FARK.com: (7202002) Nearly 80 years after Prohibition ended there's a very good chance your neighbor right now is brewing moonshine on his stove and you would never even know it

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		Nearly 80 years after Prohibition ended there's a very good chance your neighbor right now is brewing moonshine on his stove and you would never even know it (seattletimes.nwsource.com)		15
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6922 clicks; posted to Main » on 08 Jul 2012 at 11:04 AM | Favorite | share:

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Kuroshin		2012-07-08 12:33:14 PM

2 votes:

henryhill: Kuroshin: Bootleggers were Heroes. Wish I had a few in my family.

Are you equally fond of todays meth lab operators?

Because Meth == Alcohol.

A-yup. Nothing stupid about that equivalency there. Nothing at all. Nope, no-siree, equating meth labs to bootleg distilleries is perfectly reasonable and honest. Not at all false equivalence. Nuh-uh, no-way. Absolutely cromulent.

(okay, I'm done with that)

Now, if you had chosen marijuana grow operations as your example, then I'd say yes. Pot farmers are indeed Heroes.

/because see, it's about context

clyph		2012-07-08 01:49:07 PM

1 votes:

wildcardjack: That being said, when you get up large enough to attract attention it might work out to economies of scale. But you might as well save your pennies and go legit and get all the permits and licenses to produce commercially.

It's $250,000 just for the ATF bond. When you add in all the state level crap as well as the feds, it's closer to half a mil, just for the paperwork, before you can legally distill a drop. Add in capital equipment and first year operating costs and you're looking at a minimum million-dollar up-front investment to go legit. Which is why moonshiners are still around.

PacManDreaming		2012-07-08 01:46:18 PM

1 votes:

Kuroshin: Bootleggers were Heroes. Wish I had a few in my family.

ykarie: Your's too?

What's funny is, if you had known them during the time I knew them, you'd have never believed they had been bootleggers. My grandad was in tool design at Consolidated/Convair/General Dynamics and did work on the B-24, B-36, B-58, F-111 and the F-16. His brothers and sisters were CPAs, electricians and other "respectable" professions. Only saw my grandad drink one time in my entire life and that was one glass of champagne at a cousin's graduation.

Funny how a little "old-time religion" can change people.

ykarie		2012-07-08 12:53:36 PM

1 votes:

PacManDreaming: My Great Grandad, Grandad and all his brothers and sisters used to make rye whiskey and charge .50 cents for a quart Mason jar of the stuff. The youngest brother would be posted by the road to watch for revenuers. When he spotted them, my great grandmother would bolt the doors and take the younger children down into the cellar(which could only be accessed from inside the house). They had plenty of food and water to wait out the feds. My great grandad, grandad and great uncles would grab the still and the whiskey and haul ass out into the woods. And you didn't dare follow them.

Of course, this was during the great depression, they weren't trying to get rich, they were just trying to survive.

Your's too? I heard stories about mine brewing wine as a tween, begging the old 'herb witch' to help him fix the recipe since it tasted horrid ("add sugar to the mash next time" she told him), and so on, but he avoided mentioning anything harder than wine and beer. I suspect he wasn't distilling later, but driving.

And then the CCC, but if a bunch of former moonshiners and bootleggers weren't using that state park's nice fresh clear water for something, I'd be very surprised.

forstmeister		2012-07-08 12:37:12 PM

1 votes:

KrispyKritter: they're right, i did think americans over 18 were allowed to make 'X' amounts of assorted adult beverages for their own consumption per year. i'm confused. i know there's a shiatload of Farkers who make brew. i guess TFA is getting real specific. i don't care if you are brewing, distilling, raising grapes or growing reefers. bless your hearts, you kids go have a good time.

/fark laws. life is too short to live scared.

According to Federal Law, an adult is legally allowed to brew up to 100 gallons of beer per adult in the household. I am allowed to brew 200 gallons of beer per year, but I have never come close. I do about 60-80 gallons a year. Distilling at the home level is illegal. You can freeze concentrate beer (think: ice beer) since it is not distilling and actually get brews up to 20% and higher through that process that will rival any liquor...

SwiftFox		2012-07-08 12:35:39 PM

1 votes:

Adding flavorings to normally taxed neutral spirits, diluted with water to strength, sounds like a promising way to come up with new beverages. I gather that it is legal?

quartercomma		2012-07-08 12:26:56 PM

1 votes:

Some friends were renovating their house and went to put in a closet under the stairs, and found a beautiful still walled up under there from Prohibition.

Another friend drank some moonshine made by people really bad at it and almost died. (Traditional in rural NC, I'm told, is to use an old car radiator as the copper tubing part. I'm thinking, probably not food safe, unless you like lead solder residue, old antifreeze, and decomposing bits of rubber hose in your vodak.)

lenfromak		2012-07-08 12:24:22 PM

1 votes:

Kuroshin: Bootleggers were Heroes. Wish I had a few in my family.

My dad's family in PA had a still during the first Prohibition. They never went full Kennedy, but it was a good supplement to their income from the coal mines.

Wert789		2012-07-08 12:09:58 PM

1 votes:

My Great Grandfather Made his living making and selling corn liquor from the 30's until he died in the mid 70's. His secret to success was a quality product and greasing the right palms. He didn't use lead solder and cleaned out the still between batches and was choosy about what corn he used. Happy costumers are less likely to turn you in.

wildcardjack		2012-07-08 11:57:36 AM

1 votes:

Having done this in the multi-gallon range myself I can pretty much say it's cheaper to just buy your damn booze. If you have to pay retail for the inputs, pay retail for electricity for the stove, and value your time at more than about $5 an hour, you're better off with cheap booze.

That being said, when you get up large enough to attract attention it might work out to economies of scale. But you might as well save your pennies and go legit and get all the permits and licenses to produce commercially.

pudding7		2012-07-08 11:56:31 AM

1 votes:

I was at home depot yesterday buying copper pipe for this very reason. I don't care toouch about distilling, I just like building stuff like this.

Though it will be fun to make the first batch of vodka. Seems too time consuming to make a hobby of it though.

rudemix		2012-07-08 11:44:52 AM

1 votes:

John Lee Pettymore nods is approval.

Kuroshin		2012-07-08 11:16:21 AM

1 votes:

PacManDreaming		2012-07-08 11:11:08 AM

1 votes:

My Great Grandad, Grandad and all his brothers and sisters used to make rye whiskey and charge .50 cents for a quart Mason jar of the stuff. The youngest brother would be posted by the road to watch for revenuers. When he spotted them, my great grandmother would bolt the doors and take the younger children down into the cellar(which could only be accessed from inside the house). They had plenty of food and water to wait out the feds. My great grandad, grandad and great uncles would grab the still and the whiskey and haul ass out into the woods. And you didn't dare follow them.

Of course, this was during the great depression, they weren't trying to get rich, they were just trying to survive.