| Advice Centre | The Excise and Inland Customs Advice Centre |
| Alcohol | Ethyl alcohol or ethanol. |
| ALDA | The Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979. |
| Art or manufacture | Not defined in law, but is interpreted as including manufacturing and related processes, scientific or medical research and teaching. |
| Authorised User | A person authorised to receive and use spirits under section 8 or 10 of ALDA. |
| CEMA | The Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. |
| Compound | To combine or mix spirits with any other substance so as to produce British Compounded Spirits (BCS), without distilling. |
| DEB | Alcohol denatured with Bitrex and Tertiary Butyl Alcohol - it can be used in cosmetics and perfume. |
| Denatured Alcohol | Ethanol with agreed formula of chemicals added to deter use as alcoholic beverages, yet allow the alcohol to be used for various industrial uses. See Notice 473 |
| Denaturant | An approved substance that is added to spirits to make them unpalatable. |
| Distiller | A person holding a licence to manufacture spirits whether or not the process used is actually distillation. |
| Duty Free Spirits (DFS) | Spirits delivered free of excise duty under section 8 or 10 of the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979. |
| EC | The European Community. |
| Ester | An organic compound produced when an alcohol (ethyl, methyl, etc) reacts chemically with an acid. |
| Ether | An organic compound in which 2 hydrocarbon radicals are joined by an atom of oxygen. |
| Excise duty | A charge levied for fiscal purposes, at the same rate on home-produced and imported spirits. |
| HMWR | The Excise Goods (Holding, Movement Warehousing and REDS) Regulations 1992. |
| Marker | A chemical compound with properties similar to ethanol, which is difficult to remove after mixing with spirits, and which therefore remains in the mixture as a ‘tracer’ or ‘policeman’. |
| Methylated spirits | Old term for Denatured Alcohol |
| Plain British Spirits | Spirits in their original state, manufactured in the United Kingdom, and without artificial flavour. |
| Potable | Fit to drink. |
| RTR | The Revenue Traders (Accounts and Records) Regulations 1992. |
| Spirits | Ethanol (otherwise known as ethyl alcohol). |
| Tax warehouse | A premises approved for the production, processing, holding, receipt or dispatch of excise goods under duty-suspension arrangements. |
