i know how y'all feel about jimmuh - but credit must be given where credit is due.
on october 14, 1978, jimmuh cawtuh, a somewhat former president of these disunited states, signed into law "HR1377", whereby prohibition was nipped in the red nose.
because of the lack of substance in the news we've been forced to watch other, somewhat more interesting programs out of our 120 channel cable line-up.
while watching the history channel this morning - programming included moonshining, bootlegging and a special on home brewing. this is when i found out about our aforementioned former, somewhat potus, link to homebrewing BEER!
it seems dan quayle didn't much cotton to the idea - but, hey - he cannot even spell potato, so wouldn't even know or care how to make vodka!
one must wonder if billy had anything to do with this...
43 comments:
It was either this or have to pardon him...
FJ-:snert"
Nanc-It's awful hard for us humans to be perfect about anything, much less everything. So that was jimmah cahtah's one misstep into history as the most useless former president?
tmw
nah - that appears to be the only decent thing he ever did!
Billy beer was like pabst blue ribbon. Watered down beer.
Natty Boh, anyone?
...it has that genuine "bath-tub beer" taste.
my mom has a six pack (full and intact) of "billy beer" and thinks it will be worth some money someday.
Moonshine. The original Mountain Dew.
My great uncle's thump barrel sour apple cider'll make you squint so hard your eyeballs will bruise.
God rest his soul. He got struck by lightning while fishing in a thunderstorm. Knocked 'em deader than a doorstop. Ruined the fish too.
Hmmm. Home-brewed beer. I think I know just what I need to do it! Yahoo! Seriously!
farmer - nancpop keeps saying he needs one kit for each day of the week and an extra just in case...
nanc
It's all in the bubbles...
i'm glad to see all the beer drinkers uniting!
one must wonder if billy had anything to do with this...
What is it cops say these days? "There`s no such thing as circumstance or chance or accidents or....whats the word I`m looking for..or maybe that was Derwood Kirby sed dat.
My old boss back in Missouri had a 6 pack of "billy slop", and he thought it'd be worth something someday,....Ha!
I laughed and told him he might as well keep it,.....I sure as hell wouldn't drink that slop.
That's been over 20 years ago, and I'd bet it's turned into vinegar by now.
When you're out of Miller, you're out of beer,...except for Nancs' "snob beer".
hey now!
My sides hurt! Mr. Beamish's comment! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm allergic to beer, but not to moonshine. Seriously. Go figure.
Jimmah Cawtuh's moonshine was probably what got Ted Turner started into Alcoholism. My brother in law loves Carter because of this law--he makes his own home-brew though it's no Samuel Adams. I hate watered down beer.
flo - we have an acquaintance who makes the sweetest honey ales - no bloating, no kidding!
AOW,
I prefer sippin' shots of whiskey to beer as well.
But I had to stop doing that instead of beer a long time ago.
Woke up one morning behind the wheel of my car in my driveway not remembering ever leaving the bar.
I figured I'll get no luckier than that so my nights of excessive drinking became fewer and fewer. I'm down to allowing myself a drunken stupor 4 times a year.
Last year, I only used 2 of them, so I have some escrow for emergencies.
ESCROWWWWWWWWW!!!
dayam - i wish i'd thought of that...
i bought a "jar" of shine once. Whew, I`m like beamish except I ended up in someone else`s driveway. Or was that a drive-thru....
tazz - daddio has some great photos and a video up at his site, but they all have a blue tinge to them - he said he was under the influence of a friend of mine - "labatt's"!
and i thought they were viagra induced!
boo-boo?
someone gave nancpop a 1/2 quart jar of moonshine when he was in mississippi a few years ago - one of his workers said he'd give him fifteen bucks for it, so he took it and went and bought a bottle of beam!
Labatts,....yuck.
Moonshine,... I used to get it from "Lonzo" when I was a dumb-ass teen ager in Ar.......Wow, otherwise, we had to go to Mo. state line to get beer,....and we went there often!
"Been there, done that".
One time when I was about 16, I copped a quart of my moms' plum juice,{for her jelly}, and I put some yeast in it and let it ferment for a week or so,.....I slipped it to school, and me and "ole Henry", my best friend, got drunk, along with a couple of other friends! Hee, hee!
The trouble with drinking "shine" is you don't know what your drinking.
The best you can do in a low tech still is about 86 proof and most shine is somewhere around 80. Shine isn't aged in wooden barrels, or really even aged for that matter, so the raw alcohol burns your throat like a SOB, if it doesn't choke you. Of course, if you get past the first couple of swallows you don't have much problem getting the rest down.
Where the real problem comes in is that copper is expensive so moonshiners have been known to use radiators out of old cars and trucks for distillation coils. The antifreeze residue left in the radiators tends to sweeten and mellow the shine out, (as it destroys your liver), and the lead solder they use to hold radiators together give you lead poisoning.
Then there is always the interesting question; what kind of containers are they storing the shine in?
Insecticide, lacquer thinner, who knows?
I had a friend that got zinc poisoning because his daddy ran off a bunch of shine in zinc lined gallon cans. Zinc poisoning is almost identical with lead poisoning.
Moonshiners have also been know to add wood alcohol to raise the poof 10 or 15 points to get a better price.
Ever see anyone poisoned from wood alcohol? They go blind and have crippling stomach cramps. My grandfather went into laughing hysterics and they tied him in bed. He almost died from drinking somebody else's product.
Old man Gibbs was cooking shine, mostly for his own consumption. He had the still hid up under his house in a root cellar with a dirt floor. Everyone knew he was doing it. He slopped his pigs with the sour mash left over after he cooked out the alcohol.
Of course, the dead give away was the hundred pounds of sugar he bought several times a year.
He had a really high poof product. The trick is to watch the heat. If you get it too hot, either you loose alcohol or boil the water and dilute it. Not enough heat and your wasting your time.
He rigged up a natural gas burner under his still and kept and eye on the thermometer. You can imagine what a pain in the patoote it is to try and regulate the heat with a wood fire.
Unfortunately for him, he was sampling some of his product and fell asleep, (passed out), he never woke up. Carbon monoxide!
Yes, Nanc. Escrow!
Sometimes doing something you'll regret later takes a lot of planning :)
After Warren's story about Old Man Gibbs, I think I'll throw out the old radiator and go put a case of Natty Boh in escrow.
dang! i left a long comment to warren last night and it vaporized - must've been the grain...
Mr. Beamish,
I prefer sippin' shots of whiskey to beer as well.
But I had to stop doing that instead of beer a long time ago.
Woke up one morning behind the wheel of my car in my driveway not remembering ever leaving the bar.
Well, I've never done that.
I like brandy--the good stuff--and Southern Comfort with orange juice. As hot toddies, if you will.
At the moment, I'm into some fruity wine. Just one small glass every night. Doctor's orders, no less.
Jimmy Carter did something good? Who knew?
Personally, I don't like beer unless I'm painting. Don't ask why, because I don't have a clue, but painting the inside walls of a house is the only time I drink beer. We don't have it in the house, so whenever I get ready to paint, I go buy a six-pack. I know it's rather wierd, but it's true.
gayle- maybe it`s being indoors, confined area mixed with paint "air"
geeeez, kuhnkat - i just took the beer habit up here about four years ago! dang, you mean i'm going to outgrow this?
i thought everclear and moonshine were two different things?
booboo? paint does go better with beer. but the converse cannot be said.
He's right. Once they reach a "certain age" they start to grow OUT, not UP.
Methyl alcohol Kuhnkat is what those Russians use in their vodka right? Isn't that why I read about 2 or 3 articles a year about dozens of Russians dying from moonshined vodka?
Speakin of jimmah cahtah...we used to sing a song when I was a kid... to the tune of Oscar Myer.
Oh, my President has a first name,
It's J I M M Y.
My President has a second name,
It's C A R T E R.
[several lines forgotten]
'Cause JIMMY CARTER has a way,
of messin' up the USA.
And speaking of beer, I remember seeing an old moonshine still when I was living in Virginia.
Can't say that I ever had a beer.
It's a shame that most vodka makers use grain instead of potatoes now.
Teton Glacier Potato Vodka (highly recommended) is the only one produced in America. Luksusowa is also excellent and is produced in Poland.
phew, kuhnkat...
kell - you's a good girl!
a.c. - we rarely if ever drink any hard liquor and all but gave it up nearly five years ago in lieu of the snob beer habit...and don't drink enough of that to catch a buzz, but then again, i don't really want one - i just like the taste of a couple of ice cold beers in my frosty mug with a slice of lemon or lime! we do, however, like a glass of cabernet once in a great while with red meat.
p.s. - i think farmer's winding down from his party...finally - who knew a fifty year old man would have such stamina? well, besides mrs. farmer...
Yep, I finally ran out of beer. Know where I can find some fermenting berries?
Speaking of beer drinkers...see my latest blog entry. 3-2-07
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