I cut hickory just to fire the still....

The family that distills together...stays together!
Pretty sweet set up eh?
I am smiling because this is before I tried it!
White Lightning
Fuel for the fire!!



Hello steady customers! (written 19 November)
Well, the State of Emergency is over here in Georgia and things are returning to “normal”. My birthday came and went without much fanfare as no one was allowed to travel. My boss and I had some wine (ok A LOT of wine) and that was that. The table conversation wasn’t exactly deep but we did manage to talk about some projects and the political situation in Georgia. The wine we were drinking was made (partially) by me a couple months ago. It’s really not that bad and continues to improve with age. I had mentioned in a previous post that I just couldn’t wait to learn to make tchatcha, or Georgian moonshine. Well, I got my wish.
Now, first some explanation. Cha cha (Georgian spelling: tchatcha) can only be distilled from old wine grapes. Anything else you distill is considered vodka, and believe me, Georgians will distill just about anything! It is here where I must get a bit Byzantine with the description or the ATF will be blocking my blog. I learned that you shouldn’t actually tell people how to break American laws (I.e. distilling spirits in your spare time) so I’ll just cover the highlights. It’s all in the wonders of chemistry!! Alcohol that is produced during the fermentation process is soluble in the grape juice/wine. By continuing to add sugars and keeping fermentation going, one increases the amount of alcohol present in the liquid.
Alcohols vaporize and condense at much lower temperatures than water or juice. By heating the fermented mixture, the distiller vaporizes the alcohols first, before other liquids. This is basically the same process used to separate gasoline, butane, diesel and other hydrocarbons from crude oil (albeit on a much larger scale), so if you drive a car, save the puritanical head-shaking for another day! This is SCIENCE damn it! Sorry. The vapors are then passed through a condenser which, kept at the proper temperature, allows the ethanol to condense. This condensate does contain some water but it is about 75-85% alcohol. That’s 150-170 proof. By comparison, most spirits bottled and sold in the USA are around 40-45% alcohol, so this makes tchatcha a two for one proposition!
So why are US spirits kept so “low” in alcohol content? Well, once you get past about 50% alcohol, the taste begins to…well, taste like alcohol! There are no subtle hints of peat or earthiness or anything else that distillers say or do to get you to buy their booze. Commercial brands are aged in barrels that lend color and depth to the liquor. But when they come out of the still, be they Jack Daniels (Yuck!), Maker’s Mark (Yum!), or Glenfiddich, they are crystal clear and mostly pure alcohol. They are then diluted with water and aged, which is why you always see 12 year old scotch etc. Tchatcha is the “express line”, if you will, 10 items or less, no checks please!
Anyway, the other day my neighbor Dato brought out his still and we set to making some good Georgian tchatcha. Now Dato’s about 70 or so and has been making this brew every year. After all his grapes are done fermenting into wine, he adds some sugar to reenergize the yeast, lights a fire under the still and we are off to the races! If you observe the pictures, you’ll see the still, the condenser, and the condensate. This is a SKILL to be sure. You don’t want the fire to get too hot and you must keep the condenser at more or less the same temperature so you only condense the good alcohol (ethanol). If the water jacket is too cool, you will condense methanol, which will make you go blind. In a phrase, DO NOT try this at home!!
I hung around and helped produce about 20 liters of moonshine or so, and of course, had to try some. Many adjectives leap to mind as I recall the taste sensation but the two words that keep recurring in my brain are “PURE GASOLINE”. Yes folks, this stuff was a bit harsh to say the least. Still, it remains highly popular here in Georgia. You will often see people bring their own bottles into cafes, order food and beer and drink a liter or so! I remember a time during training when I was telling my language instructor about my first taste of tchatcha. She made a face and said, “oh what vile stuff”, or something to that effect. I said that in America we call this “moonshine”. She asked me why and I told her that it is illegal in the states to make your own whiskey so people do it in the woods at night. That fact plus the clear color is where the term originates. She took all this in, shook her head and said, “if this is true, then in Georgia we have lots of sunshine!”
Gotta run for now, the treasury department’s on my tail. I believe some Flatt and Scruggs getaway music is in order. Maestro, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” if you please. Speaking of music, I have a Joseph Stalin T-shirt for anyone who can give me the next line to this post’s title. Sam, Sue, Curtis, Joel or any other aging hippies are disqualified from this contest! In the event of multiple correct answers, a winner will be drawn by lot. Good Luck!
John