Where can you find a recipe for corn whiskey?

Answer 1

My father was a pilot, working with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Enforcement Unit, helping to locate illegal stills in the woods and rural areas of our state. In short, Daddy was a revenuer. I sort of followed in his footsteps, eventually working with the ABC Board as a secretary in the Information Systems Division. Dad used to come home and tell us stories about some of the stills they would find, and the people who ran them. Most of these illegal operations were truly nasty! They found one tunneled under a pig sty. Perfect undercover place because the smell was hidden by the pig smells. I suppose, because the product distilled was so high in alcohol, most of the germs and disease were killed off. But I wouldn't touch one of those bottles for anything! I digress....I want to tell you that, most likely, the Alcohol Boards of every state have recipes for making moonshine. When I was working with Alabama's ABC Board, I worked with some of the Enforcement people off and on, and several of them told me they could make a still anytime they wanted. Apparently, it's very easy to do. The difficulty comes when you have to hide it. In Alabama, it is legal to make your own alcoholic beverage for personal consumption only. It must be enough beverage for one person, and one person only. Any more would be considered an intent to sell illegally. That includes making homemade wine (such as muscadine, scuppernong, blackberry, etc.). People are allowed to make wine for their home consumption only. (Ever hear of sloe gin? Sloe is the name of a certain plum, and sloe gin has a reputation for packing a latent punch that'll knock your socks off!) Ever heard of bathtub gin? That's one of the booze products that were popular during Prohibition. The days of Prohibition are a fine example of our government carrying out the wishes of a few loud people, while they ignored the silent majority and common sense, and the Constitutional rights of the individual. By all means, get in touch with your State Alcoholic Beverage Control Enforcement Office, or Central Administrative Office. Alabama has a Responsible Vendor Program that publishes a small book of recipes and information, and they may have the recipe for making mash, or corn liquor. Or, try the Enforcement Office, to see whether any of the Enforcement Agents can give you some good information. They can certainly tell you what your state's laws are concerning making your own white lightning! If any of those should fail to provide what you want, call up your local liquor store and see whether any of the store's clerks may be able to help you, or get you pointed in the right direction. First -- what a great answer! I have nothing to correct but I would like to add a little... First the chemistry: When you take starches -- carbohydrates -- and mix them with water and the right amount of heat, bacteria come to feast. The bacteria convert the sugars into heat, some various byproducts, and... ethanol, grain alcohol. The problem with ethanol or grain alcohol, is that it's eventually toxic to the same bacteria that creates it. This means that a basic fermentation process can't get much above 12%-14% ethanol, give or take a point. At that time, the bacteria dies off. Most states are relatively lenient about making fermentations. They like to tax them, have some health concerns but in most cases, and especially for personal consumption, they aren't too concerned. This includes mostly beers, wines and meads (basically fermented honey -- you have to have a taste for it :P} ). So -- up until this point your ferment is alive. This is why the age of wine is calculated from the date it was laid down in the cask until the present day, whereas the age of whiskey stops going up once it hits the bottle. In the bottle, wine is alive; whiskey is dead. Whiskey gets flavor from the casks it's stored in (if it IS stored that way, but once it hits the bottle it never really changes). This brings us to the next step -- fermentation. The idea is that alcohol boils into a vapor at a lower temperature than water, so if you heat the mash (the brew with the alcohol in it), the alcohol will vaporize. All you have to do to bring it back to alcohol is cool it, so a still has a cooker and a cooling network, and alcohol drips out the end. In a factory with scientifically controlled conditions, that first distillation is pretty good -- it can get close to pure ethanol (that's 90% -- higher than that and it evaporates at room temperature). But a home still often gets contamination, including fusel oils, which can be pretty toxic. You can get rid of them by filtration, redistillation, or both, but this is beyond most home distillers. After a while, the distillation process starts to remove everything but water and alcohol. At this point, it doesn't really matter what you started with; corn, wheat, rye, potatoes, prunes --- all contain carbohydrates, all are food for fermentation, and all are basically tasteless at high concentration (or proof). This isn't to say that good white lighting (American) or vodka (RUssian) or Poteen (Ireland and 1930's US) don't have a slightly different taste, but it generally comes from the water that's blended with it. Whiskey's are different. They typically get a lot of their flavor from the container they were aged in. So, in answer to the question, there are a variety of recipes, both approved and secretive, handed down and guarded. There was a huge scandal some years ago when they heir to the Drambuie distilleries in Scotland may have died without passing the recipe on. But the truth is, while distilling is on the edge of illegality, it's also hard chemistry and somewhat dangerous if you misproduce a batch. Unless you're doing this purely for the fun of it, and enjoy the expense of a 'stil and the curious, usually local laws about such things, I'd aim you at the commercial, totally legal stuff.