Ontario has a bunch of make-your-own wine companies that work like wine bricks.
1. you buy 5 gallons of grape juice for ~$20 per gallon.
2. yeast is dropped into your grape juice
3. you come to the store to decant your grape juice into wine bottles and cork them up.
Since no alcohol is bought or sold, you avoid the (very high) taxes on liquor. You end up with ~28 bottles of wine for ~$4 per bottle.
It's not the greatest wine, but it's ok for sangria and cooking, and it's a good story if you hang out with people who like to talk about tax loopholes...
DIY winemaking kits can actually make some pretty decent wines if you spend a bit of time and money getting proper equipment. Not a lot - $100 will get you a really, really good setup with two glass carboys for fermenting, siphons, thief and test jar, hydrometer, corker, etc.
I've been making my own wines for years now. Occasionally I'll do a full from-scratch wine, but more often I buy a $40 kit from Midwest Supplies [0] that has all the components - grape juice concentrate, fruit essence, yeasts, kieselsol and chitosan, potassium metabisulfite as well as full detailed instructions. All you need is four gallons of distilled water. 28 days later, ~30 bottles pretty good wine! It won't win awards or anything, but it'll make a fantastic table wine and great for everyday meals.
The only downside is that you'll spend a bit of time cleaning and sterilizing things and you'll remember all the stuff you forgot from high school chemistry class. :)
I would recommend avoiding glass carboys for fermenting. They are heavy, especially when filled, difficult to clean with their narrow mouths, and quite dangerous if they shatter when you accidentally drop them. (They're easy to drop while you're cleaning them and they're wet and slippery.) There are numerous accounts on home brewing forums of trips to the emergency room because a glass carboy broke and injured someone.
PET plastic fermenters (Better Bottle, FermZilla, Fermonster, etc.) are much nicer to work with.
I've always avoided wine brewing. Lots of cider ceyser and beer. What styles/varietals are ok right out of the secondary like that?
Edit: mostly interested in Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, vino verde, and maybe tempranillo. The kits seem pretty expensive. Trader joes has very tasty bottles in those styles (maybe not the CS) for $5.
thankfully, here, we have Trader Joe's and their "3 buck chuck". the local Kroger store (Fred Meyer) also has $3 wine, but I think of that as "emergency wine" - the 3 buck chuck is much, much better.
I have some questions though:
1. do they teach you about sanitization and airlocks, or is it simply "toss some yeast in this bottle"
2. I'm guessing no aging? it would be awesome if they allowed you to pop some in a barrel for aging
3. (not really a question) but wow, $20/gallon is still kind of spendy!
I've done it as well with my parents, who love wine. At the shops I've been to, you buy the grape concentrate up front and they handle to process of making it up until bottling. Once the juice has fermented, you go in and they walk you through cleaning and sanitizing the bottles, filling them, corking them, and usually shrink-wrapping the tops. They provide all the supplies except the bottles themselves - customers bring their own, saved from buying wine the "normal" way.
Never seen a shop do ageing, so the wine will be noticeably "young". My parents like dryer and sharper white wines anyways (Pinot Grigio, Riesling, etc.) so it doesn't bother them. Also note that due to taxes and such, the cheapest wine you'll find commercially is C$11 a bottle, so even at C$20 / gallon you're getting a great deal if you like the resulting wines.
Personally, I quite like the wines my folks get through these shops - properly chilled they make a wonderfully refreshing beverage in the summer, and we'll often drink a few bottles on the back deck together when I go to see them.
We have this in Western Canada too! Many places in BC do it. I would like to share a positive experience I've had. If you go up to $5-8 a bottle, there are some really high quality grapes you can get.
There is one grape juice supplier called Château-Vieux-du-Roi which is from a region close to where Châteauneuf-du-Pape is produced in France. We have taken Châteauneuf-du-Pape bottles and put the Château-Vieux-du-Roi wine inside. Blind taste tests from folks who have had the real Châteauneuf-du-Pape often fail to tell the difference.
We have to age the knock-off Château-Vieux-du-Roi for 2-3 years to get it to the same quality, but by golly is it ever delicious wine. If you're impatient, it's still quite tasty after only 6 months to a year of aging in the bottle.
Considering a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape goes for a minimum of $30 CAD, it's an incredible savings.
I'm always reminded of the bit from The Incredibles:
BOB PARR: All right, listen closely. I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox. W-I-L-C-O-X. On the third floor. But I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I wouldn't expect someone to get back to you quickly to resolve the matter. I'd like to help, but there's nothing I can do.
Offtopic, but The Incredibles has one of my favorite movie quotes:
You always say “Be true to yourself”, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to!
… which stuck in my head because so many Disney (and other?) movies seem to be all about being “true to yourself,” and in my experience they conspicuously fail to address the fact (in my belief system) that all humans have both good and evil, selfish and selfless within (we’re born screaming, demanding others’ attention; but even in the womb we listen to and begin to love familiar people, and in many situations we sacrifice much for our loved ones and even strangers).
> The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity," and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.
Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums."
chesterton
It's "just be yourself" all over again. What if my unmasked self is an aloof prick? It's just stupid. "Just be yourself... no not like that... wait not like that!"
> we’re born screaming, demanding others’ attention;
I wouldn't say "demanding". During the first weeks you actually have to wake up the newborn for feeding, otherwise you're running the risk of malnourishment.
They're so utterly helpless, confused and tired that they can fall asleep even when hungry.
A related question, why is voting considered "good"?
Your vote is good if you vote for good people and good policies. Yes. But if a person votes for bad people and bad policies, then I don't see what's so good about it.
Voting in general however I believe is good because it makes people be part of the system, and feel they are part of it.
And so, if voting is good, maybe we should have more voting.
Reminds me of when a friend ordered some San Pedro cactus over the internet "for religious sacrament." It included a note indicating that they ran out of the exact variety that he ordered, but they thought that he'd be very happy with the one they sent because it was stronger when used for religious purposes.
(San Pedro cactus contains mescaline. It's perfectly legal to grow for ornamental purposes.)
They don't contain the active ingredient that is specifically illegal, which is what I always heard made the "loophole" possible. Would be interested to know if that's true (but too lazy to alt-tab and search myself.)
IIRC mescaline or peyote (maybe they're the same? I don't know) is nowadays legally protected under religious laws, but iirc there's a lot of caveats around it (region, tribe, etc).
Peyote is the plant, a cactus, and the active chemical it contains is mescaline. Peyote is only legal for native americans religious ceremonies, afaik.
In the early 90s the NY post published a similar article about how not to smuggle in cigarettes from the Native American reservations nearby - including which roads to not take and intersections to not be wary of because there were frequently “speed traps” in place to stop vehicles that might be smuggling tobacco - just an FYI which readers should not be interested in.
In the 2000s the NY state police started searching and seizing all UPS trucks exiting the reservations because the practice of shipping cigarettes had become so common that the state was losing significant tobacco tax revenue. They argued that UPS had to be aware of what they were carrying because the shippers were tobacco stores and the parcels were exactly cigarette box sized, thus they were willing accomplices. After several days the Native American governments backed down and agreed to not ship cigarettes anymore.
> They argued that UPS had to be aware of what they were carrying because the shippers were tobacco stores and the parcels were exactly cigarette box sized, thus they were willing accomplices
Would that matter? Fully legal duty-paid cigarette boxes would presumably be the same size and shape from the same origin.
I love the warnings that they put on these things. (paraphrasing) "Under no circumstances should you follow these extremely specific steps listed below or else you might accidentally make an alcoholic beverage which would be illegal"
An old Heathkit radio set had a red wire that you put a tag on that said something like "Do not remove this wire, or this radio set could broadcast on HAM radio frequencies which would be illegal unless properly licensed!"
It was illegal to export certain classes of cryptography software. It was however never illegal to export books about that software. So what they did was publish a hardback book about the algorithm [1], which contained the entire source code of the software. This book was then freely sold all around the world. Now all you had to do was scan and OCR the relevant pages, cat together the resulting files and compile. All perfectly legal.
I remember there being distributed proof-reading groups on Usenet and IRC where you would get 1 page of OCR'd text and the corresponding scanned image and you would manually go through and verify and correct the source code.
I have a tattoo of an encryption routine, partly as a protest. Unfortunately I changed it at the last minute to make it look cooler and introduced a bug.
Here's the entire proper Perl 5 code:
undef $/;print<>$<>
The buggy version is slightly shorter but I depended on an incorrect reading of some tricky wording in the docs and didn't test thoroughly enough. I'm considering turning the tattoo into a diff.
> the note would continue with a warning instructing you not to leave that jug in the cool cupboard for 21 days, or it would turn into wine
I read (cannot find the source now though) that's similar to today's homemade alcohol/beer in Japan, where there's a limit of what % of alcohol you can make at home. So all the official instructions include a last step: "mix in water until the alcohol percentage is below the legal limit". Of course people just ignore this to have stronger alcohol.
> The grape of choice for home winemakers quickly became Alicante Bouschet. Thick, tough skins helped the grape survive the cross–country journey, and it grew in large quantities
> By the end of Prohibition in 1933, other grape varietals and fruits had been ripped up and 40,000 acres of Alicante had been planted.
> “Grape bricks had a disastrous effect on the early American wine industry,” Suttner wrote in an email. Grape bricks’ place in Prohibition history is largely glossed over, but Suttner was able to learn about them through period newspaper articles and Eric Burn’s book The Spirits of America. “By encouraging the production of cheap, fast–growing grapes like Alicante Bouschet at the expense of other, slower varieties, American wineries limited themselves severely.”
If it helped the wineries and vineyards survive, I guess its the lesser of the two evils. Given that the other wine-drinking regions probably didn't want to import new world grapes to make wine with.
Readit News
1. you buy 5 gallons of grape juice for ~$20 per gallon.
2. yeast is dropped into your grape juice
3. you come to the store to decant your grape juice into wine bottles and cork them up.
Since no alcohol is bought or sold, you avoid the (very high) taxes on liquor. You end up with ~28 bottles of wine for ~$4 per bottle.
It's not the greatest wine, but it's ok for sangria and cooking, and it's a good story if you hang out with people who like to talk about tax loopholes...
I've been making my own wines for years now. Occasionally I'll do a full from-scratch wine, but more often I buy a $40 kit from Midwest Supplies [0] that has all the components - grape juice concentrate, fruit essence, yeasts, kieselsol and chitosan, potassium metabisulfite as well as full detailed instructions. All you need is four gallons of distilled water. 28 days later, ~30 bottles pretty good wine! It won't win awards or anything, but it'll make a fantastic table wine and great for everyday meals.
The only downside is that you'll spend a bit of time cleaning and sterilizing things and you'll remember all the stuff you forgot from high school chemistry class. :)
[0] https://www.midwestsupplies.com/
PET plastic fermenters (Better Bottle, FermZilla, Fermonster, etc.) are much nicer to work with.
Edit: mostly interested in Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, vino verde, and maybe tempranillo. The kits seem pretty expensive. Trader joes has very tasty bottles in those styles (maybe not the CS) for $5.
I have some questions though:
1. do they teach you about sanitization and airlocks, or is it simply "toss some yeast in this bottle"
2. I'm guessing no aging? it would be awesome if they allowed you to pop some in a barrel for aging
3. (not really a question) but wow, $20/gallon is still kind of spendy!
Never seen a shop do ageing, so the wine will be noticeably "young". My parents like dryer and sharper white wines anyways (Pinot Grigio, Riesling, etc.) so it doesn't bother them. Also note that due to taxes and such, the cheapest wine you'll find commercially is C$11 a bottle, so even at C$20 / gallon you're getting a great deal if you like the resulting wines.
Personally, I quite like the wines my folks get through these shops - properly chilled they make a wonderfully refreshing beverage in the summer, and we'll often drink a few bottles on the back deck together when I go to see them.
There is one grape juice supplier called Château-Vieux-du-Roi which is from a region close to where Châteauneuf-du-Pape is produced in France. We have taken Châteauneuf-du-Pape bottles and put the Château-Vieux-du-Roi wine inside. Blind taste tests from folks who have had the real Châteauneuf-du-Pape often fail to tell the difference.
We have to age the knock-off Château-Vieux-du-Roi for 2-3 years to get it to the same quality, but by golly is it ever delicious wine. If you're impatient, it's still quite tasty after only 6 months to a year of aging in the bottle.
Considering a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape goes for a minimum of $30 CAD, it's an incredible savings.
BOB PARR: All right, listen closely. I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox. W-I-L-C-O-X. On the third floor. But I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I wouldn't expect someone to get back to you quickly to resolve the matter. I'd like to help, but there's nothing I can do.
You always say “Be true to yourself”, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to!
… which stuck in my head because so many Disney (and other?) movies seem to be all about being “true to yourself,” and in my experience they conspicuously fail to address the fact (in my belief system) that all humans have both good and evil, selfish and selfless within (we’re born screaming, demanding others’ attention; but even in the womb we listen to and begin to love familiar people, and in many situations we sacrifice much for our loved ones and even strangers).
> The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity," and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.
I wouldn't say "demanding". During the first weeks you actually have to wake up the newborn for feeding, otherwise you're running the risk of malnourishment.
They're so utterly helpless, confused and tired that they can fall asleep even when hungry.
Your vote is good if you vote for good people and good policies. Yes. But if a person votes for bad people and bad policies, then I don't see what's so good about it.
Voting in general however I believe is good because it makes people be part of the system, and feel they are part of it.
And so, if voting is good, maybe we should have more voting.
"I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific." - Lily Tomlin
Deleted Comment
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CouldSayItBut
(San Pedro cactus contains mescaline. It's perfectly legal to grow for ornamental purposes.)
Over here, huffing nitrous oxide is a thing, but it's sold as pressure gas for whipped cream dispensers and the like.
In the 2000s the NY state police started searching and seizing all UPS trucks exiting the reservations because the practice of shipping cigarettes had become so common that the state was losing significant tobacco tax revenue. They argued that UPS had to be aware of what they were carrying because the shippers were tobacco stores and the parcels were exactly cigarette box sized, thus they were willing accomplices. After several days the Native American governments backed down and agreed to not ship cigarettes anymore.
Would that matter? Fully legal duty-paid cigarette boxes would presumably be the same size and shape from the same origin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause
Assembly instructions: "And now never ever connect pin x and pin y, because then you'd have a working modem, which would be illigal...
I remember there being distributed proof-reading groups on Usenet and IRC where you would get 1 page of OCR'd text and the corresponding scanned image and you would manually go through and verify and correct the source code.
[1] https://books.google.com/books/about/PGP_Source_Code_and_Int...
Here's the entire proper Perl 5 code:
The buggy version is slightly shorter but I depended on an incorrect reading of some tricky wording in the docs and didn't test thoroughly enough. I'm considering turning the tattoo into a diff.I recommend Crypto by Steven Levy as a high-level refresher on the events of the time. (https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?isbn=9780670859504&st=xl&...)
I read (cannot find the source now though) that's similar to today's homemade alcohol/beer in Japan, where there's a limit of what % of alcohol you can make at home. So all the official instructions include a last step: "mix in water until the alcohol percentage is below the legal limit". Of course people just ignore this to have stronger alcohol.
https://grapecollective.com/articles/prohibitions-grape-bric...
> The grape of choice for home winemakers quickly became Alicante Bouschet. Thick, tough skins helped the grape survive the cross–country journey, and it grew in large quantities
> By the end of Prohibition in 1933, other grape varietals and fruits had been ripped up and 40,000 acres of Alicante had been planted.
> “Grape bricks had a disastrous effect on the early American wine industry,” Suttner wrote in an email. Grape bricks’ place in Prohibition history is largely glossed over, but Suttner was able to learn about them through period newspaper articles and Eric Burn’s book The Spirits of America. “By encouraging the production of cheap, fast–growing grapes like Alicante Bouschet at the expense of other, slower varieties, American wineries limited themselves severely.”