Home Distiller

Last june I was in my shed had my still going full blast having fun when I turned around there stood two cops watching me.
I about fell out.In a few minutes it looked like they had a mass muderer cornerd there were cops, d.e.a. agents every where.
I Went to jail,and they took every thing in my shed.If you think the law will not arest you think again.Its long story I will have to finish
later got to go for now.
have a great day
..

Yes please tell us more so that we can learn from your misshap. Were you being investigated? How did they find out you were distilling? Were you selling your product?
KS

Continue...

"We wait."

Kentucky shinner wrote: Were you selling your product?
KS

In possesion of fire arms? Running a combo meth lab? Dog bite the neighbor?

gotta finish this post, guess I'm more interested on how they found out and if local law took the horns or if it was the feds (I'm guessing the feds)...How big was the boiler on your still???

I have to say its pretty mean to start a post like this and not finnish the story...

I hope things are alright, and that runingkind is not sitting in some cell right now, serving off his 'dept' to society. I have looked back on his posts, to try and figger out how he was running, and it appears he is like most of us, a 'normal' home distiller, running a keg boiler, doing 10 gallon or so washes, etc.

I wish him the best, and hope he gets by with no time, and that there was NOTHING else they could pin on him stemming from this incident.

However, we all hope that he will share a little more truthful insight into the whole thing, what set things off, what happened, what additional charges were posted, any known outcomes, etc, that happened. Also, if it was pushed by feds, by locals, or if he was double hit by both feds and locals (double jeopardy, but the fuks do it all the time). Also, if he would not mind, what state this all happened in (and if he is in a dry county), since there are states which pursue us much more strongly than others.

This was his first post since early April, so it may be by instructions from his lawyer that he is staying totally away from this site. He has not logged on since the start of this thread. We might not find out any additional information for a long while. It may be that he has been told ZERO contact, and simply went to the library, or to a friends computer to send the start of this post.

NOTE (I am listing this here, so that runingkind will have best chance to see it and HE can change things back IF he choses to). Within runingkind's profile, I have turned off the ability of users to send him email, and have turned off the email notification being sent if he gets PM's. People can still PM him, but there will be nothing sent from the site to him, the PM will simply sit there until HE logs in and reads it.

IF he has been told to have zero contact by his lawyer, which I assume has been done, then we should do our part also, and leave him be, UNLESS he openly reaches out again to us. I would hate it if our actions were used against him. If he goes to court, lists that he is no longer doing any of this, and is sorry, and if the DA fires back, "well hell, you have been getting emails from the illegal distillation web site as recently as ....", etc, etc.

I do wish you the best of luck!! H.

Maybe he's on the move?

seems like he was a talking about numerous people knowing about his "hobby" not good .
keep it to your self. cheep booze, parties especially large ones is not good ,the more that knows is just increasing the
chance of something happening. make what you want then keep it to your self. there is ways around
this but should not be discussed here as this is a "hobby" site. keep it as a hobby. I have no idea how you "weed"
these people out.only thing I know of is to worn them and stop posting back.

hope I'm coming across right.as I'm not the greatest with words

You're coming across OK, dunder. One really would think that governments had more to do than to bust small home distillers. It's not as though they are doing such a great job of running the world.

If the whole caboodle was called out then they have to make it pay with whatever they find. Their months of ongoin investigation = one snitch and a lucky break. Yes we gotta be carefull.

Meanwhile the two Meth labs down the road continue on their merry way...World is pretty effed up sometimes.

It's threads like this that make me tighten my, 'Who Knows What I Make...', knowledge-base even more...
Here in the UK I know of one cop who is a stiller and friend...

It's not the police we have to worry about as the law say's it's a civil matter...
But Customs and Excise, now thats a different matter and one that have the same powers of arrest as the cops...
If someone is caught by, 'The Knock', then they are usually selling big time and maybe to minors...
Hav'nt heard of anyone being caught lately, but its an on-going concern, they could make an example anytime...

When I'm buying glass or other materials, I just say that I make wine/beer/perfume/oils... But never likker...

Good luck runingkind, hope you get to finish your post man....

Sadly, I have seen the memo's regarding quota's for arrests. When those come into play...no one is safe. Sometimes its just a matter of getting to keep your funding.

Sorry I could not finish my story,But here it is.
How I got busted was my brother,my son worked for him.Someone stole a aircompresser out of his basement,he new who got it.
He new I made hootch,Butt instead of calling me ahead of time And telling me he was calling the law he didn't.
The police was asking evrey one that worked for my brother about it the compresser.So i'm running my still and there they were.
They came to talk to my son,he wasn't home.I reckon they seen me and come in my shed,busted me and for got about the compesser.
They took every thing in my shed even things that had nothing to do with distilling.One officer I have known all my life Saved them form tearing my house apart.
He told them if I said there was nothing in the house it wasn't,that I was a man of my word.
They wanted to know if I sold it.
How often I made it.
Whate I done with it if I wasn't selling it'
If my wife or son knew about it.
I had 8 gallon of clear bottled on the shelf.
15 gallon of peach mash.
4 gallon in the still running it back threw.
all gone rekon they had a big fourth.
I have to go back to work now will finish tonite

Thanks for the insight. what did the judge do with ya?
Sorry bout your luck man.. That is just plain ole shit house luck man... damn
hang in there man

runingkind wrote:How I got busted was my brother,my son worked for him.Someone stole a aircompresser out of his basement,he new who got it.
He new I made hootch,Butt instead of calling me ahead of time And telling me he was calling the law he didn't.

Wow. Thats just a case of pure crap timing. Sorry for your misfortune.
If he knew who got the compressor why didnt he just tell the police who he thought had it?

Sorry dude, that's just plain bad luck All the best to you, bd.

Yeah thats some really bad luck, more like super crappy timing! so how did the court thing go? ya know im not too up do date on my laws but dont they need a warrant to go snooping around your property? even if your out back and didnt know they were there? they need probable cause and anything they find is not admissable in court unless its related to what theyre looking for... i could be wrong on that though.. its sickening how these tyrannical thugs go out of theyre way to bust someone just having fun doing something that is harmless. Thats why im very cautious about when and where i run, which to be completely honest i may never make another run simply because theres way too many variables. In my first post i mentioned i dusted off some of my equipment and want to make some more but damn when i hear stories like this it just makes me worry ya know? I mean i have always thought the same thing what happens when im right in the middle of a run out back here and da man shows up for whatever stupid reason totally unrelated to what im doing and sees im running a still.. and another thing theres alot of helos that go over being i live around alot of swampland theres alot of pot being grown out there i know for a fact they run thermal vision looking for it and they, the pot growers get nailed left and right around here.. well that still would put off one heck of a heat signature.. and for that very reason is why im kinda leery about makng another run.. probably never will..its one thing to just distill water which i have from time to time but to actually make likker.. its scary to think what the repurcussions could and will be of getting caught..i dunno i kinda just like reading about it on here and thinking about what im missin out on.. maybe one day ill get the nerve back up to do it. What did you do? did you go the way of me and say the heck with it? or did you go back to this great hobby? Was there a hefty fine to go along with it? Probably didnt have no prison time though right? I am just thrown back by the fact that these clowns about peed theyre pants when they come across a small home still and completely forgot what they were there for in the first place.. like they come across you in the woods with a thousand gallon still or something selling it by the truckload.. my god man.. sounds like they looked at it like the bust of a lifetime yet theres meth factories all over the place churning out hundred and thousands of pounds of really really bad drugs.. unreal man.. i hope things arent too bad for you!! let us know...

I hear ya man, an thats just a shit load of bad luck...

To search, yeah, they would probably need a warrant... But when looking to find someone home, an then seeing you in the shed... Well, there seeing a crime in action and will act upon it, because now they do have probable cause...

I do hope that all you got was a slap on the wrists man, after all, I can think of worst case senarios to punish harshly...
The meth lab owners are killin kids/people, resources would be better placed and the money better spent...

Good luck to ya man, an keep us posted on developments....

Wish I knew what state this was in??

This is one thread I had hoped I would never see (I'm sure I speak for us all here) and I am sure you have the sympathy of all who read your post, I know you have mine!

Was it your son who they suspected for the compressor theft?

Lesson here is that you never know how or what can happen, there wasn't much you could of done in your situation...which is the scariest part, not knowing how to avoid it again.

Do we need to dig secrete tunnels underground and practice our hobby by the literal definition of moonshining?...doing it under moonlight.

Just makes ya think....

Centar wrote:Do we need to dig secret tunnels underground and practice our hobby by the literal definition of moonshining?...doing it under moonlight.

Thats just what they would like us to do, out of sight, out of mind...
We can make wine/beer an drink it, we can grow our own tobacco and smoke it, but we can't make 1oz of shine...
Nor can we stand up and say enough is enough... Ther just is not enough of us in one place on the planet..
Illegal distilling just has a bad press, a press that goes back hundreds of years and until our governments change their opinions and views that are as old as the press it's recieved on the subject, were stuck to runnin our stills in secrecy...

I'd love to enjoy the freedom for home distillation NZers enjoy today, but until the boy's upstairs decide otherwise, we stand the same chance of getting caught as runingkind did, allbeit damn bad luck...

I would think that once the cops know youv'e done it, they'll check to see if your back at it...

I love this hobby an I feel for ya runingkind...

Ok guys now I was took to the station booked,charged with a feloney(MANUFACTURING DISTILLED SPIRITS WITH OUT A LICENSE.
CARRYS 1 TO 5 IN THE PEN.)The cop said they were not calling in the feds or it would be bad,so the locals handled it THANK GOD.
The judge that arraigned me was my best friends 1st cousin and he makes wine.He let me out on a $5000 pr bond.I had a woman proc.
It was a year before it went to trial,Before a different judge That my wife knew.My lawyer said he found a loop hole in the law That if you weren't
selling it or transporting it It could be droped to a misstimeaner and a fine or jail or both.
I pleaded guilty to a fine,With no feloney on my record.The fine is from $5.00 to a $1000.00
The proc about shit when he fined me $5.00 and said that law needed changed.
But when it make the local paper it made me look like a moonshiner and a theif
because of the compresser.I also had to pay a $160.00 quart cost.But the judge did say if It happened agian I would go to jail.
The reason the feds was not called because my still 15g keg was to small for a big operation and I wasn't selling it.
It all hapened in a little town in WILD WONDERFUL WV.
SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG but hope yall enjoyed the story.

wow. No offense, but that turned out better than i expected. Fuck the local paper for showin you as a theif when all your doin is makin yourself a perfectly legal drink. How did they get on to you? do you know?

Can't say that I enjoyed the story. Sorry you went through all that runingkind. It is good info just the same.

Ya know it could happen to any of us. You didn't sell, you didn't tell and you still got nailed. Being in WV your lucky it wasn't worse.

This is why we say don't run big stills, if runingkind had been caught with a rig much bigger the law couldn't have let him go so easy.

Good deal, you got off really easy on that!! turned out alot better than i expected.. it could have been alot worse, alot worse!! Glad to hear it wasnt too bad!!

glad to hear the outcome.. damn I was afraid you had been locked up all this time.. Thanks for sharing this experience with all of us. Im with Mulekicker fuck the local paper they are always looking for headlines anyway.