Food & Drink Has Any Ever Made Their Own Homemade Liquor?

[MLarson]

Whether it's beer, wine or some type Alcohol.

I never have myself but I like to learn to make either
Whiskey or Bourbon but it's probably hard to do.

 

[Andy Capp]

So, by homemade drinks, you mean brewing/distilling your own?

Distilling liquor involves fire so it's unsafe for a noob*. Brewing beer is much easier and you can buy kits with everything you need. Start there.



*That means not trying to start with whiskey or bourbon but you do you.

 

[Fla graplr]

I poured myself a tall glass of milk

 

[William Huggins]

Cider......

 

[Sunnyvale TP]

I've made wine a few times over the years. Also helped a buddy make mead. It's not as hard as you think. Humans have been doing it since someone ate the first piece of rotten fermenting fruit and got their buzz on.

 

[My name is]

I did moonshine once it was pretty simple really

 

[Madmick]

Whether it's beer, wine or some type Alcohol.

I never have myself but I like to learn to make either
Whiskey or Bourbon but it's probably hard to do.

Bro, this is illegal partly because people end up making wood alcohol on accident.

Making the wrong type of alcohol when distilling at home primarily results in producingmethanol, a highly toxic substance, instead of the desired ethanol [1, 2]. The key risk is poisoning, which can lead to severe health consequences, including blindness and death. Methanol is a natural byproduct of fermentation but is concentrated by distillation. While small amounts are common, improper techniques, such as failing to discard the initial portion of the distillate ("heads"), can lead to dangerous concentrations. Symptoms of methanol poisoning can include:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Severe abdominal pain
• Headache and dizziness
• Blurred vision or complete blindness
• Kidney failure
• Coma and death

It was partly this, partly government policy, that led up to some 50K Americans drying from wood alcohol poisoning during Prohibition.

Americans knew their booze was poisoned—and drank it anyway

During Prohibition, the U.S. government added toxins to industrial alcohol, knowing it could kill. The result? A chemical war that targeted the poor and reshaped public trust.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Mixed result when there is no G-man fuckery involved, but the lack of chemistry training and proper equipment can end up getting you killed-- copper and lead contamination is also a hazard. If the methanol ratio is off with wine or beer, it isn't as big of a deal because of the concentration of alcohol; there is a lower load of the poison. Not the case with liquor:

Substances of health concern in home-distilled and commercial alcohols from Texas - PMC

Poor distillation practices in the production of spirits have historically resulted in many instances of adverse health outcomes including death. Concern has focused on lead and copper contamination as well as unhealthy levels of methanol and ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://sciendo.com/2/v2/download/article/10.2478/amma-2013-0048.pdf

This isn't something to be approached casually. Just a heads up.

 

[Ignicious]

I made wine twice. First time the color was off but tasted great. Second time it was the other way around

 

[650lb Sumo]

I don't do it much now but used to homebrew large quantities of beer, cider and wine. It's one of those things that's easy to start but hard to master; in terms of getting the taste good, and if you want to go from ingredients rather than kits.

As others have said making spirits is more complex, and you might need a license.

But to make beer for instance you can just

put sugar,



syrup tin



and hot water



into your fermenting bin,



mix with a long, hygienic (not wooden) spoon,


fill up with lukewarm water,



then 'pitch' yeast (just means sprinkle in, you don't have to do a baseball throw)



and leave the bin in a warm place (near your boiler for instance) for a few days. Depends how warm the place is, if your home is cool it can take a few weeks for best results.


Then siphon the pre-beer into a barrel,



add some 'priming sugar'



and again wait a few days/weeks for the fermentation of the priming sugar to fizz it up and the sediment to settle at the bottom.


There are all kinds of different possible variations but I just kept it very simple. If you have apples in the autumn you can scrat



and press



them, then go through a similar process with the juice to make cider. However it's very slow using hand-tools as I have depicted, so I would recommend automatic machines if you have significant quantities. Especially the press.

Edit: The post won't post with embedded pictures, nor was I able to attach a picture earlier, so I'll leave those spaces blank, and hopefully the issue will soon be fixed and I can add the pix later.

 

[650lb Sumo]

Hope @666 doesn't find this thread.

Edit: Wow, even including an emoji blocked this post from going through.

 

[Ibm]

I've made wine. Ended being super strong like a port wine on steroids. Its easy to get drunk as hell. But l dont like alcohol but ive made it before. If you ant a very cheapnajd easy method regular grape juice will be easiest.