Besides CO and nicotine, many of the other compounds that are responsible for the chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity of tobacco smoking are formed during pyrolysis (e.g. PAHs, volatile aldehydes, benzene, acrylamide, furan, see Hoffmann and Hoffmann (1998)) and are therefore also predictably absent in a beverage distilled from tobacco leaves macerated in alcohol (the temperatures in the alembic during distillation are below 100 °C and do not lead to pyrolysis). The results of some of the pyrolysis products (e.g. PAHs and acetaldehyde) confirm their absence.