Thursday, September 8, 2016

You Can Buy A Moonshine Still For A Lot Of Different Reasons

By Donna Bell


People who love to drink coffee and tea will often get excited trying new varieties of beans and leaves. They have their own coffee grinders and loose tea strainers. Individuals who enjoy the taste of wine and beer sometimes get intrigued about making their own alcoholic beverages, bottling and labeling them, and sharing them with adult family and friends. They might even go a step farther and want to try their hands at distilling whiskey in a moonshine still.

This liquor has a history that goes back before the era of Prohibition, although that is the time that probably thrust it into the mainstream of society. When alcohol was banned by federal law, bootleggers knew there was a lucrative business in illegal sales of outlawed liquor. Moonshine, also known as white lightning, hooch, shine, and by many other names, was easy to manufacture and bottle. It quickly found an eager public ready to break the law in order to buy it.

Today, purchasing stills is becoming more mainstream than ever. You can find them for sale online either new or used. Even the most popular auction websites have bidding going on for the equipment all the time. You can choose plans or kits if you want to make one yourself. The actual stills are not extremely expensive. They seem to range from three hundred to seven hundred dollars for a small one.

Some creative individuals purchase them for display instead of for their intended use. Most of the equipment is made out of copper and can be quite beautiful and interesting as a show piece. They can be used as garden decorations very effectively. If nothing else, the pieces make good conversation starters.

If you decide to become a moonshine aficionado, you will probably want to impress your friends with your knowledge about the brew. Most people do not realize that this liquor is not cut or aged. When it is ready to be consumed, the color should be clear and the liquor between one hundred fifty and one hundred seventy proof.

There is a NASCAR connection. Moonshiners often built cars specially fitted to be able to outrun a suspicious sheriff. Eventually someone decided it would be fun to race these vehicles on a track, and that was the beginning of stock car racing. There is also a connection with popular soft drinks that routinely sponsor drivers.

Most people know the answer, but still ask if moonshine production, even for personal use, is illegal. They already know it is outlawed in almost every state. You can manufacture the liquor for mass consumption in certain states with approval, licenses, and payment of taxes. If you decide to go ahead and make it for yourself anyway, you should be aware that you risk being arrested and fined.

Making alcohol for personal use can be a really fun hobby. If you decide to venture into the world of moonshine production, just be careful the "revenuers" don't find out.




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