Homemade hooch?

[hellosailor]

Wheels, hooch is hooch. If the furriners can't speak YnGlitch they shouldn't pretend they can. Anyplace the USN shelled during WW2 would know that hooch is torpedo juice, amateur moonshine, cheap and often inferior distilled booze and nothing else. Unrelated to hooches (huts), hoochie mamas, or Starsky and Hutch.

So this applicant for a tech support phone bank is almost done with his interview, and the interviewer says there's just one thing left. Prove you can speak YnGlitch, give me a sentence using the words green, yellow, and pink.

"The phone goes green, green and I pink it up and say 'Yellow, how may I help you?'"

Hey, on the bright side, there were some 6500 languages spoken on this planet recently, but apparently 25 of them die out every month as the last native speakers die without passing them on. At that rate...In about 22 years we'll all be down to speaking Esperanto.<G>

Wes, in many countries distilled spirits are illegal (i.e. Islamic states) and you'd be lucky if they were confiscated along with your still--and not your butt and boat. In many others there are legal limits about distillation, even here in the US. Safer to stick to brewing beer, and buy the local bargain brands on the rest. Possessing a still is a great way to get uniforms in an uproar, worldwide.

[High Cotton]

You mean there's actually something out there other than Cap'n MORGAN !?!

[TAREUA]

Okay, I think this is the sort of thing that you're after. Going down the West coast of Mexico there is (or was back in the 90's) an island with a military base on it. I can't recall the name, and am too lazy to look it up. We passed it by but some freinds of ours stopped there and met the local doctor. No alcohol was allowed on the island, and so he had a variety of ways of making booze. The easiest way was to take all your pineapple peelings, sit them in a container filled with enough water to cover them, and then add a lot of sugar. When we finally tried it in Tahiti, after about 4 days it was kind of fizzy and mildly alcholic, and not bad tasting. After a week it had more alcohol and tasted rather, umm, unfortunate.
I found buying booze in bulk where its cheap and keeping it in a jerry can on deck much more efficient.

[David M]

It sounds like a barge might be more appropriate for setting up a floating distillery. I will just bring along the bottled pre-made type when that time comes...much less hassle.

[philip van praag]

we brew our own wine and beer from kits have no problem on board when in harbor haven taken a batch out in a force 4 and it turned out fine
did notice this still last time we were in our local shop getting a new kit Home Brewing Mail Order

[philip van praag]

Still Sprits Consumables try this one or enter site and go to still sprits consumables

[ssullivan]

Oh, there's a way! ha ha

In my high school days, when my friend's dad didn't bring home a case of beer from Anheiser (sp??) Busch (his job), or we couldn't get older kids to buy us anything, or our fake IDs were rejected, we did this:

1) Go to store and buy apple juice, or grape juice or anything at all with sugar in it. Also pick up regular dry bread yeast.

2) Take cap off bottle of juice, dump packet of yeast and an extra bit of sugar in.

3) Affix baloon to bottle mouth

4) Wait a week or two

5) Enjoy your NASTY alcohol that actually gives you that buzz you get from European drinks - you know... the ligher one, unlike American beers.


It's really funny because we did this in my friend's room in a large army type trunk he had. We bought a padlock and locked it up, so his mom wouldn't find it and get him in trouble.

She would hear the thing hissing and ask, "MICHAEL!!?! What do you have in that trunk?!? I heard it HISSING the other day!"

I guess that's when one of our baloons sprung a leak.

Wow... I'm bored. Leaving to get a new boat in 2 days, going snowboarding tomorrow. Just killing time here, but that was one way to make the hooch. It can be done with any juice and any yeast. Just be sure to put the baloon on, or the bottle will break.

CHEAP hooch.

[Morgan Paul]

Wow... I'm bored. Leaving to get a new boat in 2 days, going snowboarding tomorrow. Just killing time here,

Sean, keep us posted about your new boat (I am bored here in Port Jefferson waiting to get my boat back in the water)

[bobsadler]

this is a link to a copy of the instruction manual that was reputedly put together by the guys working in saudi arabia for aramco: How to brew your own booze

i make no recommendation!!

[Lorianne Davies]

Just a quick sidenote from a medical perspective....don't wanna spoil the experiment but I spent some time in Saudi during the Gulf war and fully expected to be run off my feet with casualties. The the sickest guys we used to see were more often than not, the Americans who now being in an Islamic state decided to take matters into their own hands and make "siddiqui"(not sure of the spelling but it translates into "friend"). These were usually young guys and southern. Their liver enzymes went through the roof and you can only regenerate so much.........until you're out shopping for a new one. Life's too short.....find a local who knows what he's doing and/or buy the stuff. When we arrived back in North America at 0700....I knelt to the ground, kissed the tarmac and went to the airport bar an ordered a bottle of Merlot......heaven!!!.........

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Lorianne Davies

Just a quick sidenote from a medical perspective....don't wanna spoil the experiment but I spent some time in Saudi during the Gulf war and fully expected to be run off my feet with casualties. The the sickest guys we used to see were more often than not, the Americans who now being in an Islamic state decided to take matters into their own hands and make "siddiqui"(not sure of the spelling but it translates into "friend"). These were usually young guys and southern. Their liver enzymes went through the roof and you can only regenerate so much.........until you're out shopping for a new one. Life's too short.....find a local who knows what he's doing and/or buy the stuff. When we arrived back in North America at 0700....I knelt to the ground, kissed the tarmac and went to the airport bar an ordered a bottle of Merlot......heaven!!!.........

Are you saying that somehow they failed to make ethanol with yeast, sugar and the absence of O2?

I'm not following how somone could fail to get that right.

How to brew your own booze

[Lorianne Davies]

Uh oh, small kitchen fire while on CF....husband not happy...officially cut off...should've gone to the BVI"s with those four "fun" Boston guys. Dunno the problem..difficult to gather anecdotal evidence and impossible to get empirical evidence as "no one had been drinking" something like "no homosexuals in Iran",I guess. You could ask yourself, why given the same cupboard full of drugs and same basic training, can one anaesthesiologist make you sicker than a dog and another get you through a major surgery with little more than a hiccup???? I did try the stuff myself out of desperation but my Spidey sense told me to walk away....perhaps like good sex, it's an art form and the "devil's in the details" as they say.....back as soon as golf season starts next week and I become single again.......two more years until the boat...........

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Lorianne Davies

Uh oh, small kitchen fire while on CF....husband not happy...officially cut off...should've gone to the BVI"s with those four "fun" Boston guys. Dunno the problem..difficult to gather anecdotal evidence and impossible to get empirical evidence as "no one had been drinking" something like "no homosexuals in Iran",I guess. You could ask yourself, why given the same cupboard full of drugs and same basic training, can one anaesthesiologist make you sicker than a dog and another get you through a major surgery with little more than a hiccup???? I did try the stuff myself out of desperation but my Spidey sense told me to walk away....perhaps like good sex, it's an art form and the "devil's in the details" as they say.....back as soon as golf season starts next week and I become single again.......two more years until the boat...........

OMG! Hillairous post. Glad you're both ok from the little fire.

[PhantomBoatwork]

I tried the whole gamut of homemade alcohol production a little while back, and even made a rather large reflux head copper still from some internet plans, along with homemade beer and wine. Short story, the distilled vodka I made ranged from not too bad to varnish remover. Took a lot of time and propane and was rather disappointing. The wine was consistantly mediocre from lack of affordable supplies. But the beer was consistantly sup-er-ior and I currently have about 10 gallons fermenting in various vats around the house. We did try to make some "raisin" wine from a recipe in a cruising book that was undrinkable.
Could any of these routes be adapted to life on board? Sure, if you have the room. The still and burner could double as a water still and come apart, and the only supplies needed for beer making would be a large boiling kettle, a 5 gallon glass carboy and some bottles and a capper. You would have to have a calm anchorage though. Actually, loading up on local spirits is a great deal easier and probably cheaper in the long run. If I only had a way to load up on Mount Gay rum in Barbados when we were there.......sigh!

[Maren]

Originally Posted by PhantomBoatwork

I tried the whole gamut of homemade alcohol production a little while back, and even made a rather large reflux head copper still from some internet plans, along with homemade beer and wine. Short story, the distilled vodka I made ranged from not too bad to varnish remover.

And who said finding fuesl for alcohol stoves was difficult overseas?