how did the first settlers in america make likker

[goose eye]

Hobby?
They was business man.
Usein the standard practices of the day.
There is places up the hill you cant build on or live
cause the goverment recomended sprayin crops with chemicals includein lead.
No where did the goverment say anythang bout the apples containin lead an such but they demonized the bootlegers . Truth be tole if you know how to work metal there wont no contact with the solder.

What you think the caption to them pictures would be if one of yall with them dunder pit was jammed up? It would say something about smells an mold
They would say yalls sanitary was dangerous an would lead to death an blindness no doubt.


So im tole

[Stargazer14]

Many are surprised to learn whiskey is more modern american drink and really came about because taxes on rum and its ingredients were just too high!

There is lots of interesting reading on the subject.

"The rum distillers were at the forefront of the rebellion against the British, backed by tavern-keepers. In fact, according to Curtis, the first blood spilled in the Revolution was that of a local rum distiller, Joseph Whicher, who was bayoneted by a British soldier during the initial standoff with the Sons of Liberty. Molasses and other trade goods were soon blocked at the harbors, and rum, also a crucial provision in the war, became increasingly scarce to the point of fading out almost entirely, forcing distiller/farmers to work with bulky grains transported by land, instead of sugar, transported by boat."

[contrahead]

Early American beverage videos.

These videos are related to the 18th century American history of alcohol and each offers something that could be helpful. There are some slight errors and omissions of information here and there but overall a lot of research and effort were put into them. The most useful video in the whole batch might be the one about Apple Brandy.

This first video is a documentary of Kentucky history and Bourbon whiskey. Its about an hour long and at places, is a little long winded with local minutiae. Bourbon & Kentucky: A History Distilled
- - -------------------

Townsend and Son have been making short educational films for 8 or 9 years now. The films are mostly about 17th and 18th century life and cooking but lately it appears that Townsend has turned his attention to alcohol and medicines. He is a historian, not an expert distiller.
19th Century Apple Brandy - the distiller talks about collecting historic yeast
Early American Whiskey - small farm distilling was an important form of food processing

Small beers - generally became possible and common after Caribbean sugar and molasses began being imported in the 16th century.
"Pennsylvania Swankey" - shows flaked yeast from skimming and drying beer barm, talks about using the dredges or sediments from a bottle to make bread, gives a recipe for gruit.
Spruce Beer In Early America
Early American Ginger Beer

[Kareltje]

This book: https://www.academia.edu/38970052/_Huic ... Innovation
is about the history of distilling in America and the preceding history in Asia. It appears the first distillers learned the technique from Asians.

[contrahead]

It appears the first distillers learned the technique from Asians.

Apparently you mean that the first native Americans, learned from Asians; not that Asians - were the first distillers. Surely not the Chinese – although primitive distillation in nearby Mongolia might go back as far as 800 BC. The Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia were evidently practicing a primitive form of distillation by 1200 BC. Alchemists in Egypt and Greece were continuing the practice a millennium later in the 1st century AD.

This paper or book chapter wants to credit Europeans for creating "serpentine" (still) technology, but the first alembic pot still didn't appear until the 8th century A.D. - and then is credited to an Arabic (non-European) alchemist.

It's best to take all archaeology with a grain of salt.

“Recently the hypothesis of a pre-Columbian tradition of distillation has been revived”.
“The presence of distilled beverages in Mesoamer-ica before European contact in 1521 is controver-sial”.

These controversial hypotheses depend upon little more than a perceived similarity of pottery types. It may be true that native Americans picked up some Asian knowledge of distillation before Columbus arrived, but the authoritative scholars are not willing to drink from that fountain, just yet.

[Kareltje]

You are right: I meant the first settlers. Or rather: their their descendants: even in 800 BC the first settlers had already died long ago.

But it does not seem impossible that Asians had reached America far before 1500 AD, just as Europeans had done before.

[contrahead]

But it does not seem impossible that Asians had reached America far before 1500 AD, just as Europeans had done before.

You are not alone in your assumption. For years multiple pseudoscientist, pseudohistorians and pseudoarchaeologist have speculated upon many things: for example that Viking explorers penetrated deep into the N. American continent, that Polynesians settled in South America or that ancient alien astronauts gave us certain technologies. Some think that Africans made pre-Columbian contact in the Americas, based on no more evidence than that some huge stone heads carved by the Olmec culture, display big flat African like noses.

The world of archaeology was titillated by the apparent discovery of “ancient Chinese stone anchors” off the coast of California in 1975. Books like “Kon Tiki” and “Chariots of the Gods” sold millions of copies and made their authors wealthy. The writer named Galvin Menzies likewise sold over a million copies of a controversial book that speculated that the fleets of Chinese Admiral Zheng reached the new world 70 years before Columbus did. That fuzzy haired kook (Giorgio A. Tsoukalos) is raking in the money for his participation in the Ancient Aliens TV series which has been plaguing the “History Channel” for about 7 years now.

You'll often find respected authorities debunking the provenance of certain pseudoarchaeology but that won't stop TV producers from financing irresponsible documentaries when audiences are gullible and profits can be made.

None of this necessarily implies that all these offbeat theories are emphatically false or untrue; it is just wiser and safer to stand behind physical evidence when possible, rather than to speculate to the point where you get yourself laughed out of the auditorium.

[Stonecutter]

But it does not seem impossible that Asians had reached America far before 1500 AD, just as Europeans had done before.

You are not alone in your assumption. For years multiple pseudoscientist, pseudohistorians and pseudoarchaeologist have speculated upon many things: for example that Viking explorers penetrated deep into the N. American continent, that Polynesians settled in South America or that ancient alien astronauts gave us certain technologies. Some think that Africans made pre-Columbian contact in the Americas, based on no more evidence than that some huge stone heads carved by the Olmec culture, display big flat African like noses.

The world of archaeology was titillated by the apparent discovery of “ancient Chinese stone anchors” off the coast of California in 1975. Books like “Kon Tiki” and “Chariots of the Gods” sold millions of copies and made their authors wealthy. The writer named Galvin Menzies likewise sold over a million copies of a controversial book that speculated that the fleets of Chinese Admiral Zheng reached the new world 70 years before Columbus did. That fuzzy haired kook (Giorgio A. Tsoukalos) is raking in the money for his participation in the Ancient Aliens TV series which has been plaguing the “History Channel” for about 7 years now.

You'll often find respected authorities debunking the provenance of certain pseudoarchaeology but that won't stop TV producers from financing irresponsible documentaries when audiences are gullible and profits can be made.

None of this necessarily implies that all these offbeat theories are emphatically false or untrue; it is just wiser and safer to stand behind physical evidence when possible, rather than to speculate to the point where you get yourself laughed out of the auditorium.

The truth is that we know very little of our ancient history. Religion and war have pretty much made sure of that. What kind of information was lost in the burning of Alexandria? What kind of information is held within the walls of the Vatican library? The “respected authorities” have been wrong before.

[NormandieStill]

The “respected authorities” have been wrong before.

Until relatively recently it was an undisputed fact that homo sapiens either descended from the neanderthals, or that the neanderthals were an evolutionary dead end that were wiped out either before the ascent of homo sapiens, or by homo sapiens (who were considered to be a separate species). Overwhelming genetic evidence now shows that neither was a species (in the biological sense) and that the co-existed for many thousands of years, mingling and mating to the extent that some 7% (from memory) of our genetic code is strictly speaking neanderthal.

It's a peculiarly euro-centric view that we must have been the first people to cross the oceans. The same one that led an infamous american politician to declare that there was no culture in the US before the arrival of the european settlers. As I understood it, the evidence pointing towards chinese landings in the "new world" was more substantial than pure anecdote, although still leaving room for interpretation.

[contrahead]

This thread seemed to be the best place to file away this new video. It displays how to make a “small beer” from pine needles. A small beer works on the same principle as a kombucha (a fermented and effervescent tea drink). The necessary ingredient in making either, was sucrose. In antiquity sugar was very rare and expensive. Not until the 17th century did sugar (from Caribbean plantations) become affordable and its use wide-spread. In the 18th century people (including children) drank small beers exuberantly. Small beers were healthy (used boiled water - free of bacteria), had vitamins and were pleasingly effervescent. Today these are emulated by soft drinks that have no trace of alcohol.

One of Townsend's videos (above in this same thread) linked to Spruce beer – mentions that the best Spruce beer was made from new spring, Black Spruce tree cuttings. He states that in lower latitudes people were obliged to use pine needles, which he considers a poor substitute.

[shadylane]

Wow contrahead, we must have similar youtube search habits. I watched that video last night.

[Pure Old Possum Piss]

Ole boys would bet the first likker settlers made was fruit base. Grape brandy . Most thangs was shiped in barrel or kegs so got no doubt they used barrel to start. Fruit a chunk of horse meat a rusty nail an a srizzled up grape with white on it.
Ole boys can remember tells but they was youngins an not payin much attetion.

I figure it a society had the know how an was took over im betin they had someone that still no how an started bootleggin. If there is money to be made someone gonna do it cause someone gonna want it.

Same with proabihtion. You think folks quit makein
or you reckon they keep makein. An yes the goverment was killin folks for doin it. An to this day even amoungist some of youins have a bad opinon
of bootleggin made before now. That is how good the goverment smear campain worked.

Bootleggin been round a long long time


So im tole

My grandpa didn't use horse or mule meat but he always put a can of potted meat in his ferments. He never told me why or what it did.
Nutrients ?

[Pure Old Possum Piss]

BTW, there is a difference between moonshining and bootlegging. The making of untaxed, illegal liquor is called moonshining.
Bootlegging is the illegal act of transporting and selling moonshine. Also referred to as smuggling.
Or so I'm tole.

[Copperhead road]

Ergot Poisoning.jpg

I have been reading this thread, HOLY HELL I had never heard of Ergot poisoning! It looks bad, I wonder how common it is.

That is some seriously scary Sh#t, I will never look at Rye the same way again lol

[shadylane]

just curious,but how did the first settlers make shine.
they had no fancy yeast strains.
they had no sugar to boost alcohol content.
did they use wild yeast strains.
this really interests me and any info would be great
thnx

When the settlers first arrived, they already knew how to malt, brew beer and distill.
"Necessity being the mother of invention" they learned to make do with what was at hand.
Give a thirsty man a copper cook pot and grain, and he is going to figure out how to make booze.

[Kareltje]

just curious,but how did the first settlers make shine.
they had no fancy yeast strains.
they had no sugar to boost alcohol content.
did they use wild yeast strains.
this really interests me and any info would be great
thnx

When the settlers first arrived, they already knew how to malt, brew beer and distill.
"Necessity being the mother of invention" they learned to make do with what was at hand.
Give a thirsty man a copper cook pot and grain, and he is going to figure out how to make booze.

+ 1
Quite simple: when you mean by settlers the European colonialists, they sure had the means to make and distill alcohol. They came on large ships from a developed country, did they not?

[Twisted Brick]

That is some seriously scary Sh#t, I will never look at Rye the same way again lol

It's not limited to rye. The cause of ergot, claviceps purpurea can be found in wheat, barley and oats (cold-weather grasses).

I usually find a half-dozen dark-black grains in a 50lb sack of rye. I'm not certain they're ergot, but they're easy to pick out.