Trusting someone else's spirit?

[rectifier]

Going to a party tomorrow and bringing rum of course... and a friend is bringing some plum brandy that his grandfather makes and he says is good.

However, I'm obviously wondering what conditions said brandy was made under... a lot of the old-timers' stills had a lot of lead solder and shit in them, didn't they?
Plum brandy is also one of the few 'shines with actual recorded methanol poisonings. Yikes.

What do you guys think about trusting other peoples' spirits?

[The Chemist]

Depends on how much you trust the person. Hard to determine methanol at a party. If you're worried about it, just take a polite sip, no more. You can always say that it's very good, but not your cup of tea.

[ginzo]

Going to a party tomorrow and bringing rum of course... and a friend is bringing some plum brandy that his grandfather makes and he says is good.

Trusting someone else's homebrew is not much different than trusting their home cooking. You are more likely to die from bad hamburger than bad homebrew.

[rectifier]

Well, he couldn't find his plum brandy but instead brought some single-distilled grappa which was very good. Turns out he knows quite a bit about distilling too, and it's kind of a family business that he hopes to go into

According to him, in France it's legal to distill fruit alcohols as long as you grow the fruit yourself. Cool.

There were actually 3 distillers at the party, me, him, and another guy who used to do it in America. Needless to say, we must've spent like half the party explaining how everyone's favorite drinks are made and the other half with rounds of shots