Making moonshine- can I do that?

Is it legal for me to make moonshine, for personal use and as gifts?

Is it only the selling (and thus evading regulation and taxes) that is illegal? Anyone know?

 

you can absolutely make your own booze for personal use. There is a limit to the amount though.

 

If a revenuer finds a still they are busting it up no questions asked. It's that simple.

And more to the point, I do think making certain spirits is illegal, as well as possession of said spirits.

 

turns out i'm wrong. only legal to make beer and wine:

is it illegal to brew moonshine?

 

But how many revenuers are kicking around Denver?

And if I am not breaking the law, I'll be asking some damn questions if they bust it up.

 

Damn.

 

Sure you can, just don't get caught. You can make beer and wine, but not hard liquor. Personal use or not, illegal.


Edit: Droski beat me to it.

 

Looks like an annual license costs a few thousand dollars. If I were to make it, I'd have to actually sell it just to break even. Seems sort of counter-productive in controlling alcohol.

 

Better question is do you have room for the still? It's a pretty labor intensive process that I don't think can be done indoors. (Or shouldn't be, is a better word).

 

i guess i don't get the allure of moonshine besides saving a buck obviously. how could you possibly make it better or even close to a commercial distillery? and isn't it basically grain alcohol?

 

Corn mash, droski.

 

Commercial distilleries produce a more consistent product, but according to people in the know that is its only redeeming quality. (I.e, it's weak). Like everything in life, the allure of the illegal stuff is that not everyone can have it.

 

Droski, have some of the illegal stuff and get back to me. I'm just a commie carpetbagger, and I can tell the difference.

Doesn't have to be corn, can be any fruit/grain that has sugar and will ferment. Strawberry moonshine is awesome.

 

i'm always willing to try hard alcohol

 

The guy I knew through a friend of a friend who used to make it has apparently quit. That is what made me ask. I could probably easily find a new acquaintance that makes it since I went to high school in Union County, but it would be a cool hobby... Too bad.

 

If the strawberries are a part of the mash rather than added after the fact, you have brandy not moonshine.

 

I think they were added after the fact. Good call, though.

 

Hawkins County moonshine detective imo, jmho.

 

so if you took a bottle of everclear and added strawberries to it would it taste similar? one of my booze mantras is it isn't a good booze if you need to add sweetner to it.

 

The fruit would absorb the booze, and the booze would take on a slight characteristic of the fruit. It doesn't "sweeten it", because either way it tastes like hot burning ow. But with a strawberry twinge. Eating the fruit is instant intoxication, too.