One of the "craft" trades that might be handy in a SHTF situation is making fairly pure alcohol. It is a good way to store excess grains, handy to drink, can be used as a solvent for medical uses and just as a money maker. We have all seen the old moonshine still and know how easy it would be to make one. The problem is that the "pot still" type which is the usual name for that system, requires quite of a bit of skill to operate and that some outputs from it are poison and other parts smell and perhaps taste like dirty socks. Here is a quick survey of the subject. What are Cuts in Whisky Distillation? The hearts is of course the part that we want, but the head and tails contain the non alcohol parts that give a drink its flavor. The more you reject as heads or tails, the less you have to sell as well. Now the trick is knowing when to start keeping the booze and when to reject it. Not a good idea to taste a boiling and perhaps poisonous liquid to see if it is safe to keep to drink, nor to harm your customers. The skill needed to do it without controlling the temps is kind of like the use of color to judge temps in blacksmithing. Takes some time to learn it and best to have a person that knows how to do it to teach you. Another of those things like foraging for wild foods that can get you in deep trouble or perhaps even dead. Now the more modern and complex way is to use a column still and run in a continuous process or measure the temps of the vapor as it flows into the condensing sections. What’s the Difference Between Pot Stills and Column Stills? Again one of those things that are easy to get now, tools to measure temp, specific gravity, alcohol content, etc. Those items as well as knowledge, will be difficult to find after the SHTF. The best description of gathering resources for use after the SHTF is a Jerry Young story, Resource - The Trades People Resource - Just In Case
The gravity reading is very important, Tells you if its wood grain methanol or the good stuff I think since I've never made anything like that, Probably the 1st gallon will blind you, Throw that out.
What do y'all want to know? My family started making whisky back in Scotland, about 1600 they moved operations to Ulster in northern Ireland, and 150 years later moved to the Colonies. In the last 275 years or so we have made whisky in the mountains of Virginia, the Carolinas, east Tennessee, and north Alabama. In all that time the only constant was some sob from the government with his hand out for taxes (aka our money)! I've made whisky with my Daddy, BIL, and nephew, with my Daddy talking about his uncles that when to prison for making shine, and his Daddy that made a fortune during Prohibition only to lose it in the Great Depression. We've bootlegged and operated a small local chain of legal liquor stores, where we sold some fake moonshine. I say fake because if you have to ask the Yankee government for permission and pay taxes, it ain't shine! So, what do y'all want to know?
Keep that methanol, because with some lye and seed oil you can make bio-diesel. Also, some folks like to drink it. Many years ago, my Daddy asked an old black man to help him set up a pot still and teach him how to run it. The old man asked for only one thing in payment, that first quart.
Spent a lot of my youth helping an old man run a still. I was always first in because I was under 18 and would walk if I was caught. Kept me in spending money for sure.
