Whiskey Production

Val Bucher provided the topic with her posting the following:

In reference to the news on TV last week, regarding Tennessee farmers legally selling 190 proof moonshine to help off-set the extremely high cost of gas these days-perhaps some of our ancestors would get a chuckle about this. It may reinforce their ideas about the "need" for this product. Had our ancestors been allowed to continue their "research" it's possible,theoretically,we could be paying less at the pump. This statement is not intended to minimize the impact of "white lightning" on our families and the decendents of the Lake Russell area.

Comments

[Jim Winsness]

Val,

What you say is so true! Did you know that Henry Ford’s Model T was originally designed to run on ethanol? It was his idea that farmers could be self-sufficient in that they could grow crops to eat, and also use a part of the crops to make the fuel necessary to operate their equipment. But, the oil industry seems to have changed that direction and we find ourselves in a real mess.

Our son David has several patents that are used in the ethanol process to extract oil and then to use that oil for bio-diesel fuel production. But it is hard to compete with what to the rest of the world is our cheap gasoline (Europe pays $6 per gallon).

When he was to present his process to the management of an ethanol plant in Minnesota, he had to find a way to make them feel like he was not an outsider. He first mentioned that he had grandparents from Minnesota and North Dakota on his father’s side, and on his mothers side, her ancestors were in the same business as were those listening to him. They looked puzzled until he said “but the government called it moonshine back then!”