Would Learning How To Make Alcohol Be Helpful?

Some ways a prepper could use alcohol:

- Use it as fuel or make it easier to start a fire.
- Alcohol can be used as a disinfectant.
- It can kill foul odors.
- It can be used for pain relief [not sure about that but some people say if you have toothache, alcohol can help numb the pain.
- And as lots of people drink and will still need it you can barter alcohol for stuff you might need.

So I suppose therefore learning how to make alcohol/moonshine from grains should be something every prepper should do?

 

I wholeheartedly agree. Alcohol is quite useful, especially because you can make it from variety of plants, fruits and vegetables. Of course, distillation sometimes takes a while... especially to get the potency desired. Making moonshine might be a good idea, but doesn't that require just mixing a bunch of already made alcohol? What if there's a shortage of alcohol? How are you going to ferment the liquids? Maybe vinegar would be easier, haha.

Definitely be worth a shot, though, if you had the materials for making alcohol close by.

 

Not necessarily. Moonshine can be made from corn or any other grains. All you need is some water and yeast and of course whatever you'll use to distill the alcohol. Even if you can't get hold of yeast there are ways you can make yeast yourself.

 

It's definitely worth it for the reasons you've mentioned. Drinking it for recreation purposes is actually one of the last reasons to produce alcohol. Learning to make or prepare anything naturally will always help you in the future.

 

Heh that's true, a moonshiner can become a great prepper. You can ask any hillbilly how they manage to survive the poorest areas of USA, I'm not joking. These people have it rough there and become moonshiner for trade.

 

I think that would be a great idea.. Alcohol has many uses, one of the most important being that it is good for disinfecting and cleaning injuries. There are many uses for it. Besides that, if you learn how to make it, you could sell it or trade it with other people who need it as well.

 

I noticed!
Some of your posts display a fair amount of shine

 

Ethyl alcohol (ETOH), drinkable, must be kept separate from methanol (god-awful poisonous) and isopropyl (common "rubbing alcohol").

Making moonshine has kept a many a poor boy afloat during economic hell days.

My family did not distill it. One uncle hauled it, bootlegging, but that wasn't his primary product. Being from S.Appalachia, moonshine's always been around me.

Bought some legal moonshine today, distilled in my neck of the woods. First time I've bought the Bondurant Brothers "Cold Mash Moonshine". Their means, their ingredients, are old-school. Small operation. He uses a common pot still and thumper. Robert is the grandson of one of the three Bondurant brothers (there was a book, "The Wettest County in the World" and a popular movie, "Lawless"). Robert's done his kin proud. This 94 proof whiskey is smoooooooooooooth. He's kicked-off a bunch of the heads and the tails, but I've a suspicion that he's mixed some of the flavorful tails in with the hearts. Also, his temperature regulation is spot-on. I mean this is some smooth whiskey -- even at 94 proof, you can drink it straight if you're used to drinking moonshine. Me, I always add some bottled / very clean water to bring out the flavors, as one does with barrel proof bourbon. I'm mixing this with peach juice. The combo is just fabulous.

Another distiller is Midnight Moon. They say that their lightnin' is inspired by Junior Johnson's family recipe. OK, I'll take their word for it. What I do know is how incredibly smooth their whiskey is. Their 100 proof non-flavored is good. Their Apple Pie moonshine is perfect, absolutely perfect. Their blackberry and blueberry moonshines are dynamite; but a word of warning, these berry shines are 100 proof, which means that you gotta watch out! Sippin' this stuff is easy; but when you stand up, you might have to sit right back down again. Never drink this stuff during the daytime. This is for after your having eaten supper. I mean it. Drink it on an empty stomach and it will hurt you. I never drink during the daytime and nobody else should either. This is post-supper / end of the day libations only -- celebrate the ending of a day of work. A bit of shine helps your body digest fats.

Sugarlands Shine has a product, Mark Rogers' American Peach. Can't say I like any of their other products but this Mark Rogers' is sublime. Too, Mark Rogers is a really good guy and great hunter. His lever .35 Remington is almost notched away for all the deer and boar its killed. Several of my kin swore by the .35 Remington. Lever actions are the order of the day in Southern Appalachia.

Whiskey is a wonderful SHTF commodity. Think about all the uses! Medicine, sterilizing wounds, clearing-up chest congestion to keep a flu from turning into pneumonia -- there's a life-saver for sure.
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Making alcohol?…..learning any skill is useful.

 

I think in times of hardship I might put my efforts into something different from alcohol.

 

The beauty of making distilled wood alcohol is that it’s not particularly labour intensive and while you may not enjoy the results of drinking it (eg liver failure, blindness and brain damage) it is possible to use it along with lye (from wood ash) and vegetable oil to make biodiesel. It’s also useful in the manufacture (mixing) of gunpowder. It can be used to fuel a Trangia meths stove to cook without smoke.
Don’t assume it’s only use is intoxication. There are a multitude of uses for alcohol. It is just another step on the Critical Path of re learning the skills that you need to survive.
Interestingly Japanese researchers have produced wood alcohol that was not toxic using yeast instead of heating a mash of wood pulp.

 

Alcohol basically has an infinite shelf life.

Alcohol can keep a chest cold / flu from turning into pneumonia. Alcohol is used to clean wounds. Everybody gets sick. Everybody gets injured. And if you have to see a doctor or a vet (yourself, not your dog) during a bad SHTF run (there will be many, simultaneously and consecutively, bad and really bad), you can pay the doctor in alcohol.

Alcohol will be one of THE trade commodities. Whether one wants to admit the reality or not, humans need other humans. Post-SHTF, loners will die alone. Doctors have saved my life and kept me from suffering. They've been good friends. They brought my oldest son back from a totally non-survivable car accident (another person was killed). If you can fix your own broken leg with the bone sticking out of the skin (compound fracture) and keep from developing septicemia from the dirt that gets stuck in open fractures, then good for you. Me, I'm gonna keep happy those people who have skills that I myself do not possess.

I WILL be bartering (carrying a primary handgun, a backup gun, and a shotgun, plus armed friends nearby).

Post SHTF, if you don't have the means and mental coldness to kill two-legged monsters, then you and your loved ones are as good as dead. Post SHTF inveterate monsters and "good people" turned monsters will be everywhere. Make friends now because post-SHTF, making friends will be near impossible ... could get YOU killed. Even the proverbial Mountain Men trappers of the western U.S. made friends with the Indian people ... or got killed by them. There's FAR more Mountain Men who didn't make it than did -- their names sure didn't get put into the history books . My folk made friends with the Original People and intermarried with them. They made it. Don't have friends nor family? God have mercy on you.
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Oh, I'm not assuming it would be for intoxication, I just think that, for me, it would be a poor time investment and not something I feel I would need to survive. As you quite rightly mention the risk of blindness etc is higher than one might wish.

 

If you can make wine or cider you can also make vinegar which opens up the wonderful world of pickling food to preserve it.

 

Preppers often forget about vinegar.

I soooooooooooooo miss all the pickled stuff my maternal grandmother canned. In the dirt basement of her house, she had shelves and shelves of canned goods. Born in 1899, that's what you did. That dirt cellar was the same as a root cellar ... and yep, there were taters down there with their eyes sprouting for next season's planting. Her jellies and jams were sublime.

OK, so I may be doing a commercial here, but my favorite brand of pickles (making all varieties) is Mt. Olive. That brand brings back the memories. My favorite chowchow is made by Mrs. Campbell's company -- both the Sweet and the Hot.