NOVELTY - Purifying a crude ethanol product (I), comprises: (a) hydrogenating an acetic acid feed stream in the presence of a catalyst to form a crude ethanol product; (b) separating at least a portion of the crude ethanol product in a first column into a first distillate comprising ethanol, water and ethyl acetate, and a first residue comprising acetic acid; and (c) recovering ethanol from the first distillate in at least one distillation column, where the distillation column is an extractive distillation column.    USE - The method is useful for purifying a crude ethanol product (claimed) on industrial scale that is used in e.g. fuels, solvents (for cosmetic preparations, detergents, disinfectants and coatings), chemical feed-stocks, pharmaceutical products, cleansers, sanitizers, and hydrogenation transport or consumption.    ADVANTAGE - The method: separates ethanol even when ethyl acetate and/or water in the crude ethanol product forms azeotropes; reduces cost by decreasing water use and consumption, waste generation and energy consumption; and provides highly pure ethanol product.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are also included for:    (1) recovering ethanol, comprising steps (a) and (b) as above per se, separating at least the portion of the first distillate in a second column into a second distillate comprising ethyl acetate and a second residue comprising ethanol and water, separating at least a portion of the second residue in a third column into a third distillate comprising ethanol and a third residue comprising water and recovering ethanol from the third distillate, where the second column is an extractive distillation column and water is used as an extractive agent; and    (2) purifying a crude ethanol product (II), comprising hydrogenating the acetic acid feed stream in the presence of catalyst to form the crude ethanol product comprising ethanol, acetic acid and ethyl acetate, esterifying the crude ethanol product to form an ethyl acetate stream comprising ethyl acetate, water and ethanol, extracting ethanol from ethyl acetate using an extractive agent, and recovering ethanol.