Free the Shine

This past summer, Zach Weissmueller and Paul Detrick from Reason TV stopped by the house to talk about home distilling in the US. The 6-minute segment they produced is, in its own way, a call for legalizing personal stills.

It's a sentiment I wholeheartedly endorse.

The video features Max Watman (author of Chasing the White Dog), Yuseff Cherney (co-founder of Ballast Point Brewing Company and now a full-fledged distiller), and a seriously chunky me. I was so appalled on seeing the video, in fact, that I tuned up the bike, hit the gym with renewed vigor, and started shedding pounds that very week. Much happier now with the shape I'm in.

I'm also seen pouring whiskey samples from a plastic sports water bottle labeled simply "Whiskey." This is something I've gotten grief about from distillers who don't know me. What clown keeps whiskey in plastic? Well, damn it. It's not my whiskey. That is the only plastic bottle in my entire liquor library and that's the way it came to me, so that's the way I'm keeping it. It had no other label and came — as such packages often do — in a plain brown box left at my door.

So for all those who think I make and store liquor in plastic: nope. Everything else is glass.

Now, I'm off for a breakfast of hot tea and oatmeal (though I'll be thinking of Senator Tyding's Kentucky breakfast...).