Now and then one comes across the term “bad moonshine”. It is wood alcohol versus grain alcohol or methanol vs. ethanol. You can get blind from it or die.
When moonshiners provided bad moonshine to their customers, was it an “honest accident” or did they deliberately cheat the proccess of brewing and distillation.
Or how do you get bad moonshine.
Usually, in my experience, “bad moonshine” refers to grain alcohol which was distilled using equipment that was never meant to be used for that purpose and which has a high lead content. The distilling process leaches out the lead resulting in alcohol with a high lead content.
High enough concentrations of lead are poisonous.
Car radiators as condensers are often blamed as the source of lead…
“In the interest of high production, many of these small moonshine operations would add all sorts of noxious chemicals to improve the taste, appearance and proof of the spirit and thereby compensate for the hasty methods used in production. Common lye, a corrosive alkali, was often used to disguise the proof of the spirits, and Clorox®, paint thinner, rubbing alcohol, Sterno®, and formaldehyde were used to mask the unpalatable fusel oils that were often present. Sometimes fertilizer and manure were added to the mash to speed fermentation.” – a website on distillation to which I will not link as it contains information on how to build devices currently illegal in the jurisdiction of the Chicago Reader. GIYF
Appropo of nothing:
“Brown-eyed women, and red grenadine,
The bottle was dusty, but the liquor was clean…”
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled whatever 