Whoa. Almost forgot to get an update in today.
I didn’t realize it was the 6th today until I checked my bank balances (it’s a habit) and noticed that I’d been paid. That was a nice surprise to start the day, particularly given the fact that I got my car registration renewal in the mail yesterday.
I know I’ve mentioned how much I hate December from a financial standpoint before….
Worked from home today – did a couple of ad hoc reports and a bit of directory shuffling (part of my group’s December housekeeping project). Around 5:30, I headed down to the Salvation Army to catalog some more of the band’s music before rehearsal. Slowly working my way through 5 file cabinets of the stuff. I’ve got three drawers left to catalog and then I can devote some serious time to building the online library that will help us keep track of everything. My hope is that I can use the week after Christmas to do that (I’m on vacation that week).
So. Moonshine.
I’ve been fascinated by the evil libation for a long time. Not sure if it started before or after we moved from Vermont to South Carolina in 1980, though I’m sure that the move added to whatever interest I had previously because the town that we moved to (Travelers Rest, SC) is right on the edge of SC’s “Dark Corner” – a corner of the state that has a long (and continuing) history of moonshine. I know that I was a junior in high school (1982) the first time I actually tasted the stuff. My friend Jon Smith produced a couple of mason jars of it one evening when I was at his house – probably playing Pole Position on his Colecovision. We had Pole Position marathons that year, during which we’d play the game for about 6 hours at a time. I think that, were I to sit down at a game console that had Pole Position today, I’d still be able to roll the score about 12 times.
But back to the shine. Jon had two different types of it – both manufactured by someone in his extended family – and I quickly learned a very important fact about moonshine. It comes in (basically) two flavors. One tastes like kerosene and the other tastes like sugar water. Sure, you can add stuff to it to make it pretend to have other flavors. Some people that I know today add peaches to it. Some run it through burned wood chips to mellow it and give it a taste somewhat like bourbon (actually very good). I’ve been told that running it through charcoal is not uncommon. But – bottom line – it’s either going to taste like kerosene or it’s going to taste like sugar water. And the most important lesson I learned hanging out with Jon – a lesson that has been relearned a few times since then – it this: Stay the hell away from the sugar water moonshine. It might taste harmless, but it can wipe out a weekend really quickly. The kerosene stuff, by virtue of its taste, forces you to drink it in extreme moderation (not that it can’t also wipe out a weekend if you’re really determined).
The inebriation factor, however, is not what intrigues me about shine. Fact is, I can go to a liquor store and get whiskey or bourbon that tastes a lot better for a lot cheaper (and there’s that whole “it’s legal” argument, too). Moonshine, though, has so much history and adventure associated with it. It’s been around since before the US was a country. It was the direct cause of one of the first major challenges to George Washington’s presidency. It was/is one of the defining characteristics of an entire class of people (hillbillies, mountain men…call them what you will). It’s distribution system gave rise to the most-watched sporting events in America today (NASCAR). It can be (and has been) argued that it is a symbol of the “true American spirit:” that attitude that says, “I am free and the government will not infringe upon my freedom.”
So it’s got all that going for it. The adventure. The mystique. The romance. It’s also got chemistry, and that’s the thing about it that really mesmerizes me. The idea that some illiterate hick in the middle of a forest can figure out the distillation process – coupled with the fact that I don’t understand it at all – really draws me to the whole operation. How did somebody figure out that sugar, corn, water and yeast could be heated and cooled in such as way that the end result would be liquor? And how do those illiterate hicks in the woods manage to control the temperatures and timing to such an extent that they not only make liquor, but also make damned good liquor (in many cases)?
So I want to make some. Note that I didn’t say, “I want to be a moonshiner.” I don’t want to run some illicit still out in the middle of the Cohutta Wilderness, distill 500 gallons of shine, lead the revenuers on a 100-mile chase at midnight, and sell mason jars of “Tom;s Tonsil Tickler” for $5 a pop. I just want to understand the distillation process by – hell, I don’t know – by making a jar of the stuff in my bathtub.
I had a co-worker a few years ago who was licensed to do just that (apparently, you can pay a fee and legally make x-gallons per year for personal consumption), but I don’t want to go to all that trouble (and probably end up on a terrorist watch list) just to experiment. Maybe I’ll just google the process and see what I can come up with.
I’m obviously not the only person who is enchanted by the whole moonshine experience, by the way. The thing that made me think of it tonight was the occurrence of my stumbling upon a new series on The Discovery Channel: The Moonshiners.
TWD