Creosote from both oil shale and petroleum, and are known as oil-tar creosote when derived from oil tar, and as water-gas-tar creosote when derived from the tar of water gas. Creosote also has been made from pre-coal formations such as lignite, yielding lignite-tar creosote, and peat, yielding peat-tar creosote. The term creosote has a broad range of definitions depending on the origin of the coal tar oil and end use of the material. With respect to wood preservatives, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the term creosote to mean a pesticide for use as a wood preservative meeting the
Tar wood causes tar and pitch to drip away from the wood and leave behind charcoal. Birch bark is used to make particularly fine tar, known as "Russian oil", suitable for leather protection. The by-products of wood tar are turpentine and charcoal. When deciduous tree woods are subjected to destructive distillation, the products are methanol (wood alcohol) and charcoal. Tar kilns (, , , ) are dry distillation ovens, historically used in Scandinavia for producing tar from wood. They were built close to the forest, from limestone or from more primitive holes in the ground. The bottom is sloped into an