If you noticed from my blog name, Northwoodsbrewer and me the Brewmaster that I must be interested in Brewing Booz. You are right. After brewing for over 50 years, now I am ready to take another leap. What could that be? Distilled spirits. My problem all these years has been the fact that it is against the law to do any distilling of alcohol in your home. You can make beer and wine, but not distilled spirits. It all started back in 1791 when Hamilton came up with the idea to collect some tax money off people who were making Whiskey. Like most government programs, once they get their claws into you, there is no way to ever get them to let go. This is still the case with Whiskey even though it costs us more to collect the tax on home distilling than it is worth. There are a few people who have more lust for freedon than they have brains and they have crossed all the "T's" and dotted all the "I's" and have gotten the necessary licenses to distill spirits. Few really make any money on their efforts, but they do demonstrate that there is still a little "freedon" left if you want to work hard enough for it. I found one of these special people and they can do "contract" distilling. Now what does that mean? Here goes.
To make Whiskey, Brandy or Rum, you first have to make something like beer or wine. Now making beer or wine is legal. What we can do is to make the beer or mash that is then distilled by one of these "legal" distilleries. It is interesting that when we make the beer or wine, that is where we make the actual alcohol. The distilling process only seperates the alcohol from the beer or wine and concentrates it. You can make wine upto about 13% alcohol, but it takes distilling to get the alcohol concentrate upto the 40% common in most Whiskey. Distilled booz has about 4 times the alcohol per bottle as a bottle of wine, so all you have to do to get the same buzz is to drink 4 bottles of beer. Most Whiskey is drunk mixed with something that has no alcohol, so the actual drink has only a light amount more alcohol than a glass of wine. Did you ever wonder why our government is so concerned about mixed drinks and not so concerned about wine? It is just one more case of our government being screwed up, but we don't have to just get used to it. We can do some thing and here is what I am going to do.
It is almost time to start tapping the Maple trees in my area. The sap has about 2.5% sugar and thus it takes over 30 gallons of sap to make a gallon of Maple syrup. Now, you know that I am a technical person and plan to use Reverse Osmosis to take water out of the sap until it has as much sugar as grape juice so that I can ferment it. This part of the process I can do legally and I plan to. Once I have the fermented wine, I can take it to my friend and have it distilled. This has opened up a whole new area for me and it may do the same for you. We can make our own Whiskey. This is the same thing that we have not been able to do since 1791. How is that?
Do you think that there is hope for "freedom"? I'll let you know once I have the spirits aged in oak. It is also intersting that the person who figured out how to make American Whiskey from Native American corn was George Thorpe in 1620. I don't think that I am related to George, but I am related to John Rolf who married Pocahontas and who introduced tobacco to the world. My family was here when it became aganist the law in 1791 to make Whiskey, but they did not go out of business.
They started making moonshine and now it is upto me to fight for "freedom".
To make Whiskey, Brandy or Rum, you first have to make something like beer or wine. Now making beer or wine is legal. What we can do is to make the beer or mash that is then distilled by one of these "legal" distilleries. It is interesting that when we make the beer or wine, that is where we make the actual alcohol. The distilling process only seperates the alcohol from the beer or wine and concentrates it. You can make wine upto about 13% alcohol, but it takes distilling to get the alcohol concentrate upto the 40% common in most Whiskey. Distilled booz has about 4 times the alcohol per bottle as a bottle of wine, so all you have to do to get the same buzz is to drink 4 bottles of beer. Most Whiskey is drunk mixed with something that has no alcohol, so the actual drink has only a light amount more alcohol than a glass of wine. Did you ever wonder why our government is so concerned about mixed drinks and not so concerned about wine? It is just one more case of our government being screwed up, but we don't have to just get used to it. We can do some thing and here is what I am going to do.
It is almost time to start tapping the Maple trees in my area. The sap has about 2.5% sugar and thus it takes over 30 gallons of sap to make a gallon of Maple syrup. Now, you know that I am a technical person and plan to use Reverse Osmosis to take water out of the sap until it has as much sugar as grape juice so that I can ferment it. This part of the process I can do legally and I plan to. Once I have the fermented wine, I can take it to my friend and have it distilled. This has opened up a whole new area for me and it may do the same for you. We can make our own Whiskey. This is the same thing that we have not been able to do since 1791. How is that?
Do you think that there is hope for "freedom"? I'll let you know once I have the spirits aged in oak. It is also intersting that the person who figured out how to make American Whiskey from Native American corn was George Thorpe in 1620. I don't think that I am related to George, but I am related to John Rolf who married Pocahontas and who introduced tobacco to the world. My family was here when it became aganist the law in 1791 to make Whiskey, but they did not go out of business.
They started making moonshine and now it is upto me to fight for "freedom".
