Reduction of carbonyl moieties to the corresponding alcohol using simply hydrazine hydrate has been considerably unfeasible until now due to the wellknown condensation reaction. However, herein, we report that using an excess of 20fold equivalents, the reduction proceeds in excellent yields. 1 H NMR study of the reaction and density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that the final fate of the hemiaminal intermediate is crucial to obtain the alcohol or the hydrazone.