The PB and J thread got me wanting to ask if anyone here dabbles in making their own wine? I make a good bit of it mainly blueberry and sculpanine but this year all I made was 5 gallons of blueberry which is still working right now....should be bottling it in 2-3 months. I think next year I am gonna make some with my mayhaws. They have always made my favorite jelly so figure the wine is bound to be decent enough too.
I had a uncle who made muscadine wine . . . but it was never very good. I've never been tempted myself.
I have tried several peoples' homemade wines and have never cared for them. They are always too sweet and immature. I love good wine and there are so many good, relatively inexpensive wines out there that I too, have never been tempted to make my own. I have studied up a bit on making moonshine and would like to try it sometime as I have tasted some pretty damned good ones.
If their wine is to sweet then it was not done working yet so there was still a good bit of sugar left in it. They just didnt finish it. Most recipes will call for the wine to work for 2-3 months but that just isnt enough time for the yeast to break down the sugar in most cases. It usually takes more like 6-9 months for it to finish. Moonshine is a whole other animal. I do not make it any more but we used to make a good bit of it....for our own personal consumption of course. Great uncle was the lead on that project every year and when he got out of it we did too. Very involved and can be dangerous but if done right man it can be extremely satisfying. I think about getting back into it on occasion but its always just a fleeting notion that passes when I think of what all it would take to get set back up. Now if I go a little further back in the family tree they used to run moonshine in prohibition on our property and my now best friends great grandpaw was best friends with mine who was running the moonshine.....the trick to that is his was a revenue man and was tasked with primarily running down all the moonshiners in the area. Being best friends since babies of course he knew what the other was up too and didnt mess with him about it. In fact he only would go after the ones who were involved in other criminal activities and left the ones that were trying to feed their families alone.
I'm not a wine drinker but when I was in Saudi quite some time ago there was a company called "ARAMCO" and there was quite a number of Americans that lived in a gated community there. Because of the law alcohol was illegal but just about all the Americans made their own wine or beer. I guess because of the practice they had it was all really good.
I used to have a buddy who's uncle made muscadine. That shit is potent. The big thing for the past few years in u.g. liquor has been the apple pie shine. I've grown pot, and have succeeded but never tried to make liquor.
Whoa, I did the ARAMCO thing too cept, all I got was cold milk and a hot shower. Cold milk was tits but good lord, that hot shower was like a holiday. Nothing but cold showers till then. Homemade wine was my first drunk puke ever. 16 years old with 3 buddies, bottle of hootch wine, warm 6er of bud and a can of Copenhagen. Puked all over the front seat..... with my buddy in it. Never had none of the above since. My toenails curl just thinking about it.
Like I said, these cats had been at it for a while. They took us in for the holidays for a few days. 1 or 2 of us to each family. It was insane the breweries and wine making operations they had going on. It was quality stuff. The family I was with said they were all doing it.
Guess I got a preacher. Never heard of no home brews going on. Guess had I known, I mighta asked for a refund. Got all of my booze sent to me in shampoo bottles. Never had one rejected worked like a charm. Cept one of them was a brute shampoo bottle. There is no getting brute out of a bottle. Brute flavored rum, that will get the fellas talking...
