethanol will not solve severe poisoning—it only slows the effect, so self-medicating with strong alcohol is useless and may even be dangerous. This “life hack” can be used only as a last resort.
The same effect can backfire for those who, in one evening, drank both a methanol-containing cocktail and a lot of good-quality alcohol: it can delay the onset of methanol poisoning and mask it for hours or even a full day. So if, a day or two after a heavy night out, you notice symptoms of methanol poisoning—for example, blurred vision—see a doctor immediately.
Balinese clinics such as Sanglah Hospital, BIMC Hospital and Siloam Hospital have methanol poisoning treatment protocols, so seeing doctors in time can protect your health and even save your life. It’s crucial to get the right treatment as quickly as possible—it really is a race against time. If you suspect it, don’t wait and don’t guess—just see a doctor. Don’t forget to say that you specifically suspect methanol poisoning.
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