"... If you know how to distill, it makes drinking a much more interesting experience." A big part of being an adventurous eater is the experience of DIY—of starting with basic ingredients and utilizing heat, time, a deft hand and a little salt to come up with culinary brilliance. (At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.) As it goes with food, so it goes with drink. Home brewers got things rolling a few decades back, working with malt syrup and mail-order kits to undercut the hegemony of the big brewers with craft-brewed beers that went on to spark a microbrew revolution. Garagistes and other small-scale winemakers followed soon thereafter, and in the process helped inject creative talent into...
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Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine from Piedmont Distillers. Today’s Washington Post features two stories about that mysterious American beverage, moonshine. But these aren’t police blotter stories; these are in the dining section, and cover the growing trend among fans of fine food and spirits of taking a stab at ‘shine. Moonshine today runs the gamut. There are still plenty of hidden stills in the woods and cabins of Appalachia (and the garages and cheap rental houses everywhere else) that churn out harsh and sometimes dangerous stuff; but there are also those who are determined to distill a quality liquor, whether out of entrepreneurial spirit or culinary perfectionism. And now, moonshine is crossing the legal threshold: as one of the Post stories points...
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