Fix crappy booze?

So despite the fact that I have an actual moonshine guy, my mom got me this while she was in Tennessee last week because it wasn't that 20%abv "old Smokey mountain" garbage.

The thing is, it tastes and smells like Nikolai 100 proof, in other words, like lighter fluid and rubbing alcohol. 

Might have been ok when I was a teenager, but I'm not anymore, and I remember those lessons all too well. 

Is there anything I can do to make it taste better, without dropping the alcohol content? Because even with a mixer, it's undrinkable. Or should this just be used for parts cleaning?

Put some wood chips in it, and let it sit for a few years.

Unfortunately anything you do will cut the abv. You have to have an acceptable level you want or can tolerate. Beyond that pour that $20 out.

Personally, I'd cut it about a third with apple juice to make the std apple pie shine or shove in a tropical fruit medley and let it sit a few weeks.

In reply to Ranger50 :

My apple pie recipe is a bit more involved than that. That was actually what she wanted me to do with it when she got it, but garbage in = garbage out I've learned. 

Wonder how vanilla pods would fair. 

I do have access to beer brewing equipment, I was wondering if maybe I could use that to further distill it, but search results are coming up mixed. 

My ideas:

1. mix it with a better liquor
2. run it through an activated carbon filter
3. give it away
4. pour it down the sink 

In college, I would have just drank it. Today, I'd pour it down the sink or give it to someone. 

Put some strong flavored fruit in it? Maraschino cherries? Raisins?

Drink faster. 

It ain't moonshine if you pay taxes on it

Buy this and age it for a year

their sales are based entirely on marketing a product that tastes/looks like moonshine, without being actual moonshine. Its not like you're drinking the actual moonshine for the flavor, so I'm not sure what your expectations are here. 

First try running it through a Britta type filter. Or some activated carbon and a coffee filter. Remind me of a relative who was all proud of some legal "moonshine" they got. Tasted like E36 M3. After looking the bottle over I realized they were using pure corn syrup. I refused to drink it. 

In reply to RevRico :

I mean you could redistill but I think you have the end of the run in your jar. No matter what you do won't change the characteristics. It's still what, 60% water?

Stampie said:

First try running it through a Britta type filter. Or some activated carbon and a coffee filter. Remind me of a relative who was all proud of some legal "moonshine" they got. Tasted like E36 M3. After looking the bottle over I realized they were using pure corn syrup. I refused to drink it. 

This.

I remember reading about vodka enthusiasts running marginal vodka through a Brita pitcher and having decent vodka come out.

Try using it in a cocktail?  Molotov? 

RevRico said:

Is there anything I can do to make it taste better, without dropping the alcohol content? Because even with a mixer, it's undrinkable. Or should this just be used for parts cleaning?

There is (most likely) NOTHING you can do to make that taste better. Even cutting the alcohol content won't make it taste better, it will just have a diluted bad flavor.

It tastes bad because they did a quick and dirty distillation run of a hot and dirty fermentation. They left in a lot of heads and/or tails - compounds that taste gross and make you ill. Higher alcohols and the like. These are the things that give you a NASTY hangover.

Pure ethyl alcohol (or as close as we can get) doesn't taste bad. It tastes vaguely sweet. I have some 96% ethanol in the back. I have tasted it at that strength, and - although I wouldn't recommend it - it doesn't taste bad at all. It's just physically uncomfortable to drink something that high alcohol.

The only way to make that good is to run it through a still again and strip out unwanted compounds.

Okay... there is ONE caveat to that - if the unpleasant flavor is sulfurous. If it tastes like match head or vaguely meaty. If *that* is the case, you can stick it in a cask (preferably with a fresh char) and let it sit for 2+ years, then it will become really good.

Actually... never mind. That's not going to be the problem. Those compounds occur in grain alcohols. See how it says it is made from "CANE & GRAIN". The order matters. That means that it is over 50% sugar wash. You're tasting byproducts of stressed yeast in hot and fast fermentation.

lnlogauge said:

their sales are based entirely on marketing a product that tastes/looks like moonshine, without being actual moonshine. Its not like you're drinking the actual moonshine for the flavor, so I'm not sure what your expectations are here. 

The actual moonshine I get is good though. No rubbing alcohol/lighter fluid/cheap swill taste. Even when Everclear 195 was still available it wasn't this nasty. 

II'm gonna look around, I know I have some  water filters I never installed somewhere. Can't hurt at this point, I just don't like throwing booze away. Except mezcal, I'll eat the worm and toss the rest. 

Stampie said:

First try running it through a Britta type filter. Or some activated carbon and a coffee filter. Remind me of a relative who was all proud of some legal "moonshine" they got. Tasted like E36 M3. After looking the bottle over I realized they were using pure corn syrup. I refused to drink it. 

Came here to say exactly this- and stampie is much smarter at whiskey than i am. 

I think I'd use it as a food safe cleaning fluid.  Wipe out your microwave with it, that sort of thing.

That will fix it.  And maybe clean the drain.

You have run into a great historical example. 

What you are experiencing is the precise reason why mixed drinks exist.  When illegal moonshine (e.g. Bathroom Gin) started to be produces heavily after the passage of the 18th amendment, it, as you are observing, tasted horrific.  In order to make it even somewhat palatable, they created mixed drinks!

In reply to RevRico :

Spicy honey 

Also, as a Maryland Rye Guy. I'll never understand anyone in the Smokies or Appalachia who isn't doing Single Malt or at least Bourbon. That goes for southern Indiana and Ohio as well, not just Tennessee and Kentucky. The western side of that range is the best aging conditions you'll get outside of the Pacific Northwest.  Outside of Alberta grain, milled and malted to age on Pudget or Vancouver sound, you won't get a better pour that American single malt whiskey than what that region can produce, yet for some reason Tennessee, Georgia, Western NC, West Virginia, South Eastern Virginia and Southern Ohio seem to push the lazy, quicker shine because their great great grandpapi did during prohibition to pump volume. That's like celebrating cutting coke or cooking up crack, instead of flying planes of uncut up on character flights from La Paz. Use your talents to distill and age something better.

I will add. Everybody I know says they know somebody that makes small batch moonshine. That's more difficult to find and rare and better than anything than anybody else has ever had. And everything else that they've had is terrible except for this mystical jar who the distiller of went into hiding when Chicago Antifa took over Missouri Stage Rally when the Foggs sold that Pacific Northwest Dirtfish Rally Media doesn't want you to know about. I've had Vermont Sports Car Maple Syrup, but I've never had this allegedly drinkable, smooth "enjoyable" shine. I suspect that we'll see CyberTrucks in Kiev before I ever taste a sip that's worthy of drinking over a Single Malt. 

Mix it in with the lawnmower gas.......

This is a superior shot to methshine. 

My brother had friends who used to buy Big Name Whiskey barrels at garden centers - they figured out that they could dump a couple of gallons of Everclear in them and let it soak for awhile.  What they pulled out in six months (?) or a year (?) wasn't Big Name Whiskey, but it was definitely drinkable when knocked down to 80 proof.  Supposedly, this is why you can't buy whole whiskey barrels anymore - they are all cut in half now.  No, I never had any.  Brother did and says it was worth the effort.

Of course, what these guys were starting with was Everclear, not the E36 M3 that you have.