NOVELTY - New nicotine resistant microorganism is produced according to a process comprising: (a) culturing a microorganism in a medium conducive to growth, where the medium comprises a first concentration of nicotine that retards but does not inhibit growth of the microorganism; (b) selecting a single colony of the microorganism and inoculating the single colony into a fresh culture of the medium conducive to growth; and (c) repeating step (b) until the desired concentration of nicotine is achieved or until growth of the microorganism is completely inhibited.    USE - The nicotine resistant microorganism is useful for producing ethanol from tobacco biomass (claimed).    ADVANTAGE - The nicotine resistant yeast strains can improve ethanol production (e.g. by providing higher amount of ethanol) in tobacco biomass extract fermentations and can shorten the fermentation time.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - New nicotine resistant microorganism is produced according to a process comprising: (a) culturing a microorganism in a medium conducive to growth, where the medium comprises a first concentration of nicotine that retards but does not inhibit growth of the microorganism; (b) selecting a single colony of the microorganism and inoculating the single colony into a fresh culture of the medium conducive to growth, where the fresh medium comprises a second concentration of nicotine that is incrementally higher than the first concentration and that retards but does not inhibit growth of the microorganism; and (c) repeating step (b) until the desired concentration of nicotine is achieved or until growth of the microorganism is completely inhibited, where the microorganism produced is resistant to the desired concentration of nicotine. INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are: (1) a method for generating a nicotine resistant microorganism; (2) a biologically pure culture of a nicotine resistant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain or its mutant having all the identifying characteristics of the strain; and (3) a method for producing ethanol from tobacco biomass comprising fermenting a tobacco biomass extract with the nicotine resistant microorganism, where ethanol is produced from the fermentation; or a method for producing ethanol from tobacco biomass comprising fermenting a tobacco biomass extract with a biologically pure culture of a nicotine resistant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain or its mutant having all the identifying characteristics of the strain, where ethanol is produced from the fermentation.