Current paper is a brief analysis of the normative documents, patents, original articles, reviews and monographs devoted to the problem of the quality control and safety of the rectified ethanol, distillates, and water-alcohol solutions. The two fundamentally different trends in the development of methods for the analytical control of impurities in the ethanol are singled out. First is improving the control of impurity components using various hybrid methods by searching for and identifying components-markers of quality products and falsified products. The other trend is the definition of integral indicators of the authenticity and quality of the products using optical, spectral or sensory methods. Traditional methods and modern developments for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of impurities in drinking ethanol using chromatographic, optical, spectral and sensory methods of the chemical analysis are discussed. It is noted that the method of capillary gas-liquid chromatography with flame ionization detection was the most widely used for the identification of ethanol samples, and for determination of the nature and content of microimpurities. Capillary gas-liquid chromatography with the tandem mass spectrometric detection is recognized as an effective method, promising for the introduction into the analytical practice for the quality control and safety of the food ethanol. Chromatographic methods have made it possible to reliably characterize the main microimpurities of the ethanol of various genesis. To monitor the technology of bugorectification, bottling and storage, and for the recognition of counterfeit and defective products and falsification it is also possible to successfully use gas chromatography in conjunction with olfactometry, head space analysis, pyrolysis chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and capillary electrophoresis. High efficiency in the identification of alcohol of various origins in vodka is noted for the method of spectral-luminescent analysis. The prospects of using electronic multisensory systems to control the type and intensity of the smell and taste using the sets of chemical sensors are shown for the control of alcohol production. Keywords : ethyl alcohol from food raw materials, identification of trace contaminants, sensory analysis, chromatography, optical and spectral methods, chemical sensing, integral quality indicators DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/analitika.2017.21.3.010 O.B. Rudakov 1 , S.Y. Nikitina 2 1 Voronezh state technical University, ul. 20-letiia Oktiabria 84, Voronezh, 394006, Russian Federation 2 Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies, prospekt Revolyutsii 19, Voronezh, 394036, Russian Federation