Ok, so in my gen chem 1 class, the teacher showed us that ethanol would not dissolve a sugar cube while water dissolves a sugar cube easily. No explanation was given, she just told us we would find out in gen chem 2. Here i am in gen chem 2, and the same thing is shown to us asking for an explanation. Again, nothing is explained to us.
when i look at it on the molecular level, sugar is C6H12O6 while water is H2O. I see a minor corellation involving the ratio of hydrogen to oxygen with sugar and water (2 to 1 with both), but that's all i can think of. The formula for ethanol: C3H5O3