Moonshine busted – The Troy Messenger
Ngoc Vo – The MessengerAn illegal moonshine production has been busted this morning in the wooded area near Gardner Bassett Road.The bust was conducted through investigative efforts by the Department of Conservation, and the Pike County Sheriff Department with the assistance of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, according to Sheriff Russell Thomas.Thomas said 20 barrels were found, each of which produces approximately 7 gallons of finished products, totaling roughly between 140 and 150 gallons of illegal alcoholic beverage.
“What we have here is a total disregard for the law,” Thomas said. “They know what to do and they know how to do it.” The moonshine was in the fermenting stage, around two days in with some further along according to its temperature, said the state police moonshine task force.
Some of the moonshine barrels were insulated, meaning that the producer started when the temperature was still low, then it got warmer, said the task force officer. According to Thomas, illegal moonshine making creates a good margin between production cost and selling price. The producers did not pay any tax for the moonshine and had a decent size still that could run several times.
The task force estimated the equipment and materials to make the moonshine around $2,000. The copper still is worth between $700 and $1,200. It costs around $8 per gallon for the sugar and wheat to make the moonshine. The selling price is around $25 a gallon if sold in bulk, or $40 for retail price.
“They can make as much as $10,000 a month,” the task force said. Producers make five to six gallons every seven days in the winter and 7 gallons every five days in warmer weather. Thomas said illegal moonshine production is very dangerous because the still is run with propane. If there is a leak in the old cooper still, there is likely to be an explosion.
Moreover, there is no safety or health inspection for such alcoholic beverage. The authority destroyed the barrels and took apart the still. Further investigation will be conducted. According to Thomas, the last moonshine still they busted is on loan to the Pioneer Museum.
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How much does it cost to make homemade moonshine?
Using the information provided by our calculator we can determine the cost using an average cost of goods within the United States. – According to Macro Trends, the current cost of sugar is,20 per pound. We found this cracked corn for,21 per pound. This one pound pack of distiller’s yeast works out to about 96 teaspoons.
What is the fastest alcohol to make?
Lately, I have been interested in homebrewing but kept wondering what the easiest way to begin was. After doing some research I have found some answers to help you choose what type of alcohol to brew. What is The Easiest Alcohol to Make? The easiest alcohol to make is probably mead.
Making mead is very straight forward but it is not the fastest alcohol to make. If you want to make alcohol that you can enjoy fast, beer is probably the way to go for you. Wine and spirits generally have longer fermenting processes than beer. First, you have to ask yourself what you really want to make, each method has various difficulties depending on what type of beer, wine or spirit you want to make.
Continue reading as I dive into the different methods and help shine a light on which method might suit you. How to brew your own alcohol? Take a look at this post where we get all the details about making alcohol at home.
Why is alcohol free so expensive?
Anyone who has paid £26.50 for a bottle of Seedlip will have asked themselves why, when the duty on alcohol can represent as much as 40% of a drink’s cost, is the price so steep? The obvious answer would seem to be that the producers are building in brand value by setting a high price for their product, a price that replicates (and often exceeds) what a spirit would cost.
But there is more to it than that. Ethanol, the chemical constituent of alcohol, is an excellent base for extracting and carrying flavours. Water, the base of non-alcoholic drinks, is not. Makers of non-alcoholic spirits may have to use as much as ten times the quantity of herbs and other botanicals to achieve the same results.
They may have to employ the more expensive cone method of distillation to preserve the delicate flavour, and they often distil each herb, spice or other botanical separately to achieve a purity of flavour. Oils are soluble in alcohol; they are not in water.
- If the producer wants to include, say, citrus flavours in the mix, the process of adding the oils into the drink is much more complicated.
- Some manufacturers use alcohol in the manufacturing process to infuse the flavours and then have to include the extra step of removing the alcohol; this, too, builds in additional costs.
Certain producers use expensive flavourings too. While essentially the dominant flavour in any alcoholic drink is the alcohol – made from relatively cheap ingredients (sugar, grapes, hops, grain) – non-alcoholic spirits rely on blending a range of flavours from botanicals, woods, herbs and spices.
- These may not come cheap.
- Everleaf, for example, uses vanilla and saffron in their drinks, two of the world’s most expensive spices.
- And while the infrastructure for brewing and distilling has been understood for centuries, some of the processes for squeezing, macerating and infusing the ingredients for these drinks has to be developed from scratch, with new equipment to match.
Ben Branson, the CEO of Seedlip defended his prices in an interview in The Grocer explaining that it takes six weeks to make a bottle of Seedlip and that they distil every single-origin ingredient separately: ‘I can tell you that it costs more to make a bottle of Seedlip or Aecorn than most alcoholic products on the market’.
Another thing to consider is that alcohol is a preservative; there is no issue of anything going off in alcohol. That’s why you can buy wine in Vietnam with a snake dropped in it. Water is not self-sanitising (the snake would rot), and so the manufacture of non-alcoholic distilled drinks involves a lot more refrigeration, which again builds in higher costs.
Then there are the promotion costs: the world of non-alcoholic spirits is expanding exponentially; it is reckoned there are already over a hundred non-alcoholic spirits in the US, all desperate to build a market share and gain their piece of the growing but young market.
- Building brand awareness doesn’t come cheap and educating punters to consider a non-alcoholic drink when they go out to a bar or restaurant takes a lot of careful work.
- It’s going against centuries of drinking culture.
- One way to add appeal is to put production costs into beautiful bottles and labels: Fluére’s elegant fluted pale blue glass, Clean G’s hexagonal green bottle.
More expense, compared to the classic straight-up-with-slim-neck of your average whiskey, gin, vodka or rum bottle. And finally, yes, there is the bit no business likes to admit: high prices, comparable to the cost of a spirit, make it clear that this is a drink to be taken seriously.
- They confer brand dignitas and say that the producers have put in thought, time and work to create a proper drink.
- It’s perhaps no coincidence that Ben Branson, who established the original high price with Seedlip, was previously a luxury brand creator.
- For now, the high prices seem here to stay, at least in the niche brands which sell from their own websites or in specialist shops.
Most prices are in the £18 – £27 range. But Gordons 0% has bucked the trend by selling at £12-14 and Lidl has produced a distilled non-alcoholic drink called Cerocero that retails at £9.99. Many distilled non-alcoholic drinks promote offers with significant reduced costs: Clean G is currently offering its non-spirits at £16, reduced from its normal £19.
How much is a jar of homemade moonshine?
Usually $25 but sometimes they put a flavor or two on sale for $5 off.
How much whiskey do you get from 5 gallons of mash?
How Much Alcohol Will a Still Produce? – Before we get started, a reminder: Distilling alcohol is illegal without a federal fuel alcohol or distilled spirit plant permit as well as relevant state permits. Our distillation equipment is designed for legal uses only and the information in this article is for educational purposes only.
A 1 gallon run will yield 3-6 cups of alcohol A 5 gallon run will yield 1-2 gallons of alcohol A 8 gallon run will yield 1.5-3 gallons of alcohol A 10 gallon run will yield 2-4 gallons of alcohol
For the researchers, science nerds, alchemists, and truth seekers, here’s why:
