(Description) Figure 2 Several ‘alcohol’ compounds with the hydroxyl group shown in red. Note that the OH group in red can be written as either OH (as in compounds A and B) or HO (as in compounds C and D). The hydroxyl group is always joined via the oxygen atom (O) to the rest of the molecule so will be written as OH or HO depending on its position in the molecule.

Week 1: What is alcohol?

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This depicts the structures of different compounds which are all types of alcohol. Despite looking very different, these compounds all possess an OH group in their structure which by definition means they are deemed to be alcohols. This figure shows that there are numerous different compounds which can all be thought of as types of alcohol. The alcohol in alcoholic drinks is one of these, ethanol.