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How Moonshine Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant right there. Okay,
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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. Chuck, put your cool
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Speaker 1: guy hat back. Chuck is wearing one of those Newsy caps.
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Speaker 1: It's his newest thing, the flat cap. They're in style
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Speaker 1: and he's he's coming on up. Up next is Floral
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Speaker 1: Link Mink Coke. I could totally thank you. Um yeah,
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Speaker 1: because who wants red pain or blood thrown all over
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Speaker 1: when they walk down straight? Um? Chucker, have an anecdote
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Speaker 1: for you? I don't, I don't want to know. All right,
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Speaker 1: well I need to come up with another segway then
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Speaker 1: go ahead. Okay, So, back before we knew each other, uh,
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Speaker 1: years and years ago, my I had a whole group
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Speaker 1: of friends, good friends. My dad was there, both my
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Speaker 1: brothers in law were there. Um and one of my
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Speaker 1: great all time friends, Tom Shechef, who actually writes for
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Speaker 1: the site. Yeah yes, yeah, oh yeah, good friends. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He came down from Tennessee. He was living in Johnson City,
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Speaker 1: Tennessee at the time. And Tom brought with him to
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Speaker 1: the party a pint of moonshine, just perfectly crystal clear moonshine.
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Speaker 1: And there was no no no, believe me, whoever made
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Speaker 1: this knew exactly what they were doing. Um, there was
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Speaker 1: a peach in the bottom even and um, one of
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Speaker 1: my friends, who was probably the youngest one at the party,
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Speaker 1: kind of a little punk at the time, Um, just jokingly,
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Speaker 1: you know, grabbed the moonshine and walked over to my dad,
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Speaker 1: who was in his sixties at the time, uh, and said, hey, maw,
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Speaker 1: you want to do some shots? And my dad grabbed
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Speaker 1: the pint and it just went from there. Those two
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Speaker 1: drank the whole thing and my dad matched the twenty
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Speaker 1: one year old kids shot for shot of moonshine. And
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Speaker 1: it gets better. And then after they were finished, my
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Speaker 1: dad ate the peach. My dad ate the peach and
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Speaker 1: imagine that thing, uh really had soaked up quite a
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Speaker 1: bit of a booze. It really. My dad has no
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Speaker 1: recollection of this event, um, but it's kind of become
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Speaker 1: around my family. Uh. This uh, this kind of badge
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Speaker 1: of honor. He hit the peach, you know, that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing. So anytime somebody does something like really cool
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Speaker 1: or tough or unexpecting, you know that he ate the peach.
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Speaker 1: So that was my segue into how moonshine were. That's
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Speaker 1: good like that? Yeah, yeah, have you have you ever
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Speaker 1: tasted moonshine? Yeah? Yeah, I'm drinking before. I actually lived
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Speaker 1: in Johnson City for a little while. I knew some people,
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Speaker 1: and I gotta tell you, man, it is Appalachia like around.
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Speaker 1: I actually lived outside kind of up on a mountain
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Speaker 1: um around the corner from people who lived in school
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Speaker 1: buses with chimneys coming. I'm not kidding on Roan Mountain
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Speaker 1: and there are tons of still still around. Like you
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Speaker 1: can get moonshine from anybody up there. And the people
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Speaker 1: they all know what they're doing. They're not doing it
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Speaker 1: for you know, profit or anything like that. These are
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Speaker 1: people who, you know, guys who are like into homebrewing.
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Speaker 1: But imagine if like you're in a homebrewing and your
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Speaker 1: grandfather taught you how to do it, you know that
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Speaker 1: kind of thing, Like they know exactly what they're going to,
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Speaker 1: take a bunch of pride in it, and then you know,
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Speaker 1: you just kind of get it from a friend or something,
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Speaker 1: and it's actually really cheap. It's like tim Bucks for
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Speaker 1: a cord or something like that. I've never paid for.
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Speaker 1: I've had it quite a few times too, at various parties.
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Speaker 1: You know, someone like you said, we'll just show up
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Speaker 1: out of nowhere with a jar and mason jar. And
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Speaker 1: I always kind of befriend that person because I'd love
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Speaker 1: to taste of moonshine. It's really uh tough to to stomach,
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Speaker 1: but there's something about the corn whiskey. Yeah, But I
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Speaker 1: think right now is when the point where that we
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Speaker 1: should say that it's illegal and in any form. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we do not encourage anyone to go out and build
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Speaker 1: our own still, even though we're going to tell you
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Speaker 1: how to. And this is also based on an article
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Speaker 1: you can find out how stuff works dot com in
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Speaker 1: the A P section. That doesn't tell you something, right,
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Speaker 1: I don't know what that says about us, but yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: we have recipes for moonshine on our site. That's what
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Speaker 1: it says, all right, So Chuck, let's let's let's talk
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Speaker 1: about moonshine a little bit. Where should we Where should
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Speaker 1: we start? Well, I think we should travel back in
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Speaker 1: time a bit to great Britain to the UK. Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: English words come from great thinking. Right. The word moonshine
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Speaker 1: actually comes from England. Originally, the term started from a
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Speaker 1: verb moonshining, which was referred to any job that you
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Speaker 1: did late at night, like the midnight shift was moonshining,
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Speaker 1: and it eventually just kind of morphed into uh making
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Speaker 1: illegal booze because they did it at night, you know,
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Speaker 1: under cover of the night. Well not only did they
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Speaker 1: make it, they also ran it, which is a different
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Speaker 1: word bootlegging, right, It was it was smuggled at night, right,
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Speaker 1: and that if you want to know the do from
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Speaker 1: the word there is from they would stick it in
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Speaker 1: their high boots, the bottles and the writing boots, right,
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Speaker 1: yeah they're writing. But yeah, that's how they smuggle it.
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Speaker 1: So bootleggers, I really choked that out there. This is
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Speaker 1: this is this is during colonial time. Yeah, okay, so
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Speaker 1: uh these are distinct words, like a moonshiner and a
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Speaker 1: bootlegger maybe one and the same, but it depends on
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Speaker 1: the activity they're engaged in at any given time. Right,
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Speaker 1: So the moonshiner actually makes the stuff, the bootlegger smuggles it.
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Speaker 1: And there's a third one actually to a rum runner,
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Speaker 1: which is by sea. It's a bootlegger who who smuggles
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Speaker 1: by sea? Yeah, it's all very like it's yes, this wonderful,
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Speaker 1: hazy past of smuggling ships and riding horses with phil
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Speaker 1: you know, with boots filled with whiskey. Yeah, let's try
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Speaker 1: not to romanticize it. Yeah, you're right. Um, I think though,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna set you up here because I know this
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Speaker 1: is your favorite part of this whole podcast. Uh. In
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Speaker 1: the nineteen forties and fifties, Uh, in the United States
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Speaker 1: who started doing this by car, started filling up their
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Speaker 1: trunk full of moonshine and bootlegging high speed chases and
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Speaker 1: go and actually this this these people were tinker with
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Speaker 1: their cars. Um. They You've got these kind of backwoods
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Speaker 1: mechanics who learned to take like a Ford V eight
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Speaker 1: and turned it into this supercharged, turbo boosted, wonderfully suspended
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Speaker 1: car that could outrun any cop in the Georgia Mountains.
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Speaker 1: Think of the Dukes of Hazzard that kind of time,
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Speaker 1: and that these guys actually kind of became gearheads and
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Speaker 1: they started challenging one another to races, and out of
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Speaker 1: that came NASCAR. NASCAR is directly descended from bootlegging. Yep so,
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Speaker 1: and actually the first guy I love this, I love
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Speaker 1: this fact. The first guy to win an official NASCAR race.
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Speaker 1: His name was Glenn Dunaway and he won the first
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Speaker 1: official race on December twelve in Daytona, Florida. UM. He
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Speaker 1: won the race, but was disqualified because the it's a
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Speaker 1: stock car racing, you're not supposed to have a modified
6:50
Speaker 1: UM and he had an illegal wedge uh too for
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Speaker 1: for handling right, So he was disqualified, But he actually
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Speaker 1: won the first race. Of the reason he had the
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Speaker 1: wedge was because he used that car to smuggle a
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Speaker 1: bunch of whiskey the week earlier in North Carolina, the
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Speaker 1: same car. I know that you're fat. You should just
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Speaker 1: end it right now. It doesn't get me better than that.
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Speaker 1: You're gonna go to sleep. Can you take the rest?
7:12
Speaker 1: I'll take it from you. Uh so, Yeah, you talked
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Speaker 1: about UM run running, which is by sea and uh bootlegging,
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Moonshine is made of corn. Generally in the US,
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Speaker 1: it's almost exclusively made of corn, but it can be
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Speaker 1: made of any grain right, correct, But for fruit true,
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Speaker 1: anything that has starches in it, right, But it's generally
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Speaker 1: in the US made you can hear it referred to
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Speaker 1: as corn whiskey. So you need corn meal, sugar, yeast,
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Speaker 1: and water. Every alcoholic beverage I think needs yeast? Is
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Speaker 1: that true? I don't, I don't I know beer? Does
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Speaker 1: you really put me on the spot here? I know
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Speaker 1: someone's going, I've got something for you. Part of the
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Speaker 1: process of making whiskey involves the same process as you
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Speaker 1: used to make beer. Right. Um, it's that's fermentation exactly,
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Speaker 1: and tech thinically apparently among the distilleries, the word that
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Speaker 1: they use for the fermented alcohol before it's distilled is beer.
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Speaker 1: So apparently any alcohol it goes through a fermentation process
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Speaker 1: is technically called beer. So wine would technically be beer, right.
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Speaker 1: Isn't that weird? Okay? But that's just step one in
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Speaker 1: the and the fermentation process basically just adding um, yeast
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Speaker 1: to whatever grain there is, and the yeast goes to
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Speaker 1: town on it. They're very simple plants actually, Um. They
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Speaker 1: ingest this stuff and as a byproduct they put out
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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide and alcohol, and what that stuff is called
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Speaker 1: is mash. So this fermented stuff is called mash. And um,
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Speaker 1: you take the mash. And now we get into the
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Speaker 1: distilling process, right, Well, then you heat it up, yes,
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Speaker 1: to about a hundred and seventy two degrees fahrenheiten and
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Speaker 1: uh would coal? You can use anything basically you want
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Speaker 1: that you can easy steam to heat a up. Sure,
9:00
Speaker 1: Now they use propane and I understand sure because you
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Speaker 1: know you figure uh. And what happens is from there,
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Speaker 1: the alcohol evaporates, pressure builds up, and the alcohol steam
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Speaker 1: is forced through an arm which is a caparm, which
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Speaker 1: is the pipe that leads out of the top of
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Speaker 1: the still. So you have this evaporation going on, and
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Speaker 1: then it goes into a what they call a thump keg, right,
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Speaker 1: And it's so named because it catches sometimes some of
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Speaker 1: this mash comes along with the alcohol vapor and when
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Speaker 1: it comes into this hollow cag and hits the bottom
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Speaker 1: and makes a thumping sound exactly. So this thump keg
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Speaker 1: is is intended to further separate the mash from the
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Speaker 1: alcohol vapor. Right. Can you imagine, like inhaling alcohol vapor?
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Speaker 1: What would that do to you? I don't know, It's
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Speaker 1: probably not very good. Okay, So so we're in the
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Speaker 1: thump cake. Now, can you hear us, right, we are
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Speaker 1: sour mash mash nice nice, So okay, chuck, what's going
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Speaker 1: on in here? Well? And the thump keg, like you said,
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Speaker 1: the bits of mash drop into inside of here where
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Speaker 1: we are, and then it re evaporates the alcohol and
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Speaker 1: filters out the mash because you don't want the mash.
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Speaker 1: Which you want is a clear liquid, all right, So
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Speaker 1: up we go out of the thumb cake and where
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Speaker 1: are we? Up? And out of the thumb keg and
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Speaker 1: now we travel into the worm um as steam. Yes, no,
10:18
Speaker 1: this is the the most fun part of the ride
10:20
Speaker 1: because the worm is actually basically just a pipe that
10:23
Speaker 1: coils around, right, So if we were actually able to
10:26
Speaker 1: go through, it would probably be kind of like a
10:28
Speaker 1: fun water slide. Yeah. And this worm actually, this this
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Speaker 1: coil pipe actually just going through cold water which cools
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Speaker 1: the alcohol from its gaseous state back into its liquid state.
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Speaker 1: And guess where that arm comes out. Well, it comes
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Speaker 1: out eventually into a little jar yep or whatever you
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Speaker 1: want to put it, a pigot, and then bottle is
10:50
Speaker 1: right from there, right, And that said mason jar because
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Speaker 1: many times it's it's I don't know if it's tradition
10:55
Speaker 1: or not. But they put it in mason. I've never
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Speaker 1: seen in anything but a mason. Yeah, maybe a ball jar.
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Speaker 1: That's about it, right. And what happens is now you've
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Speaker 1: got a clear liquid. And that brings us to the
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Speaker 1: the difference between moonshine and regular whiskey that you would
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Speaker 1: get that's brown or you know, light colored, is the
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Speaker 1: aging process. Moonshine is not aged, and that's why it
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Speaker 1: remains clear. You're Jack Daniels that you love, Uh, that
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Speaker 1: is the same thing for a little while, but then
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Speaker 1: it's aged for years in oak barrels, charred oak barrels. Yeah,
11:27
Speaker 1: and I looked into the charring part. The reason they
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Speaker 1: char the inside of the oak barrels. They're actually caramelizing
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Speaker 1: the starches, which makes it sweeter. So the the the
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Speaker 1: the bourbon. This is the part of the bourbon making process.
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Speaker 1: The bourbon actually absorbs the sugars more, which make gives
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Speaker 1: it a sweeter taste and mellows it even further because
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Speaker 1: it also gives it its brown color. Because moonshine is
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Speaker 1: known for the they called the kick, and both of
11:55
Speaker 1: us can attest it is a very harsh tasting whiskey. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it really is. It definitely has a kick, and it
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Speaker 1: tastes like nothing else that you've had. No, it's it
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Speaker 1: tastes like God pulling your throat out. You kind of
12:09
Speaker 1: see a white light and there's just like a sudden,
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Speaker 1: blinding flash of pain and that's the kick. That's that's
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Speaker 1: a great it's a great way to describe it. I
12:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought of that. It's good. Um. It's also
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Speaker 1: very potent. Um. I think moonshine usually is uh in
12:25
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of a hundred fifty proof, which is a lot. Yeah,
12:29
Speaker 1: that's a lot, because what is it eighty proof for
12:31
Speaker 1: ninety proof? Is on fifty proof would be alcohol? Right,
12:35
Speaker 1: but your average like bottle of bourbon is is ninety
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Speaker 1: proof correct? Yeah? Eight nine? Yeah, yeah, because I mean
12:40
Speaker 1: wild turkeys they have a special one d Yeah true, yeah,
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Speaker 1: probably eight Josh. If I didn't know any better, I'd
12:47
Speaker 1: say that you imbibe with an alcoholic beverage from time. Okay,
12:51
Speaker 1: that's a good um. So, uh, they make the moonshine.
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Speaker 1: And one of the problems with moonshine, I guess we
12:57
Speaker 1: need to talk about the downside is that it can
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Speaker 1: be dangerous if someone doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah,
13:03
Speaker 1: here's the big problem. This is why all of you
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Speaker 1: shouldn't run out and make your own still, as Chuck
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Speaker 1: said earlier, because because it's illegal. That's that's number one,
13:11
Speaker 1: it is illegal. One of the reasons it's illegal is
13:14
Speaker 1: because it's so thoroughly unsafe. So I mean like when
13:17
Speaker 1: you make beer wine at home, which you can legally
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Speaker 1: because you're making it in small batches. But number two,
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Speaker 1: it's not nearly as dangerous. Whenever you make any kind
13:24
Speaker 1: of alcohol, you have a risk of um of their
13:27
Speaker 1: being impurities in your batch, right, um, and these impurities
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Speaker 1: can be dangerous and beer wine, but it's much less
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Speaker 1: likely when compared to spirits like whiskey. Um. And these
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Speaker 1: these impurities are called congeners, right, And what those are,
13:42
Speaker 1: it's it's just to catch all name for any impurity
13:45
Speaker 1: that's a complex compound, like a polyphenol um or histamine,
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Speaker 1: you know, those things that give you allergic reactions. These
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Speaker 1: can easily end up in your batch. And this is
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Speaker 1: why people often die from drinking moonshine. It's not just
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Speaker 1: from alcohol poison or anything like that. It's it's these
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Speaker 1: impurities get in there and re havoc on your body.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, I would say not as much anymore. I mean,
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Speaker 1: not that it's a huge business or anything. But during Prohibition,
14:12
Speaker 1: I know there were a lot of people that were
14:13
Speaker 1: dying because they were it was in such demand because
14:16
Speaker 1: it was alcohol was illegal that they were mixing it
14:19
Speaker 1: too fast, and the operations sped up and and they
14:22
Speaker 1: actually sometimes purposely put impurities in there give it that
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Speaker 1: kick like bleach was. It was often found in in
14:29
Speaker 1: moonshine during Prohibition, right. It's always it's funny we mentioned
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Speaker 1: it's called Mash. It always reminds me of the TV
14:35
Speaker 1: show Mash, one of my favorite shows growing up, because
14:38
Speaker 1: you know, they had they're still in the what was
14:41
Speaker 1: the name of their the swamp in their tent and
14:44
Speaker 1: then distillery didn't they well they called it gin. But
14:47
Speaker 1: it's looking back now, this is before I ever had
14:49
Speaker 1: moonshine when I watched Mash, but it was probably just
14:52
Speaker 1: corn whiskey. I doubt if they were able to make
14:54
Speaker 1: like nice gin. I always took it as gin. No,
14:57
Speaker 1: I bet it. I bet it was moonshine. I don't know, man,
14:59
Speaker 1: they were sipping like it was gin all right, Alan
15:01
Speaker 1: Alda needs to get in touch with us or the
15:04
Speaker 1: guy who played b J or Trapper or any of them.
15:07
Speaker 1: Really just no radar, no radar. I was about to
15:10
Speaker 1: say this, so Chuck. You know, moonshine um has actually
15:15
Speaker 1: a really long history with the U S. And it's
15:18
Speaker 1: so much so, it's so ingrained that it has it's
15:22
Speaker 1: had this kind of symbiotic effect on our cultural legacy. Um.
15:27
Speaker 1: When you start looking into moonshine, like NASCAR being you know,
15:30
Speaker 1: coming out of moonshine, or the term bootlegger that's used
15:34
Speaker 1: world brown came from the United States and are are
15:37
Speaker 1: smuggling right, Um. But when you really start to look
15:40
Speaker 1: into the history of moonshine and how it helps shape America,
15:44
Speaker 1: we used to be a nation of crazy, gun slinging
15:50
Speaker 1: nut jobs. I mean we used to be wild, especially
15:54
Speaker 1: like in the nineteenth century. Um, bootleggers used to the
15:58
Speaker 1: whole the whole reason boot egging was ever around in
16:01
Speaker 1: the US was because basically right after we formed our nation,
16:07
Speaker 1: our second government that the one we have now the
16:09
Speaker 1: constitutional government. Um, they started imposing taxes on on liquor,
16:16
Speaker 1: and everybody had just said, well wait, a minute. We
16:18
Speaker 1: just got out from under the thumb of a king
16:22
Speaker 1: who used to taxes. We're not paying any taxes and
16:25
Speaker 1: they didn't. They know they didn't. And actually, um, they
16:27
Speaker 1: would attack revenuers, tax collectors. They would tar and feather them,
16:32
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of funny now because we're sort of
16:33
Speaker 1: moved from it. That was actually apparently an extremely excruciating process.
16:38
Speaker 1: You like hot tar port on you and then you know,
16:41
Speaker 1: the feathers were probably nothing but a relief, but you're
16:43
Speaker 1: walking around and imagine trying to get cool tar off
16:47
Speaker 1: of your skin. Yeah, so I imagine being tart and
16:50
Speaker 1: feather wasn't that much fun. But even beyond that, they
16:54
Speaker 1: actually formed an armed uprising called the Whiskey Rebellion. Yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: and that was the Washington's first big wow as president.
17:04
Speaker 1: Holy crap, I'm president. And they just took over Pittsburgh
17:08
Speaker 1: and it was like people from a lot of states.
17:10
Speaker 1: There were thousands of them. They were armed, and they
17:11
Speaker 1: were mad. They did not want to pay money or
17:14
Speaker 1: taxes on the liquor they were producing. Um. And it
17:18
Speaker 1: was actually the first use of a presidential pardon to
17:22
Speaker 1: overturn conviction was from the Whiskey rebellion did not know
17:24
Speaker 1: that it is, So what g W did, uh, which
17:28
Speaker 1: is George Washington. Of course he got together um a
17:32
Speaker 1: militia of about thirteen thousand dudes, and he basically quelled
17:37
Speaker 1: and dispersed the mob, captured as leaders and it was,
17:41
Speaker 1: like you said, forever known as a Whiskey rebellion. But
17:43
Speaker 1: there was nothing, nothing was actually resolved. Well, that's that's
17:47
Speaker 1: the the government and bootleggers. They go side by side,
17:51
Speaker 1: and every once in a while, usually when war funding
17:54
Speaker 1: is needed, the government attacks bootlegging to try to increase
17:58
Speaker 1: its its tax revenues. Um. So the basically the federal
18:02
Speaker 1: government went its way, the bootleggers went their way, and
18:05
Speaker 1: they maintained the status quo. Basically we kept having bootlegging.
18:09
Speaker 1: No one really had a problem with it until the
18:12
Speaker 1: clan got involved. And any American knows that in the
18:15
Speaker 1: United States you can do whatever you want as long
18:18
Speaker 1: as you're not hurting anybody and you're not affiliated with
18:21
Speaker 1: the clan. Everybody hates the clan here. Think it's something
18:25
Speaker 1: that yeah, the ku Klux Klan. I think that's something
18:27
Speaker 1: that people, you know, maybe some of our Norwegian or
18:30
Speaker 1: or Dutch listeners might not understand Americans hate the clan.
18:34
Speaker 1: We do. And this actually UM kind of led to uh,
18:39
Speaker 1: this outlaw view of bootleggers that we have now. So
18:42
Speaker 1: they were getting into shootouts and killing I R s
18:45
Speaker 1: auditors and collectors and um, intimidating families and you know,
18:50
Speaker 1: locals even who knew like where it still was. Well,
18:53
Speaker 1: bootleggers joined forces and made the mistake, the big mistake
18:57
Speaker 1: of joining up with the clan, right, that's what I mean.
18:59
Speaker 1: So that turned the tied to public opinion all of
19:01
Speaker 1: a sudden. Bootleggers aren't just you know, so harmless anymore.
19:04
Speaker 1: They're in with the clan. So um that actually gave
19:08
Speaker 1: the temperance movement even more of a foothold. The Temperance
19:13
Speaker 1: movement is my worst nightmare. It is UM. Basically no,
19:17
Speaker 1: there's no alcohol produced or imported into the United States.
19:22
Speaker 1: Imagine the entire country dry. This is the point of
19:25
Speaker 1: the Temperance movement. And they weren't just you know, crackpots.
19:28
Speaker 1: They were actually they had identified alcohol as an agent
19:32
Speaker 1: of moral decay, social decay. It was a problem. So
19:36
Speaker 1: rather than and this is before rehab to rather than
19:40
Speaker 1: UM having alcoholics go dry out or take care of
19:45
Speaker 1: their their problem, their addiction. They said, we have a
19:48
Speaker 1: social responsibility to not tempt our alcoholics. We have to
19:53
Speaker 1: put them above the rest of us because the rest
19:55
Speaker 1: of us are an alcoholics, so we don't need a drink.
19:58
Speaker 1: So let's just get rid of alcohol together, or alcoholics
20:01
Speaker 1: can be good people. Yeah, Well, it actually happened. They
20:05
Speaker 1: finally got prohibition pushed through in the day the earth
20:09
Speaker 1: stood still. Uh, and it lasted, um from nineteen twenty
20:13
Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty four, and it actually turned out to
20:16
Speaker 1: be the greatest thing that ever happened to bootlegging because
20:19
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people there's one thing that they
20:22
Speaker 1: learned from prohibition is you can try and take away
20:25
Speaker 1: the alcohol, but the people want it and they're gonna
20:28
Speaker 1: get it. And I would liken it to the War
20:30
Speaker 1: on drugs. Yeah, it's just it's the exact same thing.
20:33
Speaker 1: Anytime you prohibit anything, Number one, it makes it, um,
20:38
Speaker 1: It gives it kind of a forbidden feel, which makes
20:41
Speaker 1: it all the more desirable. Um. But I mean, think
20:44
Speaker 1: about how many people wouldn't or don't drink now be
20:47
Speaker 1: just because it's there. How many more would if you
20:50
Speaker 1: simply couldn't. And yeah, if prohibition proved anything, it's that
20:54
Speaker 1: if when there's a will, organized crime finds a way.
20:57
Speaker 1: So we've got speakeasies, we've got gang land murders, we've
21:01
Speaker 1: got moonshine that's being put out, it's being overproduced and
21:06
Speaker 1: watered down and with bleach added, and then all of
21:09
Speaker 1: a sudden, prohibition goes away, and almost almost at the
21:14
Speaker 1: same time, so does moonshining, almost entirely well drastically reduced.
21:19
Speaker 1: And but it came made a big well I know
21:20
Speaker 1: about a big comeback, but it made a comeback as
21:22
Speaker 1: we talked about later on with the whole NASCAR thing.
21:26
Speaker 1: And then in um the nineteen seventies, uh, sixties and seventies,
21:31
Speaker 1: they thought it was sort of a problem again, but
21:34
Speaker 1: they didn't really do a lot about it. Like there's
21:36
Speaker 1: very few court cases about it unless it has to
21:39
Speaker 1: do with I think they'll tie like money laundering using
21:43
Speaker 1: money laundering laws which are way way worse than than
21:47
Speaker 1: you know, moonshining being convicted of moonshining, UM and with that,
21:52
Speaker 1: moonshining is becoming a dying art, right, but they still
21:56
Speaker 1: do it. And then in the nineteen seventies, they made
21:58
Speaker 1: it legal to make your own and and beer with
22:00
Speaker 1: homebrew enthusiasts. I mean you can, but it's illegal. Yeah,
22:07
Speaker 1: let's say it one more time, Chuck, it's illegal. I'm
22:09
Speaker 1: kind of surprised, actually if they allow homebrewing. It's it's
22:12
Speaker 1: sort of a maybe because it's more dangerous as the
22:15
Speaker 1: reason that's that's the impression I have is it's strictly
22:18
Speaker 1: because it's more dangerous, because I don't think they levy
22:21
Speaker 1: taxes any any higher on beer wine than they do
22:23
Speaker 1: on liquor. Do they don't know? I'm sure we'll have
22:26
Speaker 1: someone right in and tell I'm quite sure too. Well.
22:29
Speaker 1: You can find out even more about how moonshine works
22:32
Speaker 1: by typing that in to our handy search bar how
22:35
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. It'll bring up a fine, fine
22:39
Speaker 1: article written by our colleague, Ed Grebanowski. Yes, indeed, and Chuck,
22:44
Speaker 1: I believe you had some listener mail listener mail time, Okay, Josh,
22:51
Speaker 1: I do have an email, and I will file this
22:53
Speaker 1: under exceptional fan mail because it is one of my favorites.
22:55
Speaker 1: Is from our old friend Molly in Manchester, Connecticut. Hey Molly,
22:59
Speaker 1: Hey Molly, and Molly may not be hearing this right
23:01
Speaker 1: away though, and this is the reason why Molly writes
23:04
Speaker 1: in says she loves the podcast, and uh she is
23:08
Speaker 1: actually going to West Africa to serve in the Peace
23:10
Speaker 1: Corps for two years, which is a great thing to do.
23:13
Speaker 1: We're very proud of Molly for that. And she's told
23:16
Speaker 1: that there is a much hope of having a continual
23:18
Speaker 1: lists continuous wireless internet and her mud hut. So uh,
23:23
Speaker 1: she says, she gets a thrill from listening to our cast,
23:26
Speaker 1: and so she's actually gonna save them up and for
23:29
Speaker 1: a period of many months, and so when she gets
23:31
Speaker 1: to Africa in the Peace Corps she can listen to
23:34
Speaker 1: them one after the other on her little iPod and
23:38
Speaker 1: uh we she says, she. I know it seems a
23:40
Speaker 1: little extreme. I don't think so, Molly. I think it's
23:43
Speaker 1: a great idea. And I think that the hours and
23:46
Speaker 1: hours of new stuff I should know to listen to
23:48
Speaker 1: when I'm feeling in the need of intelligent, humorous banter
23:51
Speaker 1: might be worth the sacrifice. So I've actually corresponded with
23:54
Speaker 1: Molly a couple of times by email, and yeah, wished
23:57
Speaker 1: her luck and told her to into some updates from
24:01
Speaker 1: the Peace Corp and let us know how things are going. Yeah,
24:03
Speaker 1: good luck, Molly. So that's exceptional fan mail today. Well,
24:08
Speaker 1: if you want to send us some fan mail, no
24:10
Speaker 1: matter whether you're in the Peace Corps or just you know,
24:13
Speaker 1: some working shlub, we don't care, we make no judgments.
24:16
Speaker 1: We love all of you. We're working schlubs exactly. You
24:19
Speaker 1: can send that to Stuff podcast at how stuff works
24:23
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