NOVELTY - Manufacturing an alcohol-gasoline blend from a hydrocarbon basestock for oxygenate blending (BOB) which is blended with an alcohol to a required BOB-alcohol blend octane specification, comprises: (a) blending a hydrocarbon BOB to an optimized BOB blend recipe; and blending the BOB with an alcohol to form the alcohol-BOB blend conforming to the required octane specification.    USE - The method is useful for manufacturing an alcohol-gasoline blend from a hydrocarbon basestock for oxygenate blending (claimed).    ADVANTAGE - The method manufactures the alcohol-gasoline blend in a cost effective manner.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - Manufacturing an alcohol-gasoline blend from a hydrocarbon basestock for oxygenate blending (BOB) which is blended with an alcohol to a required BOB-alcohol blend octane specification, comprises: (a) blending a hydrocarbon BOB to an optimized BOB blend recipe which is (i) formulated to provide a BOB octane (research octane number (RON), motor octane number (MON), and/or (RON+MON)/2) which meet the octane specification required for the BOB-alcohol blend when the BOB is blended with the alcohol, and (ii) based on the effect of BOB sensitivity (RON-MON) on the octane boost resulting from the addition of the alcohol to the BOB; and blending the BOB with an alcohol to form the alcohol-BOB blend conforming to the required octane specification. INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for:    (1) a method-I of manufacturing the hydrocarbon basestock for BOB comprising the step (a) as above per se; and    (2) method-II of controlling and optimizing the manufacture of a petroleum refinery gasoline pool comprising (i) a first grade which is a non-oxygenated gasoline grade blended to conform to a first blend requirement and (ii) a second grade which is a hydrocarbon blendstock for BOB blended to conform to a second blend requirement lower than the first such that when the BOB is blended with the required amount of alcohol it meets the octane requirement for the BOB/alcohol blend, comprising blending refinery gasoline streams of varying octane number for the two grades with the first grade receiving a higher proportion of blend components with higher octane sensitivity than the second grade.