Moonshine Madness, Salmon, Idaho style
Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I once built a still under my grandparent’s deck. I got a few dribbles of liquid, not much, but enough to have probably caused my frustrations with math.
Give a guy some moonshine and a lighter and look what happens around the campfire.
Recently I had a reintroduction with moonshine, this time in Salmon, Idaho, when I was trying to fish for steelhead. The person providing said, “Take a small sip on this stuff, it’s powerful,” and boyee let me tell you. I swallowed and immediately felt tingling in my calves. I took another sip and the world’s problems disappeared. A fishing partner of mine took his designated sip and quickly disappeared outside. He came back five minutes later and said, “That was close.” He looked a little paler than usual. This stuff is not for the weary.
I figured it to be as powerful as Everclear, which I tried when I spent summers in Alaska. If alcohol can be stronger than Everclear this stuff was. Unfortunately, the provider is as generous as anyone you’ll ever meet and he loaded up a flask and said, “Here you go. Take it back to camp and don’t fall in the fire.”
Well, we didn’t exactly fall in the fire…we just created new fire, via a friend taking a spitfull of the moonshine and blowing it into a lighter flame. Don’t try this at home. In the photo above you’ll notice that our hero’s hand is on fire and he’s lucky that he still has an arm. We roughed him up a bit getting the flame out and he said he’s never had more dirt and dust in his nose, eyes and ears, but overall he was thankful for his life. I don’t condone making this stuff, and I believe it’s illegal to do so, but if you ever get the chance to try some feed-corn hooch, and it’s made correctly and relatively safely as this stuff was, go for it.
A couple more shots from the moonshine/Salmon River steelhead experience.
More campfire shenanigans.
