booze for a desperate high school kid

[Jayhem]

The reason they are inside is because their parents have put the fear of the outside world into because it is "such a bad place". Don't talk to strangers or you will be kidnapped( BTW less then 1% of kidnappings are people the kid didn't know) don't be out after dark or you will be mugged or murdered, zombie apocalypse, don't fall you might break a bone or crack your head on the concrete, ect.

Truth. I may be in the minority on this one but I am excited for a zombie apocalypse...I think if mankind's extinction is inevitable then that's the way it should go down...and there is no sense in wasting my stockpiles of ammo!

 

[Geohound]

We took apple juice and bread yeast and hid it in the woods behind my house for a few weeks with the lid on kinda loose. This only worked in the winter. We tried it in the summer and found it full of ants. In the summer we picked up homeless people and paid them to get us cheap liquor in the store.

And the zombie Apocalypse has already started.

 

[Tommy1858]

this is a great thread .my first was not for drinking. I was using a 20 oz coke bottle with aquarium tubeing poked thru a hole in the lid to make a Co2 generator for a planted fish aquarium.As it turns out the crushed frosted mini wheat cerial and sugar after fermenting produced a smell that had to be tasted! it smelled better than it tasted but hey it was my first homebrew so to speak.

 

[Onihige]

It's not that uncommon for kids, at least in Sweden, to buy turbo yeast and a few kilos of suger. Ferment it to hell and flavor it with something. They sell everything in the state's army surplus stores (which, over the years has evolved into a cheap super market chain) and it's not really illegal to buy it. And even if it was, kids under 15 can't be prosecuted.

But I bought or stole my whisky as a kid, for some reason.

 

[progmac]

this is a great thread .my first was not for drinking. I was using a 20 oz coke bottle with aquarium tubeing poked thru a hole in the lid to make a Co2 generator for a planted fish aquarium.As it turns out the crushed frosted mini wheat cerial and sugar after fermenting produced a smell that had to be tasted! it smelled better than it tasted but hey it was my first homebrew so to speak.

this is awesome. as an aside, what is the point of generating co2 for aqua plants? don't they need o2?

 

[boscobeans]

Grew up in Brooklyn and was like most kids in the early 50's a street urchin. Good home great parents but after breakfast we were out of the house till we got hungry, making sure to be home and washed up for dinner. Alcohol and tobacco was no mystery to us since it was always present at every turn. I remember many a time coming home from a Dodgers game and smelling like one of the 35,000 cigars that were being puffed during the game.

My grandfather and most neighbors made either homebrew or wine in their basements and the guy that delivered seltzer each week dropped off a case of Pabst 32 ouncers along with the seltzer.

My grandparents on my mother's side were immigrants from Siberia and Poland. They ran a boarding house for others just recently from their homelands. They made liquor from potatoes and fruits which was distilled in the old floating bowl method in the bathroom.

I made my first beer, with my other grandfather's help, at 16. We had no need as kids to sneak booze as it was a part of every day life although we weren't allowed to partake in the same fashion as the adults..LOL.. A small glass or sip was the norm. At every larger gathering including funerals there was the ever present keg of beer and each week when it was time for us to come out of the water at the beach we were given a shot of something to help take the blue out of our lips from the cold ocean water.

At 13--15 I spent a few weeks each summer at a dairy farm in upstate New York and when the day was done ( about 8PM ) it was time for relaxing in front of the 2 channels on TV with a quart of beer for each of the men, including me, before bed.

As near adults when social drinking with our friends became more important to us there was always a store or even bar that had no qualms about selling us a bottle or glass of beer.

College was the time for regular weekend bar drinking and keggers as is still the case today and was the time for formal education in our scholastic and recreational ventures.
(hangovers and homework).

We had different freedoms then and I think it was in a world and time that will never again return.

Times change and I am glad to have grown up when I did.

OMO

bosco

 

[Homercidal]

The simple fact is, there were a lot of bad things going on in the past. We are more enlightened and happier today. As we find problems in life we can litigate and legislate those problems away.

I can't believe how people back in my day could survive with all of that freedom we had! It was a crazy time.

 

[Jayhem]

The simple fact is, there were a lot of bad things going on in the past. We are more enlightened and happier today. As we find problems in life we can litigate and legislate those problems away.

I can't believe how people back in my day could survive with all of that freedom we had! It was a crazy time.

Is the first part of that supposed to be sarcastic? Do you really think people are happier today than in previous generations? Sure we aren't being drafted into wars but the stress level and number of hours worked of the average person these days is much higher than it was in the 1950's. Legislating problems away makes me laugh. The government finds problems that don't exist so they can act to provide a solution which results in nothing but restricting our freedoms. . .

Good reading: http://www.stress.org/americas.htm

 

[jhorgan1]

Having recently graduated from college I still know quite a few people are not 21 yet. One of my friends found out that I was into brewing beer and he was telling me how at home he fermented grape juice and hid the 5gal buckets behind his desk. So I guess the high school kids are too dumb to figure out how to ferment stuff, but once you get into college thats when you start getting the good ideas.
And yes, he said he started doing this because it was a pain in the ass to get people to buy him booze.

 

[lowtones84]

Back to the question at hand, never occurred to me to try my own juice wine/pruno/whatever. I just either raided my dad's booze, or got someone to procure it for me.

I think this is more the case than stupid and lazy. I don't really think the majority of high school kids actually know how fermentation works. I know I didn't then, and if you think about some of the questions we get as home brewers do adults, some with a college education even really know how fermentation works?

As far as stupid, I'm sure that IQ keeps rising, but I think most people are referring to old fashioned common sense here. I've actually had 19 and 20 year old undergraduates ask me how people did research before the internet. As someone before mentioned, "Oh, the humanity!"

 

[Greenbasterd]

It's not that uncommon for kids, at least in Sweden, to buy turbo yeast and a few kilos of suger. Ferment it to hell and flavor it with something. They sell everything in the state's army surplus stores (which, over the years has evolved into a cheap super market chain) and it's not really illegal to buy it. And even if it was, kids under 15 can't be prosecuted.

But I bought or stole my whisky as a kid, for some reason.

ahhh man turbo yeast? tasty tasty methanol