Four dead and more in hospital with methanol poisoning after drinking 'free shots' in Laos

Yeah the issue is that methanol mixed with ethanol, which you naturally find in spirits that have been distilled carelessly (or in cost cutting) is less poisonous than pure methanol. Ethanol is actually an antidote to methanol poisoning (although not the preferred one if fomepizol is available) so when they’re mixed you’re less likely to die from it (though you still might go blind, as methanol is acutely toxic to the optic nerve).

In these cases where multiple people died I’m more likely to suspect they were served commodity methanol which is used as a fuel additive and industrial solvent. This stuff is extremely cheap and readily available.

What a tragedy. I feel terrible for these people! My former roommate knew a girl in high school who died from methanol poisoning at a party after some kids found a bottle in somebody’s garage. It’s really terrible.

Few points:

1. Depending what's being fermented the quantity of methanol can be quite low. Most "sugar wash" type home distillations are quite low in methanol. Certain fruits can yield higher but this isn't the cheap "moonshine" you'd find and even then it's unlikely to poison someone in the volume present.
2. The distillation process doesn't add methanol, nor ethanol, just concentrates it by boiling it off and leaving behind the higher boiling water etc. Drinking any fermented natural alcohol still results in the consumption of some methanol. In fact if you look up your local regulations, every country has an acceptable amount of methanol they allow in commercial products. Drinking a distilled product concentrates what is already present, so binge drinking it can result in more consumption of methanol as a by product, but doesn't magically make some shots deadly.
3. Most home distillers err* on the side of caution and throw away their foreshots and heads "just in case" and also often take the end of a distillation run (tails) and keep those out of their hooch as well.

It's not exactly "easy to fuck up" to the point you poison someone with methanol, though to be fair to you this is a pretty wide spread myth.

Not really! Tourist hotels provide complimentary alcohol.

This is really scary stuff.

You can destil without using copper. That doesn't stop methanol.

It's always present in fermented alcohols, but for it to be in a high enough a high enough concentration in the final product to kill you off of one shot... There has to be huge missteps from start to finish to a point way past negligence.