Let's talk moonshine: popular in your area?

[53' Stude]

Good afternoon BITOG and happy Labor Day. Is moonshine making big or popular where you folks live? In West Virginia about a half hour south of me; it's somewhat popular and a gallon of "courting shine" goes for $30~ I have had some "real" stuff and not state store stuff and it's good mixed heavily with cranberry juice or whatever you like

 

[eljefino]

How does one turn Sudafed into moonshine again?

 

[bubbatime]

Cheap liquor for drunks.

 

[DBMaster]

Moonshine is the term for illegal liquor. It's only illegal because taxes haven't been paid on it. With that out of the way, some are good, some are awful, and everything else is in between. Most true moonshine is made from a sugar mash because it's cheap. Corn meal might be thrown in for flavor, or other flavors might be added after the fact. There are a lot of unaged spirits being sold in liquor stores these days as "moonshine." I've tried a number of them and some are quite palatable. There are folks in the hills of Appalachia who are experts and you can get some very good stuff. And, since taxes are the largest cost component of liquor you can get a very good deal as well.

 

[john_pifer]

Be careful. Get hold of some backwoods mix from an unscrupulous seller and you'll end up going blind or dying an extremely painful death from liver failure.

 

[Leo99]

I've never seen moonshine in my life here in central NJ. Maybe down it the Pines you'll see it but not up ahere.

Of course they sell "moonshine" in canning jars in the liquor stores. Not counting that.

 

[Chris142]

Nothin here unless you go to a liquor store in the bad side of town

 

[AlienBug]

Visited with some extended family in Kentucky I sampled some local backyard moonshine once.

Once.

The experience was memorable if not particularly pleasant.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

There are hundreds of thousands of gallons of it made within a hundred miles of here and it's all laced with gasoline to stop pilfering. Every drunk in the state would be all over those ethanol tankers like "stink on a monkey" if the ethanol plants didn't add gasoline to each tank car.

 

[Tribe21]

I live in the self proclaimed "moonshine capital of the world". No problem to get real moonshine anytime, its about as common as a bottle of water. But the old heads that made alot of shine are starting to die off. Now everyone wants to make meth, making shine is very hard work.

 

[SHOPete]

How can there be any difference between moonshine, made from corn, and corn vodka i. e. Tito's. Grain neutral spirits. I have a bottle of Junior Johnson's Midnight Moonshine and am not impressed either way.

 

[Kira]

The once or twice I've tried "homemade" the inside of my mouth peeled.

How do the people who lace it with gasoline (mentioned above) use it? Or, to ask another way, who buys it? I mean, it has gasoline in it??? Kira

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: john_pifer
Be careful. Get hold of some backwoods mix from an unscrupulous seller and you'll end up going blind or dying an extremely painful death from liver failure.
+1 Nothing like a little chloroform for "flavor".

 

[chiefsfan1]

There is a moonshine plant near my MIL. They lace it with gasoline.

 

[old1]

The moonshine laced with gasoline they are referring to is ethanol, and it is used in cars etc. with 90% gasoline added to it.

 

[DBMaster]

The stuff being sold as "moonshine" at the liquor store that I have seen is either unaged whiskey, sugar liquor, or a combination of the two. It comes off the still at somewhat lower proof than vodka to retain some of the flavors of the source material. A local distillery owner said on a tour that when they mess up making a batch of whiskey or rum they end up with vodka as it doesn't take much effort to keep distilling it until it reaches the azeotropic level of about 95% alcohol.

I've tried quite a few of them. The ones I liked were Dickel no 1 corn whiskey, American Born Moonshine, and Ole Smoky Mountain Moonshine. There are many I have not tried. I won't pay a lot for whiskey that hasn't seen the inside of a barrel. It's one of those spirits that, to me, really benefits from the maturation process.

 

[totegoat]

I've never had any shine. The dopes here cook speed, and other junk. Addicts happen, be aware of what your kids are into.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Cheap liquor for drunks.

...beat you and raise you one:
story from my childhood, 40 years ago in an industrial zone in an eastern-european communist country:
when alcohol/wine/beer and semi-legal Prune/pear/apple/berries double distilled where not available, here comes:
-filtered trough bread 80% medical blue alcohol (rubbing alcohol)
-potato peels fermented and double distilled
-sugar beet remains stolen from the factory next door, fermented and double distilled
-sugar stolen from the same next door factory fermented and double distilled
-old winter coats fermented and double distilled

fun thing growing up in a neighborhood of drunks....

 

[DBMaster]

Originally Posted By: pandus13
...beat you and raise you one:
story from my childhood, 40 years ago in an industrial zone in an eastern-european communist country:
when alcohol/wine/beer and semi-legal Prune/pear/apple/berries double distilled where not available, here comes:
-filtered trough bread 80% medical blue alcohol (rubbing alcohol)
-potato peels fermented and double distilled
-sugar beet remains stolen from the factory next door, fermented and double distilled
-sugar stolen from the same next door factory fermented and double distilled
-old winter coats fermented and double distilled

fun thing growing up in a neighborhood of drunks....


Wow, you win! A friend of mine is married to an Albanian woman. He's brought me some rakia that they make themselves over there. It's quite good.

But, I have to ask, what kind of winter coat can be used as a food source for yeast?

 

[Tom NJ]

Originally Posted By: Tribe21
I live in the self proclaimed "moonshine capital of the world".


Sounds like you are in Franklin County. I am next door in Floyd.

Tom NJ