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Also, it's much more labor and processing time intensive. It's not true that alcohol demand can be satifsfied in anywhere near similar space and labor requirements that marijuana demand can be.



Plus there's the risk factor. If you fuck up distillation of alcohol, even slightly, people may die.

You get the temperature control on your distillation wrong by 3 degrees, people will get sick from drinking it. 5 degrees, and it may kill kids who happen to get a hold of it, and starting at about 8 degrees it gets to the point where 2-3 glasses of your homebrew whiskey will kill a full blown adult.


I know that home distillation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Auic%C4%83 is still fairly common in Romania for example, and you don't see many people dieing. It can't be as hard you think.


In Romania, while many rural families leave a barrel of their own plums, apples, apricots, etc. to ferment, they usually take the fermented fruit to a central village distillery to distill it. The men working there have long years of experience and know how to run the equipment. I have always found copper stills to be "as hard as you think"; I couldn't imagine ever trying to set one up in my own home.


My experiences of home brewed stuff from all over Latin America and West Africa disagree with your theory.

Drink it, you'll be fine!


The most common liquor in West Africa is palm wine, which is not distilled and so methanol does not form. However, West African countries fairly regularly see cases of drinkers going blind from homemade distilled beverages, I would be very cautious about the provenance of any strong liquor offered to me.


In my experience with Latin America, much of that homebrew was produced by the local experts and most people don't make their own moonshine.




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