Methanol poisoning an agonising way to go FIRST your vision blurs. Then you get dizzy and soon you can't move. Your chest heaves up and down as you fight for breath. The air stings as you suck it in. A stabbing pain shoots through your chest. And then you die. Succumbing to methanol poisoning is an agonising way to go and there have been suggestions it's what killed two Queensland men who sipped on a toxic brew of home-made grappa. Two others who consumed the potent Italian grape-based brandy remain in critical condition, fighting for their lives in a Brisbane hospital. Grappa is made by distilling the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems left over from making wine. A by-product of making the spirit, which is heavily regulated in Italy, is methanol. It must be carefully removed during the distillation process. If that doesn't happen, the results can be fatal. The US-based Centre for Disease Control says symptoms of methanol poisoning can start immediately, with headaches, dizziness, amnesia and drowsiness. Then the real agony begins. You feel nauseous, you need to vomit and have diarrhoea. Your whole digestive system throbs painfully. Your vision is blurred and you hallucinate, seeing skin over your eyes, snowstorms, dancing spots and flashes of light. Your kidneys, liver and pancreas begin to fail. Your heart rate is anything but normal as you lie motionless, your muscles breaking down at a cellular level. No matter how fast and hard you try to suck in air, you feel like you're suffocating. Then you feel the pain shooting through your chest, the beginning of a heart attack that will likely kill you.