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Make Your Own Moonshine!

It takes some time to master, but there's infinite variation. Here, a step-by-step guide.

Published January 9, 2025

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Mixing the fruit mash for homemade brandy. Photo: Getty Images

Making your own alcohol is a pretty straightforward process, but making good alcohol is a craft that takes some time to master. As simple as it is, there is also infinite variation, from the base material that you use for your mash to the type of still to the fuel you use to heat the boiler to the botanicals you may or may not add to your spirit. This guide provides a basic step-by-step description of the process that you can adapt to your own tastes and preferences. If you’d like more in-depth instructions, I recommend The Joy of Home Distilling by Rick Morris.

The basics: what is distilling?

Distilling is essentially just separating and concentrating one chemical compound—ethanol—from a liquid containing many, many different things. But before you can distill alcohol you have to produce it, and that comes from fermentation.

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