Common-Rail ethanol sprays are experimentally investigated in a high-pressure vessel for pressures up to 50 bar and temperatures up to 800 K. Mie, Shadow, and Raman optical measurement techniques are used for the spray investigations. The experimental setup and the measurement techniques are described in detail. Detailed experimental results are presented for various vessel conditions. This includes liquid and gaseous penetration, spray angle of liquid and gaseous phase, liquid and vapor fuel mass fraction, liquid and vapor temperature, as well as Sauter mean radius. The experimental results provide a considerable dataset for numerical validation purposes. In addition to the experimental investigations, numerical simulations are carried out applying the commonly used discrete droplet model (DDM). A short review of the DDM including its inherent submodels is presented along with the simulation setup. Selected experimental results (liquid and gaseous penetration, liquid and vapor fuel mass fraction, liquid and vapor temperature, and Sauter mean radius) are compared to corresponding results obtained from the spray simulations to evaluate the performance of the DDM approach.