After posting a blog, we sometimes recall somethings missed an alternate angle is suggested.
This applies to our June 21 and May 7 blogs. To make sense of what follows, you may want to re-read them as a refresher and if you are new to our site, reading those blogs would be useful – just go to the "older" link to the left.
Rotation – June 21
We omitted a topical geography lesson. Not so long ago we only got one crop from the Northern hemisphere – California and a few European countries. Harvested in September and available sometime in october, this crop had to cover a 12 month period.
But lo and behold, along comes Chili, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Great! Given these crops are from the Southern hemisphere, they are harvested in March/April. This means we now have fresher products and greater ease of rotation.
May 7 – a TV program called Moonshiners… We had fun posting that one. Yes, Bubba, Bobby Jo and Co (plus their cousin in cut off jeans) are probably still prouncing around the backwoods making moonshine at night and "barbaqueing" road kill during the day.
Anyway, a friend raised in the same hometown as me (LaBroquerie MB) read the blog and said "Do you remember my uncle Jos?" Of course I did. Jos was born in 1890 which would have placed him in his mid 40s during the Great Depression. He passed away at age 102 in 1992. He was a passionate horse lover, breeding and raising them year round and working as a carpenter in the summer. I visited his home many times as a young man. It was a one room "house" with a wood stove in the middle, cot in one corner, small table in the next and clothes closet in the other. He did supply sound information regarding our May 7 blog. Turns out those 3-4 LaBroquerie guys did go out a few miles east of LaBroquerie to "fetch some pine" only to come back with one load of logs. They were cooking moonshine and had their own little shack, mash and equipmenty. Necessity is the mother of invention! These people had little in the 30s.And Jos said "Yeah, they had the finest baseball gloves in town!"
Now to the second point and this is an eye witness account. Distiling can be very elaborate or very simple. One early December, my friend and I dropped in on Jos. Wood stove was on and a large pot on it with a lid full of snow. He was cooking his Christmas + New Years "piquette" (French for moonshine). One can ferment anything -pure sugar, applke peels, orange peels, potatoes, oats, name it. Even residents of Stony Mountain pen do it!
No matter the mash, the process went as follows. One would place the mash on the stove and invert the cover placing snow or ice in it. Heat, vaporize, condense, drip into a floating soup bowl and presto! "To your health". No coke or orage juice.
The product is very pure but the process is slow. Been there, done that.
Armand