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Gentlemen's Moonshine

In times of prohibition in Andhra Pradesh, he is the vintner of discontent. He knows grapes don't stay sour for ever. They ripen, ferment, intoxicate... the secret art of home-made booze.

Six Steps To Euphoria

  1. Into the jar go the grapes, sugar, whole wheat, egg, yeast and water. Get into crush mode and squash the grapes. The more effort put into it the better the result.
  2. Seal and store the jar in a clean and dry place for 21 days. Carefully stir the contents of the jar every day at a specified time. This is a very vital part of the operation and on no account should the date with the jar be forgotten
  3. On the 22nd day add more sugar and burnt sugar. Seal the jar and guard it for another 25 days. Do not disturb the jar.
  4. Time to taste the first fruits of labour.Insert a plastic tube into the jar and draw out the clear red wine. The jar will yield bottles of it. A toast to your patience is very much in order.
  5. Once the wine is drained out, it's time to work on the residue left behind in the jar. Add water to it. Stir well. Seal the jar and forget all about it for yet another 15 days. Take heart, this is the last lap.
  6. Transfer the contents of the jar into a pressure cooker. Attach a tube to the nozzle which coils through a bucket of ice. At the other end keep the bottles ready. It's celebration time!

 
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IF you can't buy it, make it. After all, God helps those who help themselves. Instead of crying foul and running to the nearest bootlegger for their daily dose of manna when prohibition was announced in Andhra Pradesh, a few exalted worshippers of Bacchus in Hyderabad put their ingenuity to work. If the state does not let you buy your liquor, the next best thing is to brew it at home—that's how they figured it out. Thus, in the year of the Lord 1995 was born Gentlemen's Moonshine. A designer blend by its creator for its creator. And perhaps for his wife and closest buddies.

As could be expected, it did not take long in parched Hyderabad for the formula to be circulated among friends. Soon the good word spread to other parts of the country where the right to drink was under threat. Despite this, the Moonshine club continues to be a very elitist circle made up of former bureaucrats, technocrats, professors, police officers, writers, intellectuals, literary dilettantes, gentlemen farmers and assorted gentry.

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The homespun formula is also strictly recommended for those who have the time and infinite patience to distill the heady brew—it's a 60-day-wait—and also the attitude to savour no more than a drink or two each evening. In short, it is not for the 'bar-barians' who do not rest content till they wake up the neighbourhood and paint the town dead after downing six or seven large ones. It's also not for those who wish to make a quick buck by going commercial with the formula. 

So how does a debutant Sir Moonshine distill his peg of happiness? First procure an NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the wife/daughter-in-law because the kitchen will have to be continually tapped to keep the process going. Clearance from the son-in-law may also be necessary if he is a tee-totaller or works for prohibition and excise. In the case of the latter, permission may not be necessary, since it requires no particular genius for the prohibition folks to lay their hands on a bottle (or two or three) of scotch. Once all the okays are through, it's procurement time. The largest porcelain pickle jar available, the biggest pressure cooker in the market and four metres of plastic tube is the essential hardware. If the household has a pressure cooker to spare, so much the better.

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The software is even more innocuous. Two kilos of seedless black grapes (those lip-sucking Fox Sagar ones that Hyderabad is so famous for are strongly recommended), three-and-a-half kilos of sugar, 500 gm whole wheat, 50 gm yeast, one egg and water which you can filch straight from the kitchen tap. In addition, you may at a later stage need loads of ice which, if you have a refrigerator which refuses to dish up, you can easily have delivered at home.

With the hardware and software ready, select an auspicious hour of the day. The hour after lunch is recommended when everyone who is anybody, including the cat, is taking a nap. The presence of onlookers might not encourage you to put in your best into the vital stage one of the operation.

The Grape Crush: After having said your prayers, put the grapes with two kilos of sugar, half-kilo wheat and 50 gm yeast into the porcelain jar. Break an egg into it. Add nine bottles of water. Now, using your palms, crush the grapes as well as you can. Perhaps, cursing prohibition and the politicians responsible for it might make your task easier.

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The Stirring 21 Days: The crushing over, seal the jar and stow it away in a convenient corner. Make sure that it is out of the reach of ants and visiting grandchildren. Forget all about it and don't boast to even your closest buddy about what's brewing. Every afternoon, when all is quiet, open your treasure and stir it.

The 25-day Wait: On the 22nd day, add another kilo of sugar and 500 gm of burnt sugar to the liquid in the jar. Stir and close the lid and leave it   untouched for 25 days. This is the vital stage of the operation. You don't have to do much, for sweet mother nature is at work inside the jar. Though there is no proof for it, a prayer every day that everything works out well might help.

Grape Into Wine: After your long and patient wait, it's time to enjoy the first fruits of your labour. Insert a clean plastic tube into the jar and draw out the clear liquid, leaving the residue behind. This is good old red wine. You should get six bottles of it and, after tasting it, you could stow it away in the cellar to be drunk at Christmas time.

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Moonshine in the Kitchen: But we have to go beyond red wine. To the residue in the jar add five bottles of water. Stir and seal the jar for 15 days. On the 16th day you simply have to take over the kitchen.

Set the pressure cooker on the gas and transfer into it the contents in the jar. Remove the weight of the pressure cooker and attach the plastic tube to the weight-nozzle. Coil the tube and make it pass through a bucket full of ice. At the other end of the tube, keep an empty bottle.

Heat the cooker on a slow fire. The vapour that rises is alcohol and, as it passes through the ice bucket, it condenses and the colour-less liquid that distills over is as good as the best brew your money can buy. You should get two bottles of it for all your labours. Each bottle, if you also take the six bottles of red wine into account will cost you about Rs 25 a bottle (labour charges excluded).

So what is this brew? It certainly is not whisky and, strictly speaking, Moonshine means illicitly brewed whisky. However, the clear colourless drink is smoother than the best whisky. Perhaps one could call itgrape feni. The Moonshine experts point out that the same formula can be used to brew liquor from pineapple and cashew fruit juice. However, seedless grapes are regarded as the best source. But why does Sir Moonshine go through all this trouble to distill just two bottles? For one, he does not believe in wasting his money on bootleggers. Then, he believes he has a fundamental right to drink his two pegs and unwind in the evenings. It's a lifestyle he has lived all his life and is unwilling to give up.

He also holds the view that total prohibition can never succeed and cannot be implemented in letter and spirit. No law, he believes, can stop the man who loves his drink from going out and getting it. Yes, there is a very involved ideology to go along with it!

And the brew? It's simply top class. In Kerala, there is a tradition of wine-making in Christian homes. There are also professionals who are experts at distilling liquor from a wide range of fruits and vegetables—from grapes and apples to ginger. You can commission them to do justice to the fruit of your choice. The brew is often regarded as exclusive and occupies the pride of place in bars in the best of homes. But more often than not, since the process of fermentation is artificially accelerated, the final product is ready in a record seven days' time.

However, quality suffers when short cuts come into play and the tone and flavour falls short in quality of what the gentlemen distillers can brew at home. This is perhaps one reason why the drink that bears the personal stamp of the host is offered with a great measure of pride and drunk with even greater pleasure.

As we savour a shot of Gentlemen's Moonshine on the rocks, we feel a warmth glowing within us that is quite unique. And somewhere in the distance one can almost hear the moon shiners espousing their favourite philosophy: drinking is certainly injurious to health, but savouring a drink or two adds that sparkle to your being.

A good peg in the time of prohibition is just pure magic.

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