For instance, I remember someone saying that you would die of over eating before getting tipsy on Cherry Ripe, but I don’t think that makes it less haraam since it was widely known that it does contain alcohol.

This of course goes beyond intoxicants. Just a leetle bit of gelatin in a product doesn’t make it more/less haraam than a ham sandwich.

If scholars are generally giving the go ahead to nutmeg as seasoning, I’m not arguing. I’m just confused by what seems to me a contradiction in the methodology that wouldn’t be extended to alcohol or other haraam ingredients. I know I must be missing something here, but what?

and yet – null, your point that “that which intoxicates in a large amount, even a small amount is haram” is not really answered by the pro-nutmeg point. Willow’s right that to get high off nutmeg in lattes or eggnog, youd be dead of kidney failure. But is that relevant to the principle at hand?

“of that which intoxicates in a large amount” is a stricter standard than “that which intoxicates in amounts so large as to require kidney failure”. Actually nutmeg in principle intoxicates in a not that small amount – inmates in prisons have been using a couple of spoonfuls in wter as a crude stimulant. So its not that the nutmeg itself itoxicates in a negligible amount, its that a negligible amount of it is used in certain foods. So are the foods themselves haram?

“even a small amount is haram” says the saying. Argh.

for now im holding off on the egg nog.

So it’s not really a 1:1 comparison.

Though I’m (almost 100%) sure that chocolates that contain even small amounts of rum or other alcohol would be considered haraam, based on the principle “Of that which intoxicates in a large amount, even a small amount is haraam”.

Confused.

too cold up here in Wisconsin for birkenstocks. this time of year, anyway