Making moderate amounts of beer or wine at home has been legal since the 1970s. Unlicensed distillation of liquor in any quantity, however, is not. Home or backwoods stills are illegal because: 1) the process can be unsafe and can easily create something harmful or poisonous, and 2) the Federal Government really wants its tax money. Nonetheless, a still can be readily purchased or built.
BUILDING A STILL
Begin with a large copper pot or kettle. Copper is preferred because it distributes heat evenly, it reduces bacterial contamination and inhibits production of toxic substances, it absorbs sulphur compounds produced during fermentation, and it yields a sweeter product. The kettle must have a lid that can be secured in place and which has a copper tube protruding from the top.
Extend this tube with more copper tubing to a cooling chamber (perhaps a bucket) spiraling the tube down inside it, and fill the chamber with ice or a constant flow of cold water from, say, a nearby creek. Connect the spiral to a spout at the chamber bottom where it can drip into a container.
MAKING MOONSHINE
Grind corn and other desired grains into meal and soak in water in the kettle. Add sugar, stir, and boil to sterilize the mash and kill any wild yeast. Cool to 110°F, add yeast, and loosely cover.
Yeast consumes sugar in the mash and creates alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is the fermentation process which will go on for several days and cause the mash to bubble. Secure the cover on the kettle and begin heating it once the bubbling subsides. A wood or charcoal fire can be used but propane, used by moonshiners for decades, gives better control of temperature.
Mash boils between 173°F and 212°F, the respective boiling points of alcohol and water. Vapor rising inside the kettle passes through the tubing and condenses again into liquid as it flows through the cooling chamber. Vapor has a high concentration of alcohol at first but its water content increases as alcohol in the mash diminishes.
Discard the first few ounces of liquid that flow from the cooling chamber. High-end compounds like methanol and acetone vaporize and condense first and, if left in, make the product potentially harmful and bad tasting. Filter the remaining flow through charcoal, wool, or a coffee filter to remove impurities. Taste the flow at regular intervals. When it’s more water than alcohol, stop. Distilling the product a second or third time will increase its alcohol content and remove more impurities.
Your resulting moonshine is a container of clear, often harsh-tasting fluid very high in alcohol but lacking any smoothness or mellowing from aging many years in an oak barrel. Some distillers market what they call White Dog, White Whiskey, or White Water which is their 80-proof distillate before it is aged. If moonshine sounds appealing to you, try that first.
WHY GO TO ALL THIS TROUBLE?
Many reasons motivate moonshiners. Farmers who have more grain than they can use or sell turn it into moonshine to make extra cash. People who enjoy thumbing their nose at the law see it as a way to get booze, however bad-tasting, cheaply and without paying taxes. But the principal reason is that moonshine has more “kick” — a higher alcohol content than available at the local liquor store. To achieve more kick, moonshiners have experimented with adding other ingredients like bleach, embalming fluid, rubbing alcohol, and paint thinner, often with fatal results.
Whatever your motivation, it’s still illegal. Though no Federal agents will arrest you for making moonshine or poisoning yourself, they will investigate tax evasion. Just ask Al Capone.