Word: hooch
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Moonshine, that most illicit of drinks, is shedding its hick reputation, and making it is becoming a popular (and illegal) project for do-it-yourself hobbyists eager to distill their own hard liquor. Into this new paradigm steps journalist Max Watman, whose new book, Chasing the White Dog, chronicles hooch's colorful history and its place in modern culture. Watman talked to TIME about his moonshine misadventures and the difficulties of producing or procuring illicit booze...
What's with the fascination with moonshine? I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and in certain parts of the country, moonshine is a part of the culture. The guy who fixed my truck sold moonshine. We were guys standing around in a field drinking hooch. One of the times I left the valley someone gave me a present of a coil that would sit atop a pressure cooker and turn it into a still. It landed on a bookshelf. And there it was, reminding me that out there in the world, there's someone making moonshine. I came across...
...original pirates of the Caribbean were liars, cheats and thieves. But they could be trusted to pour a glass of rum the right way. Unlike many modern imbibers - who debase the sugarcane-based spirit with Coke, coconut cream or fruit juice - the bloodthirsty seafarers enjoyed their hooch neat. (Edward "Blackbeard" Teach was the exception; he took his grog with a pinch of gunpowder.) Now artisan rum producers from Antigua to Venezuela are persuading sophisticated sippers to dump the mixers and drink like Captain Kidd once more. These master distillers specialize in dark, aged rums that are big on nose...
Samogon, which literally means self distilled, had its heyday in the mid 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev enforced his alcohol reforms which, among other things, restricted sales to certain stories and prohibited restaurants from serving drinks before 2 p.m. It was a mini-Prohibition and, to get their lips on hooch, people were making alcohol with anything they had. One popular recipe suggested putting yeast, sugar and milk into a washing machine, switching it on a two hour cycle and then distilling the result. In rural Russia, peasants drank heart medication because they believed it contained alcohol...
Vodka is the world's most popular spirit, but its rich potential for natural taste is also the least appreciated. In the West, distillers filter the hooch heavily to create a neutral liquor that adds an undetectable kick to your Moscow mule or bloody Mary. But in vodka's homelands, Poland and Russia, distillers follow a different philosophy. Their brews retain the character of the original ingredients, which can include anything organic and fermentable, from potatoes to grain to beets. And although these artisan vodkas are best drunk neat and chilled, some connoisseurs suggest sampling the spirit in a wine...