Saccharomyces cerevisiae was transformed for higher ethanol tolerance by error-prone whole genome amplification. The resulting PCR products were transformed back to the parental strain for homologous recombination to create a library of mutants with the perturbed genomic networks. A few rounds of transformation led to the isolation of mutants that grew in 9% (v/v) ethanol and 100 g glucose l(-1) compared to untransformed yeast which grew only at 6% (v/v) ethanol and 100 g glucose l(-1).