Whiskey Still Company Blog

Prohibition, which was supposed to restrict the production, transportation and sale of liquors, ironically led Americans to produce homemade alcohol and rumrunners to smuggle forbidden substances. It was also the lawless decade of the 1920’s when bootlegging trade was in boomed operation. Illegally produced alcohol was termed Moonshine, or called “hooch” and is said to be the original “Mountain Dew”. It used a still to extract the alcohol. During the Prohibition, reported cases of poisoning and blindness spread among patrons of moonshine. Methanol ingestion from drinking moonshine is long riddled to cause blindness. In the process of making alcohol, methanol...

  If you ever decide to engage in this home distilling hobby, here's a primer of some points you have to familiarize before you start. Just invest on these information and also do your own research. Before you know it you can be perfecting your very own homemade liquor!   Everything starts with the mash! First, you'll need an ingredient to source sugar. You can either use sugar rich fruits like grapes or any edible fruits or starch rich plants like corn or potatoes, then of course water and yeast. So you basically mix the ingredients in their correct amounts....

Homebrewing beer and wine was forbidden in the US not until 1978 when a law repealled the Federal restrictions on this practice. An adult, in this case 21 years old or older, is now allowed to produce up to 100 gallons of beer or wine each year for personal consumption (selling the alcohol is a different story and requires a permit). On this liberal acceptance, America still kept a blind eye to decriminalize moonshining. Possessing a still and extracting alcohol as fuel is decent if you have a BATF permit however distilling spirits for private use is still illicit. So what...

Every novice man in this distilling interest faces this simple however very critical question: Is it legal to distill your own alcohol? Let's be enlightened. It is only legal in New Zealand and a few European countries, elsewhere it isn't - the punishment ranges from fines to imprisonment. In the United States, home distilling is practically illegal unlike homebrewing and winemaking. While it is fine to own a still, the federal law requires that a permit be secured before anyone can practice distilling alcohol. Early 1920's when alcohol consumption was made illegal, home distillation rampantly unfolded among the Americans to defy the prohibition....