why you started making your own

[UnseatedPanic]

I am new here so i thought i would open a topic about why i do this great hobbie.
my dad who is now in his early 60's started making wine in the laudry room, at this point in my life dad wasn't cool to hang out with so i just went about my life, as i got older and started to come back around, dad would ask me to move the carboy bc it was getting heavy for him.. then he had a heart problem i thought i was going to lose him and thought to myself i haven't spent anytime with him... after heart problem was fix as a get well gift i bought him a beer kit and asked him if he would teach me how to make it .... really just wanted to be with him doing something he liked.... come to find out we make a great team and have been home brewing for years now. sundays after church we get together and plan our next run or beer or whatever... so long story short. I started bc i wanted to be more involved with my father and i see nothing wrong with making beer or distilling in my eyes.

[Washashore]

Cool story.

[HolyBear]

Yep, thasa good one...wish my dad was still around to share my hobby with... guess I got into it cause I was tired of spending good money on what I now think was stuff that wasn't fit to drink... I also think it'd be a good trade item if and when the shit hits tha fan...if nothing else, ill be able to pass on recipes and equipment to my son someday...wish I had my grandpa's ol still.....

[paramedic68whiskey]

Yeah good story! I actually started while in Iraq. It being dry there, some of my buds were quite parched. It went over pretty we until we got caught and then it was back to being dry other than just fermenting grape juice and downing that..
So I am now nursing an injury and have been pretty bored. I am an avid bourbon drinker and decided it would be a good hobby to try and make some decent hooch. The more and more I read through this site, the more addicted I am becoming. Such a wealth ok knowledge, and I am hoping that the next time I go back....I can give the guys something they will write home about.

[Titus-a-fishus]

Ya bastard.... ya brought a tear to my eye.
Wish my old man was still around so we could share a few.
My boy is too far away to do anything like that.

Got into this as a cheap hobby.
Trying not to spend heaps on expensive hobbies.... like doing up cars.
So plenty to learn, keep the grey matter working and not really expensive.
As a bonus you can drink the results....
What could be better

TAF

[Saltbush Bill]

Well mines another Father Son story.........son at age 23 got into making home brewed beer...........about 2 months later he comes home n says" Hey Dad they have these cool stills for sale at the home brew shop...wanna go 50-50 in buying one with me. I say " No Son...the last thing I need is another hobby and an excuse to drink more. Months go by...he persists.... I relent. He brings home a shop bought still (T 500). We do a few runs together using the usuall newbie stuff.(turbo yeast)......the product leaves a lot to be desired. I start hunting on the net and find this site along with others , we progress to much better quality product with the aid of cuts and Birdwatchers TPW. The bug sets in and I build a pot still to strip TPW before its run through the T500 and another step is taken forward.....at that stage we where still using store bought essences to flavour. Building the pot got me interested in building...more research....This lead to me building a 4 inch plated column for making UJ and Rum, at about this time my son got bored with both beer and spirit making and found a new hobby, Fishing. I or we ..depending on how you look at it now own 2 pot stills, a half share in a 3 inch Bok a 4 inch perforated plate column. and the original shop bought still. I now have good stocks of Rum, UJ, Ouzo, Coffee Liquour, Apple Pie and assorted other drinks all made with natural ingredients.....its ages since Ive bought commercialy made booze of any kind...........I guess I owe my son a big thank you for getting me into this hobby.

[Odin]

I visited my family in law in Hungary. The homemade palinka (fruit brandy) is so harsh and bad. And then I drank one that was sweetened with honey. Made it into a sort of palinka liquere. I am not a sweet mouth, but that was tasty! The moment I got back to my own place in Hungary, I bought some honey, added it to the homemade palinka ... and the magic happened again!

By the time I got back to Holland I decided to do the same thing with jenever/gin. I wasn't a big fan yet of this drink. So I bought a bottle, added honey ... undrinkable! Geneva and honey don't mix well. I was disapointed but not yet ready to give up. I went online, typed "jenever" and 'honey" got some hits saying: "making your own geneva". I clicked and the rest is history.

I make fine geneva's now. Never had the urge to add honey ever again!

And when I told my dad, he said: "ah, so you are continuing the family tradition!" And then I remembered my parents actually made their own wine a long time ago. And made liqueres with fruits and sugar and jenever themselves. In a second it all came back. The bottles, the smell of fermentation ... How could I have forgoten? Okay I was very young still, when they did that.

My father unfortunately is not a fan of strong drinks. Beer, maybe wine. My mother was. And she would have love to see me get into this hobby. Unfortunately she died just a few months before this bug bit me.

Odin.

[Saltbush Bill]

And made liqueres with fruits and sugar

Do you still have recipes for any of these Odin, Im very interested in Liquere making.

[Odin]

I will look into that. They are around. For sure!

Here we go with two traditional ones:

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=29086

Odin.

[UnseatedPanic]

Thank you everyone so far for the storys i have enjoyed reading them keepn them coming

[Maestro]

To be honest, I decided to try for a number of reasons. First, I have always thought that it would be an awesome skill to have. Second, when I discussed it with a couple of very close friends, they told me I was nuts. Lastly, but not least, I want to make a very high quality product for the sake of pride.

I am fortunate, my father helped m build my first head. When we were done he was pretty impressed. Nothing could make me more proud.

[Uncle Jesse]

In high school my friend did a report on "gasahol" and he made a little still to make some ethanol. I remember being very fascinated by it and thinking I'd like to do that someday.

Later in life when I could afford a still I started reading up on distillation. I took a few years to get good at making beer, which I don't drink, just so I'd be good at mashing. My friends were very grateful for all the free beer I gave them.

Then I really started researching distillation. There was hardly any good info out there and people were very tight lipped about it all. I spent hundreds of dollars and many hours getting books on the topic, going to libraries etc. and reading everything I could find. I called a few distilleries and they wanted nothing to do with me.

After a few years of reading and experimenting I got pretty good at distilling. Then I found Tony Ackland's site on distillation, which was hosted on mindspring.com. It was full of pop-up ads and very annoying. I offered to host it for him and he said OK so I set up homedistiller.org, moved the site over to my server and set up these forums to go along with his original site.

Most folks I found online seemed to be doing neutral spirits and flavoring them to imitate their favorite drinks. I figured there's no real fun in that so I wrote up the procedure for UJSSM which became much more popular than I had ever anticipated.

It's been a very fun ride.