Lionel Fauquier

On 8/8/2018 at 12:17 PM, Southernhighlander said:

Lionel,

I did a little research.  What my people (people from Appalachia) call sugar cane, most others in the US call sweet sorghum.  It grows up to 15 ft tall in the Smokies.  Since we called it sugar cane, I did not know that what someone in LA calls sugar cane was different, until I just did a little research.  Below is a picture of some West VA sugarcane.  Note the difference from Milo (seed sorghum).  When we made molasses from our cane, we had what was called a cane boiling.  Everyone would show up with their cane and we would make molasses.  When I was a kid, most of the people in Rudd Holler would go to Glen Walker's place for the cane boiling, because he had a cane press and the other equipment to do the job.  He would keep part of everyone's molasses for the use of his equipment.  The older people in my holler pulled together for lots of things including the tobacco harvest and the hanging and grading of tobacco which we called bakker.

   One of the reasons that the revenuers had such a hard time there, was because the people were very tight knit and clannish.  They just would not give each other up.  They would rarely call the law for any problem in those days and before.  Most issues were handled internally.  Also they believed that the government had no right to stop a man from making whiskey from his own corn on his own equipment.  The moonshiners of my grandfather's time were very good at their craft.  He made great Brandy, Sweet Mash Corn Whiskey and Charter Whiskey (bourbon).  The moonshiners that came later mostly made cheap sugar head and still do.  

 

  Interesting ....

 I actually work in the Eastern Panhandle of WV and I've never seen or heard of people growing sweet sorghum .  I'll ask around if it's possible to grow there though , since this post has stoked my curiosity .

   I never would have thought that it was possible to grow sugar cane in the Great Smoky Mountains ...

  Anyways thanks for all the answers everyone !

        Ah I see ...

  Would I be correct in assuming that fresh sugarcane is impossible to find unless one lives in an area where it grows ?

  To my knowledge sugarcane is often used in rum production , so I was wondering if it's worth using when it comes to the realm of homemade rum .

On 6/21/2018 at 5:09 PM, Silk City Distillers said:

It would be the most boring festival ever.

Distilling is not a spectator sport...

  I must humbly disagree .  I mean personally I think it would be a real blast to host a music festival , where ( among other fun activities ) one could cook up their already fermented batch on site .

    That's a bummer though .... 

  I mean it would be real cool to have a festival like that IMHO .  Anyways thanks for the answers . 

   I'm thinking about organizing a festival sometime in the ( hopefully not so distant ) future that would feature an on grounds still , that would be used to distill the already fermented batches of whatever liquor attendees would choose to bring to the festival grounds .

 Is it possible to do such a thing legally speaking ? Also has anyone here done something like this and/or heard of it being done ?

  Hello everyone !  I'm Lionel Fauquier and I'm glad to have joined this forum . 

   I look forward to learning about and discussing the topic of distilling . I'm fairly new to the game , though I do have some scant knowledge of the topic as a result of having an uncle who was employed at a distillery .

  Anyways I look forward to many interesting discussions and greetings again .