Electrifying sectors like land transport and building heating is a cost-effective strategy for decarbonisation. For harder-to-abate sectors that require fuels for their density or chemical properties, like long-haul aviation, shipping, backup power or iron ore reduction, electrolytic hydrogen and its derivatives are often proposed as part of a ‘hydrogen economy’. However, hydrogen itself is challenging to transport and store because of its small molecule size and low volumetric density; the build-up of a pipeline network needs close coordination with demand, supply and storage. We present a ‘minimal methanol backstop’ as an alternative concept for filling the gaps that high electrification scenarios cannot reach. As a liquid in ambient conditions, methanol is easy to transport and store; it scales down to low-volume use cases without the lumpiness of hydrogen pipelines; it is a better drop-in fuel to replace methane in turbines; it can help integrate decentralised biomass wastes and residues into the energy system; it can be used as a feedstock for industry and transport fuels. We show in an energy system model for Europe that deep decarbonisation has lowest cost when hydrogen can be widely transported and used for backup power, but a methanol-based system is only 11 billion euros per year more expensive (1.3% of system costs) with default model settings. This increase stays below 5% in all sensitivity runs that we considered, with the highest increases occuring in settings with lower electrification, higher carbon dioxide sequestration and relaxed carbon dioxide targets. We argue that this modest expense is justified because methanol avoids many of the challenges in scaling up and regulating hydrogen infrastructure.