Moonshine, Culture and Marvin Sutton

[Dan Call]

+1

As hard as it is to imagine now, Maker's Mark was Kentuck'y best kept secret for many years, only being sold in that state for a long time. It is the grandaddy of all small batch bourbons. Never mind that Bill Samuels Sr. never made any whiskey, nor does Jr., and the whole story about the burning of the family recipe may be true, the recipe for the wheated bourbon was an old Weller recipe that Julian Van Winkle Sr. gave him before he started his star hill farm operation. Also of note was that the Samuels family were very wealthy by this time and Bill Sr. ramped up a tiny 19 barrel "at one run" distillery which was very small at the time, is still very large compared to a true boutique. Samuels was considered, at the time, something of a quirky eccentric for even attempting his experiment with Makers, but now it's a large corporate operation that suffers all the pitfalls of corporate ways, and few of the virtues of a small distillery. I will say that they have only doubled their total capacity ONCE and they still use all cedar planks in their fermentation vats and they have maintained that wheated recipe. Maker's used to be of a higher quality than it is now. It suffers mass production taste woes these days, but you can see that it was once a truly fine bourbon.

[FortyNiner]

Enjoying your posts, Dan. Your perspective is enlightening.

As a person with no experience, no mentors, no cultural/regional traditions or family history in distilling, this site and forum have become those things for me. Those of us that aspire to become true craftsmen at the art of distilling have to start somewhere, and plain sugar washes and recipes like UJSSM found on this forum are the training grounds. I agree that true, good whiskey is made in the fashion that you advocate, but the actual legalization and cultural legitimization of micro distilleries is going to be born from tens of thousands of hobby level distillers in their garages who learn by making simple sugar washes and build up their skills, step by step. I think that future innovative spirits won't be coming from giant corporations, but from micro, even garage level distillers who learned making simple stuff and built on it, much like it has with beers and wines. The big boys will then copy it and ram it down the throats of the masses.

Keep posting, please.

[Dan Call]

49er, I agree completely and identify with your perspective. I am not a person that seeks mentoring relationships, too much of a lone wolf, in life, not just distilling.

As far as sugar washed go, it's surely part of the spectrum of doable things and is a safe place to start. My very first mash was all grain and I wish I had started with sugar because it would have been a gentler introduction into distilling because the prep process on all grain is much more strenuous and detracts from the enjoyment simply because of all the variables.

My thinking now is leaning towards a micro doing Irish style peated and unpeated. Irish whiskey is a fast growing market segment and much more in line with classic distillation scenarios than rum or vodka. Seems like most micros are either vodka or rum, with the worst just being grain neutral with flavoring and a fancy label.

Thanks for your comments.

[Marshwalker]

wow.....

[chris_adams]

Well said! I carry your point about Popcorn. Although I really love the trick about the Moonshiner show, it's still less with substance.

[AndyC]

Millet sounds interesting

One resource for recipes like this might be these older distillation books on the internet

http://xnepali.net/kodo-and-and-distill ... pali-wine/

I suppose that Ian Smiley was talking about our local millet, I guess then all you need is the grain and the malt, I saw they had sprouted millet flour on Amazon so that might do the trick for a single grain millet whiskey or I guess a and b amylase would work as well.

Sounds like an interesting idea.

"Millet is a cereal grain that is very commonly used in home whiskey making, and is contended by many distillers to make the best whiskey of all the grains. Millet is a very soft grain compared to the other grains discussed above, and for that reason doesn’t require a full boil.
To mash millet, use millet meal and mash it by the same method described above for cereal grains, except that when the liquefied mash comes to boil, skip the 20 or 30-minute boil. The mash can then be cooled straight away to the conversion strike temperature and converted.
Another method is to bring the mash water to boil, turn the heat off, stir in the millet meal, and cool or force cool the mash to the conversion strike temperature. Then proceed as per the method for cereal grains."

Seems fairly straightforward

Cheap too if it were not for shipping
http://www.mannaharvest.net/millet-orga ... lling.html