Over than 8 millions blood and breath alcohol determinations are requested each year in France. Alternate specimens (e.g. breath, urine, saliva,sweat, hair) can be proposed to determine ethanol intoxication but all of them are not actually useful. This paper will review the potentialities and the pros and cons of each alternate specimen and is dedicated to traffic law enforcement. The procedures for breath alcohol testing and determination will be explained and the different apparatus reviewed. Other samples are not of legal value today but they can be used to determine if there is alcohol abstinence or consumption. Urine can be easily obatined without invading the body. The average urine/blood ratio is about 1.3, with great intra- and inter-individual variations. Urine alcohol determination may be useful only in conjonction with blood alcohol concentration for a forensic purpose. Saliva is also obtenaible by non invasive techniques but is also a specimen with a high variability. The mean saliva/blood ratio is 1.1. Different collecting methods produce saliva of different compositions but it seems to not interfere in alcohol concentration. Since hair gather xenobiotics and some metabolites, measurement of ethylglucuronide may allow to control abstinence on a relatively long time. Transdermal ethanol measurement can be easily done after collecting ethanol on a patch, or directly with a wearable electronic sensor. Nevertheless sweat alcohol testing seems to be useful only for cumulative studies, dose-response studies and driver's abstinence control.