Illicit hooch distilling in Britain.

[Globalti]

I believe it's still going on all over the place. I know of an area in the Pennines where there are about half a dozen little sheds on a remote hillside, each with a proper chimney and peat being cut and dried all around. My wife and I wanted to buy some of the peat for our fire and after I'd enquired at a couple of places I got the clear message that the peat was not for sale and I should mind my own business.

Anybody else got any suspicions?

 

[Mrs Pingu]

Is it illegal?

Yes!

 

[Maz]

It was probably local peat for local people.

 

[bonj2]

Hooch isn't DISTILLED you numpty it's manufactured out of fruit, sugar, a load of e-numbers, preservatives and chemicals, and a tiny bit of ethanol, which is bought in. It certainly isn't made illicitly out of peat in the countryside any more than coca cola, vimto or dr pepper are.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Hooch isn't DISTILLED you numpty it's manufactured out of fruit, sugar, a load of e-numbers, preservatives and chemicals, and a tiny bit of ethanol, which is bought in. It certainly isn't made illicitly out of peat in the countryside any more than coca cola, vimto or dr pepper are.

Hooch is nott only a brand name for a children's alcoholic lemonade drink, Bonj. It's slang for any illicitly distilled spirit intended for drinking.
Regarding its continued production, I hope it is being made and the best of luck to those who make it. I'd set up a still myself if I thought I had the faintest chance of making anything half as good as the Laphroaig I'm drinking as I type.

 

[Dayvo]

bonj! Say sorry to Rigid Rider!

 

[Keith Oates]

What's that about blood and stones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Aperitif]

What's that about blood and stones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't imagine that tasting very nice Keith. Do you mix it with anything?

 

[Tim Bennet.]

'Apple Jack' is made all over the west country and (I presume) other cider areas.

You put cider in a bucket in the freezer and keep it just below zero so only the water freezes. This ice floats to the surface and can be skimmed off. The alcohol doesn't freeze at that temperature so the non frozen part gets more and more concentrated.

Apparently dairy farms can use some of their milk handling plant to do this on a large scale. But I wouldn't know.

 

[rich p]

A neighbour used to make some and swore that until a few years ago you were allowed to distill a certain amount by the customs and excise. It tasted like fire water.

 

[TheDoctor]

I once...erm...A friend once erm... This bloke what I've never heard of attempted to distill stuff by freezing it, which was moderately successful. I believe you can distill using a pressure cooker, a length of pipe and some ice, but I couldn't possibly say...

It tasted horrible. Allegedly...

 

[summerdays]

Some of my rellies seem to be able to get hold of poteen occasionally, - no idea where from and no I didn't touch it.... looked as if it would be good at cleaning paint brushes!!!

 

[Rhythm Thief]

My dad and a lot of his mates used to run stills in Kuwait in the 1970s. The resultant ethyl alcohol was cut down to about 60% alcohol and mixed with tonic or orange juice. Thank Christ I was too young to drink the stuff.
He used to make beer out of Horlicks too.

 

[Nortones2]

Collected potato peelings were used by fellow inmates of my father, in PoW camp, to make poteen. For some strange reason the Germans thought get to all the Irish together would allow them to recruit a few. Not a good idea.

 

[domtyler]

It kind of begs the question... WHY?

It's like when my wife went through a phase of making her own bread, ostensibly to save money. It would take her all day to make it, require the oven being left on all day, thousands of bags of flour and yeast everywhere you looked in the kitchen and the end result was often of questionable quality, although just as often it was delicious it is only right to add. Then we had to buy a bread machine so that we could wake up to fresh bread, more flour, more yeast. All this time and effort, all the gas/electricity it required, all the ingredients, all the machinery, to save the price of a loaf of bread at a quid for a large loaf? Sheer lunacy, that bread must have cost us about five quid a loaf all in all.