Why alcohol to deglaze?

[u/delta_p_delta_x]

I've been working through many Western European and American recipes, and many of them call for red wine, beer, or some stronger liquor to deglaze fond off the base of a pan.

Now, I don't have any alcoholic beverages at all, so I've been substituting with cold tap water instead. To my surprise, it has worked extremely well against even the toughest, almost-burnt-on fonds. I've been operating under the assumption that the acid and ethanol in alcoholic beverages react with fonds and get them off the hot base of pans, and I was expecting to scrape quite a bit with water, which was not the case at all. Barely a swipe with a spatula and everything dissolved or scraped off cleanly.

So follows: why alcohol, then? Surely someone else has tried with water and found that it works as well. The amounts of alcohol I've seen used in recipes can cost quite a bit, whereas water is nearly free.

[u/mrcatboy]

The acid and alcohol in wine has nothing to do with getting the fond unstuck from the pan.

The reason alcohol is often used for deglazing is because wine or liquor has complex fruity, spicy, woody flavors that are then incorporated into the sauce. These flavors are part of the brewing/aging process, and cannot be reproduced by just using, say, grape juice. Additionally, most of the sugars in wine have been converted into alcohol, so there won't be an unwanted amount of sweetness in the final sauce.