  We report observations of gaseous methanol in an edge-on torus surrounding
the young stellar object L1551 IRS5. The peaks in the torus are separated by ~
10,000 AU from L1551 IRS5, and contain ~ 0.03 earth masses of cold methanol. We
infer that the methanol abundance increases in the outer part of the torus,
probably as a result of methanol evaporation from dust grain surfaces heated by
the shock luminosity associated with the shocks associated with the jets of an
externally located x-ray source. Any methanol released in such a cold
environment will rapidly freeze again, spreading methanol throughout the
circumbinary torus to nascent dust grains, planitesimals, and primitive bodies.
These observations probe the initial chemical conditions of matter infalling
onto the disk.
