I know what you're thinking, but it's not illegal everywhere. New Zealand, Switzerland and Italy, for example, have the good sense to allow distillation of modest quantities of spiritous liquors for personal consumption, in the way many countries allow household production of beer and wine. Where home distillation is forbidden, it is simply to protect tax revenue (see Whisky Rebellion), hence those villainous Revenuers (IRS agents) in American folk songs.

To the best of my knowledge, my family never actually made moonshine for profit. But we hailed from moonshine country, and it's a matter of exhaustive public record that my forebears, yea and unto the fourth and fifth generations, took a keen interest in the production and consumption of illicit hootch. If we were never professionals, we were certainly the most enthusiastic of amateurs.

Moonshining became commonplace in the mountains because it was easier to transport five gallons of liquor down the side of a hill into market than one bushel of corn. That's what my father says, anyway. Ha ha ha, Dad. You really had us going for a second there. Of course, that's why mountain boys make moonshine.

 
Yeast eat sugar. They prefer the simplest sugars (monosaccharides). Table sugar and lactose are disaccharides, or two sugars stuck together. Starches are polysaccharides, or many sugars stuck together.

Anything sugary or starchy can be, and has been, used to make alcoholic beverages. Moonshine is traditionally made with corn, but it doesn't much matter. The aim of moonshine distillation is to return the purest possible alcohol so, unlike beer or wine, the ingredients don't affect the taste of the finished product.

If we start with with something starchy, we have to knock the saccharides out of it first. For that, we need amylase, an enzyme that breaks complex sugars down to simple sugars. Sprouts contain amylase (and so does human saliva, but...ewwww!). One quart of corn per bushel is set aside to sprout for several days, then dried and ground. Boiled, the result is called a malt.

The rest of the corn is also ground and boiled, to remove any organisms that might disagree with our friendly yeasts, and the malt is added. And the yeast (plain old grocery store bakers' yeast, if you like). Now you've got a mash.

This is where the alcohol happens. Traditionally, mash was made in an open container, such as a tree stump or hog trough. One wonders how much of the alcohol evaporated as a result (though you can't let it ferment in a sealed container, on account of it will 'splode). It takes six to ten days for the fermenting to be complete (or, as one old 'shiner put it, one to two weeks, depending on how many hogs fall in it).

Do what you can to keep it at a yeast-friendly temperature (between 100° and 130° F) — harder than it sounds, since the process itself generates heat. When the alcohol level reaches 9-13%, the yeasts die and fermentation stops. Why? Because no organism can live in a concentration of its own waste product. Whoa, that's really profound, if you think about it. Let's think about it.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

 
Okay, this is really cool. Alcohol is more volatile than water. That means it goes from a liquid to a vapor at a lower temperature (it boils at 175°F versus 212°F). So if you take the yeasty slop we just made and heat it to just the right temperature, the glorious, life-enhancing booze turns to steam and rises, and the smelly yeast-water stays behind.

That's it. That's the whole principle of distilling.

What we need to do is heat the mash to a precise temperature, capture the steam that comes off and cool it rapidly back to a liquid. Any contraption that'll do that is a still. The simplest traditional still consists of a pot (called the "pot") to boil it, a coil of tubing (called the "worm") to cool it down, and a container to collect it all, which I'm not sure has a name.

The very first liquid to come through the pipe contains evil spirits even more volatile than alcohol - like formaldehyde. This is called the heads, and a conscientious alcoholist throws it out, for obvious reasons. If you guessed there's also a tails, you'd be right. The last of the run is nasty, yeasty water, and that, too, must go.

Unless mash temperature throughout the run has been perfect, it's likely that the final product will be weaker than desired and a bit yeasty. The very best moonshine is run through the still a second time and is rather bizarrely called "double run."

Almost as good — and very common — is to put an additional pot in the middle of the arrangement. Called a "thump keg" (because it dances and thumps when the process gets going), it's heated only by the steam coming in. It acts as a second still, giving the liquor a double run on the spot.

That's pot — worm — thump keg — worm — done.

 
The best traditional stills are made entirely from copper, but laboratory glassware works fine. I got the itch to build my own many years ago, when I came into posession of the Mother of All Erlenmeyer Flasks (which some naughty monkey was going to cut up and make into a bong).

I had a job in the...ummm...doughnut industry at the time (obviously, in New Zealand, Switzerland and Italy), with access to generous amounts of sugar and yeast. I've never made moonshine from corn.

Beautiful lab glass condensers are available, but terribly expensive. Ordinary copper plumbing pipe found at the hardware store does fine (except the clerk squints at you and says, "you aren't going to make a still out of this, are you?" Huh! Like he doesn't know any 18-year-old girl plumbers, or something!).

Pack the pipe with sand to prevent kinking, and wind it around a broomhandle. Just kidding! It kinked like a bastard and I spent ages pinching it with pliars to reopen the bendy spots. That's how they tell you to do it, though.

Ummm...stoppers, thermometer, hot plate, little rubbery things you slide

over other things to make an airtight joint...that's about it. Just think — if toothless, inbred hillbillies can do it, ossa matta chu?

And remember, dears, alcohol is called a solvent because it solves all your problems.

 

Auntie would never, ever cop to a felony or incite anyone to do anything illegal!