Electron spectroscopy has been employed to probe the transition between the multiphoton ionization and tunneling ionization regimes upon irradiation of linear alcohol molecules, methanol, ethanol and 1-propanol, by 150 fs long pulses of linearly polarized 800 nm laser light at peak intensities up to 150 TW cm(-2). Somewhat unexpectedly, electron energy distributions reveal that the ionization dynamics proceed in atom-like manner and are adequately described by the conventional Keldysh-Faisal-Reiss model of atomic ionization. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.