Bourbon

[Stefan Mikes]

Stefan is a Moonshiner.

Was*. In the times such an activity could be met with severe repercussions from the system. For me, it was all a beautiful scientific experiment that let me understand the rectifier distillation process perfectly! Now, a true fact for you (even if it sounds like an invented anecdote!)

I did the first rectifications at night of 9/10th February 1984. As I was almost finished, I listened to the kitchen radio. Solemn music was played and the speaker said the dear Soviet leader Yuri Andropov had just died. Oh, well. The next time I decided to repeat the experiment on the night of 10/11th March 1985. As I was done with the work and listened to the radio, the solemn music blared... It was Chernenko that time!
The truth is I was fed up with those experiments, so I washed the equipment up and hid it in the cellar. I wouldn't put my parents at the risk of the repression anymore, either. What I did indeed invent was the story I had never continued the moonshining as I wanted to keep Gorbachev alive

I, 1985. In the student boarding house with the "Block To Block" album of the Polish-Norwegian band De Press. The lyrics on the album are English, Russian and Polish Highlander.

 

[Chargeride]

Also practices Voodoo.

 

[spokewrench]

I perceive any type of whiskey as hooch, and my engineering background tells me to stay with good rum Or, clear vodka for that matter. Or, craft beer.

This rum has a flavor I can't describe.

 

[PCeBiker]

Polmos Spirytus Rektyfikowany 192 Proof is the gold standard for pure commercial ethanol.

I checked the LCBO, and we only have the 76% version.

I was making high quality alcohol in 1984 and 1985.

I was making "my" quality alcohol using a simple pressure cooker and stainless steel tubing.

I made a tiny high efficiency packed distillation column myself

My column was just a rising circle of tubing before going into the bucket of water.

(the packing was made from 'Fenske's helices' which I made of copper wire myself, too).

My classmate in chemistry class in 1982 said that his grandfather almost died from drinking Moonshine.

Not from methanol poisoning ("wood alcohol") or lead poisoning (Moonhiners would often use car radiators that were made with lead solder) but from copper oxide poisoning.

I used copper tubing for my first version of my recent still and I had to regularly clean the tubing with vinegar to wash out the green copper oxide.

Absinthe was banned, not because it was poisonous, but because people were making "fake" absinthe using copper oxide to color it.

The rectification column was insulated for increased efficiency,

My rectification column was insulated with a cooking grease covered in a layer of dust.
It worked quite well as an insulator.

,.. As sugar fermentation cannot produce any methanol, the light ends were of no issue but the heavy ends (i.a., amyl alcohol) had to be perfectly cut off.

I knew about the light ends and would always throw away the first few shots to get rid of them, but I kinda forgot about the heavy ends?

That makes sense how it needs to be cut off, and I guess that my charcoal filter would only capture the light end?

There are different types of water filters that are supposed to remove heavy metals, but I don't know if they work for heavy alcohols?


I ended up drinking over 1,500 liters of 43% "vodka" (or white rum) over the course of 4½ years.

And I don't think that I was addicted?
I just decided one day that I had enough of being "sick and tired" all the time.
I was fine once I was drunk, but I had to stay drunk all day, and get drunk first thing in the morning to not feel sick.

It was exhausting.

 

[PCeBiker]

,.. All who drank my "Painkiller" became jolly! I was wondering why and decided the light ends (which had a nice smell) must have positively acted on the brains of people drinking my liquor

I watched a YouTube video of a few guys that tried to turn cheap vodka into good vodka using a Britta Filter, and they said it didn't work.

The Britta Filter absorbed all the vodka, and all they could taste was the water that was left over.