Author Topic: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor  (Read 22496 times)

Eric

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #50 on: February 19, 2015, 03:54:34 PM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #51 on: February 19, 2015, 04:47:39 PM »
For liquor, I reckon you could always whip up some 'shine, but I have no idea the costs.

You'll need some yeast and sugar (or corn or potatoes or whatever), but the largest expense is the heat (electricity) and cooling (running water) you need when you destill it.

With our taxes, there is no way you can buy 6 beers for $9. If you go for the cheapest, you might be able to get 3. Homebrewing is the best (cheapest) solution.

FYI, it's illegal to distill alcohol anywhere in the US without a license, even just for personal use.  If you get it wrong, you can concentrate the low levels of methanol present in all undistilled alcoholic beverages, and ingesting too much methanol can cause permanent blindness or death. 

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from acquiring valuable life skills, but this is definitely the kind of thing you should approach with caution.  Ideally, you'd learn how to do this from someone who knows their shit and has a long history of distilling alcoholic beverages without killing anyone or making them blind.

Ah, that's why!  It always struck me as odd that there were laws against this.  Thanks for the info.

Heckler

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #52 on: February 19, 2015, 05:46:03 PM »
$9 per week is about right, as I drink about 5 gallons of craft homebrew in 3 weeks and it costs about $30 a batch.

Mind you it adds up.

daverobev

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #53 on: February 19, 2015, 07:23:38 PM »
Really bad weather here the last couple of days - makes me wonder what bad weather in Houston is like. The pic below is our driveway this morning. There is a jeep parked next to the grey car! It is completely buried in a 7-foot high drift. Just thinking about digging it out has me craving a drink but I drank all I had during the storm...

I did more than nine-bucks worth of drinking yesterday and even more the day before!



Ouch.

Funny, really, reading the news about Halifax... them wanting people to clear the storm drains which have been covered by the ploughs.

Cold, really damn cold, here in Ontario, but a few degrees colder than normal doesn't really change things much. -20 degrees C about now, apparently - I filled the car up today and damn it was cold holding the pump!

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #54 on: February 19, 2015, 07:45:42 PM »
For liquor, I reckon you could always whip up some 'shine, but I have no idea the costs.

You'll need some yeast and sugar (or corn or potatoes or whatever), but the largest expense is the heat (electricity) and cooling (running water) you need when you destill it.

With our taxes, there is no way you can buy 6 beers for $9. If you go for the cheapest, you might be able to get 3. Homebrewing is the best (cheapest) solution.

FYI, it's illegal to distill alcohol anywhere in the US without a license, even just for personal use.  If you get it wrong, you can concentrate the low levels of methanol present in all undistilled alcoholic beverages, and ingesting too much methanol can cause permanent blindness or death. 

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from acquiring valuable life skills, but this is definitely the kind of thing you should approach with caution.  Ideally, you'd learn how to do this from someone who knows their shit and has a long history of distilling alcoholic beverages without killing anyone or making them blind.

Ah, that's why!  It always struck me as odd that there were laws against this.  Thanks for the info.

The "why" is not the small danger of methanol poisoning from distilling it wrong. The why is a holdover from Prohibition puritans, and the fact that the gubment wants their cut. It was also illegal to homebrew beer until Jimmy Carter reversed that. It's a combination of "think of the children," and "pay the man."

johnny847

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #55 on: February 19, 2015, 07:55:15 PM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

brooklynmoney

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #56 on: February 19, 2015, 08:21:40 PM »
I spend more than $9 on a glass of wine regularly. Yay NYC and Brooklyn. Booze & food are my biggest expense.

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #57 on: February 20, 2015, 07:09:48 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?

johnny847

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #58 on: February 20, 2015, 07:49:11 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?
No, it's not. Joking about suicide isn't something anybody should engage in. It is in no way funny and only serves to belittle those who are actually having suicidal thoughts.

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #59 on: February 20, 2015, 07:57:44 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?
No, it's not. Joking about suicide isn't something anybody should engage in. It is in no way funny and only serves to belittle those who are actually having suicidal thoughts.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion.

johnny847

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #60 on: February 20, 2015, 08:02:54 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?
No, it's not. Joking about suicide isn't something anybody should engage in. It is in no way funny and only serves to belittle those who are actually having suicidal thoughts.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
Let me use an overly exaggerated example to illustrate my point

Imagine 90% of the people on this planet joked every day about suicide while only 1% were actually seriously considering it. How exactly would you be able to figure out which of that 90% were serious, and provide them with help?

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #61 on: February 20, 2015, 08:14:42 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

probably not. but why take the chance?
"Probably not" - this is why I'm saying your initial statement is ludicrous.

johnny, relax.  Have a drink.  He's making a joke.  A somewhat serious joke, but a joke nonetheless.

UnleashHell -- I'm with you man
Pardon me, but when you've had a friend commit suicide, this is no laughing matter.

That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?
No, it's not. Joking about suicide isn't something anybody should engage in. It is in no way funny and only serves to belittle those who are actually having suicidal thoughts.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
Let me use an overly exaggerated example to illustrate my point

Imagine 90% of the people on this planet joked every day about suicide while only 1% were actually seriously considering it. How exactly would you be able to figure out which of that 90% were serious, and provide them with help?

Sigh.

Look, I'm not going to attempt to answer that.  Because I think it's kind of a silly question.  I pretty much completely disagree with the entire premise. 

Let me provide you with a counter-point: Humor is what dislodges fear from talking about taboo or frightening subjects.  In the 60s, no one EVER talked about cancer, and when they had to, they called it "the C word" or whispered the word furtively.  Imagine how isolating it must have been to have cancer then.

And then, in the 70s, comedians started joking about how people would whisper the word as though it would kill them to say it out loud.  Humor.  These days, the idea that someone would be afraid to even discuss it seems strange, even amusing and backward.

Yes, sometimes humor can come off as crass.  Especially to someone who has been affected by the thing that you feel is being made light of.  But, as Salman Rushdie once said, nobody has the right not to be offended.

And for the record, I come at this as a pretty far left-leaning feminist, survivor of domestic abuse, and have been suicidal myself.  And yes, I've had the experience of having people I know commit suicide.  But none of that means that I believe there's much that can't be poked fun of.  Especially humorless self-righteousness.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, about feminists, of which I am one:

Q: "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
A: "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
« Last Edit: February 20, 2015, 08:23:48 AM by Kris »

solon

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #62 on: February 20, 2015, 08:21:28 AM »
This is the second time I've seen johnny847 go on a rampage and destroy a perfectly good discussion. I recommend not engaging him any further.

johnny847

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #63 on: February 20, 2015, 08:25:29 AM »
That is more about you than about UnleashHell, though, yes?
No, it's not. Joking about suicide isn't something anybody should engage in. It is in no way funny and only serves to belittle those who are actually having suicidal thoughts.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
Let me use an overly exaggerated example to illustrate my point

Imagine 90% of the people on this planet joked every day about suicide while only 1% were actually seriously considering it. How exactly would you be able to figure out which of that 90% were serious, and provide them with help?

Sigh.

Look, I'm not going to attempt to answer that.  Because I think it's kind of a silly question.  I pretty much completely disagree with the entire premise. 

Let me provide you with a counter-point: Humor is what dislodges fear from talking about taboo or frightening subjects.  In the 60s, no one EVER talked about cancer, and when they had to, they called it "the C word" or whispered the word furtively.  Imagine how isolating it must have been to have cancer then.

And then, in the 70s, comedians started joking about how people would whisper the word as though it would kill them to say it out loud.  Humor.  These days, the idea that someone would be afraid to even discuss it seems strange, even amusing and backward.

Yes, sometimes humor can come off as crass.  Especially to someone who has been affected by the thing that you feel is being made light of.  But, as Salman Rushdie once said, nobody has the right not to be offended.

And for the record, I come at this as a pretty far left-leaning feminist, survivor of domestic abuse, and yes, I've had the experience of having people I know commit suicide.  But none of that means that I believe there's much that can't be poked fun of.  Especially humorless self-righteousness.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, about feminists, of which I am one:

Q: "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
A: "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If you actually want to have a meaningful discussion about this topic, then don't just discard what I say without any thought whatsoever. If you think that's silly, that's fine, but don't respond by basically saying that's just stupid and move on.

Secondly, you know that UnleashHell's use of humor was not to try to dislodge fear from talking about suicide. Whether or not humor is appropriate in the context of suicide, your point isn't relevant to this situation.

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #64 on: February 20, 2015, 08:28:54 AM »
This is the second time I've seen johnny847 go on a rampage and destroy a perfectly good discussion. I recommend not engaging him any further.

Ha!  Indeed, Solon. Indeed.

Eric

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #65 on: February 20, 2015, 10:05:11 AM »
Jeezus johnny, learn to accept that people like to make jokes.  Most people, actually.  My friend's dad was an alcoholic.  Does that mean that everytime someone jokes about being an alcoholic I should jump in and start recommending AA meetings?  Of course not, because I can recognize a joke.

And no, no one wants to have a meaningful discussion about suicide in a thread devoted to anti-mustachian alcohol spending.  If you want to start a separate thread about suicide, have at it.  You can even put NO JOKING ALLOWED in the title to make yourself fell better.

gaja

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #66 on: February 20, 2015, 10:09:54 AM »
For liquor, I reckon you could always whip up some 'shine, but I have no idea the costs.

You'll need some yeast and sugar (or corn or potatoes or whatever), but the largest expense is the heat (electricity) and cooling (running water) you need when you destill it.

With our taxes, there is no way you can buy 6 beers for $9. If you go for the cheapest, you might be able to get 3. Homebrewing is the best (cheapest) solution.

FYI, it's illegal to distill alcohol anywhere in the US without a license, even just for personal use.  If you get it wrong, you can concentrate the low levels of methanol present in all undistilled alcoholic beverages, and ingesting too much methanol can cause permanent blindness or death. 

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from acquiring valuable life skills, but this is definitely the kind of thing you should approach with caution.  Ideally, you'd learn how to do this from someone who knows their shit and has a long history of distilling alcoholic beverages without killing anyone or making them blind.

Ah, that's why!  It always struck me as odd that there were laws against this.  Thanks for the info.

The "why" is not the small danger of methanol poisoning from distilling it wrong. The why is a holdover from Prohibition puritans, and the fact that the gubment wants their cut. It was also illegal to homebrew beer until Jimmy Carter reversed that. It's a combination of "think of the children," and "pay the man."

It is very difficult to get enough methanol in home brew without doing it on purpose. Almost all methanol poisoning has been because a seller purposefully has mixed in methanol from factory distilleries. The methanol makes the brew appear stronger, and therefore gets a better price. If you don't know what you are doing, you usually get a very bad tasting brew that makes your stomack hurt. That's a good enough reason to learn the trade from someone who has a long track record.

A lot of countries prohibit home brewing, but not all. I live in one where it is illegal on paper, but the old traditions live strong. The alcohol laws are there to limit the health risks of too much alcohol abuse.

We have of course never brewed anything above the legal limits, and the strange apparatus in our basement is only for distilling water for chemical experiments and car radiators. Any of our relatives who all have similar pots and pipes in their basements are also only making very pure water. But if anyone would like to discuss the practical and chemical side of ethanol production, I'd be happy to have that discussion on a purely theoretical ground.

Fun fact: the part of Norway where my husband is from is well known for its abundance of mustaches and homemade "water" distilleries. According to our folklore, the best mustache = the best home brew. The local sheriffs usually win the mustache competitions.

johnny847

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #67 on: February 20, 2015, 10:29:42 AM »
Jeezus johnny, learn to accept that people like to make jokes.  Most people, actually.  My friend's dad was an alcoholic.  Does that mean that everytime someone jokes about being an alcoholic I should jump in and start recommending AA meetings?  Of course not, because I can recognize a joke.

And no, no one wants to have a meaningful discussion about suicide in a thread devoted to anti-mustachian alcohol spending.  If you want to start a separate thread about suicide, have at it.  You can even put NO JOKING ALLOWED in the title to make yourself fell better.
Trying to recognize whether something somebody, who I don't even know in real life, said in written form online is a joke or actually a serious statement is not the same thing as recognizing that somebody who you actually know is making a joke. If somebody I knew in person made the same joke that I got all riled up about, I'd be slightly concerned, and be on the lookout for future warning signs, but I'd pass it off as a joke so long as there weren't any other warning signs.

I understand nobody wants to mix up the topic of suicide in this thread. But you're twisting my meaning by taking two words out of my response to Kris in order to make your point. What I said earlier was "If you actually want to have a meaningful discussion about this topic, then don't just discard what I say without any thought whatsoever" [emphasis added]

I am certainly up for a meaningful discussion about suicide in another thread, and will gladly start one if anybody here actually wants to join in. I do not, however, get the vibe that anybody wants to do this, considering
This is the second time I've seen johnny847 go on a rampage and destroy a perfectly good discussion. I recommend not engaging him any further.
Ha!  Indeed, Solon. Indeed.
If I am mistaken about this, then please feel free to correct me and I will gladly start a new thread. And this will be my last post on the matter in this thread, unless I do end up starting a new thread and link it here.

UnleashHell

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #68 on: February 20, 2015, 01:19:57 PM »
Johnny....

if you have a drinking problem then I suggest that you please find help.

If you don't then please ask for help in finding your sense of humor and don't come on here chiding me about alcohol.

I like wine. I enjoy wine. Its something I drink and budget for and my use of it doesn't affect me or those around me. I have no idea why you start harping on about suicide and linking it to my comments about alcohol. If someone is thinking about suicide then you need to help them, not lecture me.

In the politest possible way, especially as (in your words) you don't know me in real life, go get a life instead of trolling me on here.

UnleashHell

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #69 on: February 20, 2015, 01:27:45 PM »
oh - and if you are serious then maybe you shouldn't be posting about the amount you spend on alcohol in a year when you had a friend commit suicide.

And if you are being entirely serious and literal (which you indicated earlier) then can I take this time to point out that if your friend has already committed suicide then its not exactly going to affect them is it?

dungoofed

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #70 on: February 20, 2015, 03:06:01 PM »

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #71 on: February 20, 2015, 03:56:12 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

UnleashHell

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #72 on: February 20, 2015, 04:21:45 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

enjoy. but don't tell anyone you are enjoying it in case a friend of someone you don't know gets upset by it.

Elliot

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #73 on: February 20, 2015, 05:00:43 PM »
We spend 50-75 a month. Can't stop, won't stop.

PEIslander

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #74 on: February 20, 2015, 05:08:08 PM »
I thought this was funny...


dungoofed

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #75 on: February 20, 2015, 05:14:21 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

enjoy. but don't tell anyone you are enjoying it in case a friend of someone you don't know gets upset by it.



lol dude I've got a whole bag of meme with your name on it.

Kris

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #76 on: February 20, 2015, 05:26:35 PM »
The best thing that could have happened to this thread was for it to end up as a meme repository.  At this point, I keep coming back just for the laffs.


Vertical Mode

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #77 on: February 20, 2015, 06:05:56 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

enjoy. but don't tell anyone you are enjoying it in case a friend of someone you don't know gets upset by it.



lol dude I've got a whole bag of meme with your name on it.

OT, but dungoofed - where the hell do you find these memes?! Keep 'em coming!

UnleashHell

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #78 on: February 20, 2015, 07:26:28 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

enjoy. but don't tell anyone you are enjoying it in case a friend of someone you don't know gets upset by it.



lol dude I've got a whole bag of meme with your name on it.


:D

That horse was drinking.

Financial.Velociraptor

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #79 on: February 20, 2015, 07:28:10 PM »


+1.

Time to end the suicide discussion. Nothing to be gained from arguing about this topic.

Back on topic, I bought an investment property today, so I will be spending much more than $9 this week in celebration. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

enjoy. but don't tell anyone you are enjoying it in case a friend of someone you don't know gets upset by it.



lol dude I've got a whole bag of meme with your name on it.


:D

That horse was drinking.

Nonsense.  The horse committed suicide because it ran out of liquor.

gimp

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #80 on: February 20, 2015, 07:29:51 PM »
On the subject of distillation, roughly speaking, what I've learned...

How it works: You start in a similar way to making beer: ferment something. Then you take your liquid-grain-pulp-etc mash, after it's fermented a bunch (let's say 10% alcohol) and you pour it into a distillation device, which is basically a pot with a tube on top, which might have stuff in the tube. Heat the bottom, slowly. Liquid comes out (say, 25% alcohol). Non-liquid remains. Keep the liquid, dump the wet remains (or turn it into bread, or feed it to pigs). Next, put the liquid back into your still. Again, heat it slowly. Collect the liquid in small bottles, swapping often. Methanol boils first. Then ethanol. Then higher alcohols (propanol, butanol, etc). The first and last bottles are terrible - mix them together and use them as industrial-strength cleaner, solvent, engine degreaser. The middle stuff is decent. You can take the middle stuff and run it through the still again and again, keeping the middle each time. Eventually - depending on your setup, it could be after the 2nd distillation (1st being 10% to 25%, for example), it could be after your 10th - you will like what you've distilled. You then either drink it, or age it, or infuse it, or distill it through botanicals (to make gin, absinthe, etc), or combinations of the above.

Quality: You don't pay taxes, so it might be cheaper, it might not. Regardless, you can make absolutely brutal cuts, meaning keeping only the best stuff. It would be very expensive for a commercial distillery to do this, so you can end up with vodka so good it tastes just like water. Or, you can fuck up, and leave in too much methanol, and poison yourself.

Dangers: One, you are dealing with aerosols / gases of extremely combustible material; two, you are dealing with poisonous material. Both can fuck you up.

Also: You don't pay taxes on this.

Those are three good reasons for home distillation to be illegal. Realistically, #3 gets you in serious shit - start selling home hooch and you'll be fucked by the law soon enough. #1 and #2 are the no-harm-no-foul reasons; if you do things right, and just give the stuff away, nobody really cares, unless you do something blatant like post the still for sale on craigslist...

Oh, and if you're thinking of aging liquor, it's very hard to do well on a small scale. Vodka? Easy. Ditto white rum, blanco tequila, white rye/bourbon, eau de vie (white brandies of grapes, or other fruit). Gin? Not bad. Absinthe? Okay. But if you want to keep stuff in barrels, you either use small barrels - which means your spirit is over-oaked but still young-tasting, in other words, unbalanced - or you use properly sized casks, which are expensive to fill (240 liters for a full hogshead). Not only that! Aging means angel's share; that is, some liquor leaks through the cask, some evaporates. A good distillery has a cooperage, where professionals deal with barrels; they ensure the angel's share is not too great. Doing it alone, eh, you're going to lose a lot. For example, bourbon might lose 5-10% a year, scotch 2%, rum or tequila might be 20%, doing it yourself you lose probably 50% per year which means three years later 240 theoretical liters are now only 30! Also, warehouses are better at storing the stuff, to ensure random barrels don't fail - you can spring a leak and have your liquor gone in a week if you don't notice. And they can naturally get high temperature swings on top levels, or they can do a good job of faking it with climate control, whereas you won't get those benefits. And they're insured against fire, theft, accidents. So people do age their own, but frankly it usually tastes kinda crappy. You have to create a mash bill that works very well with small casks and short aging periods. On the plus side, you get way more control in the spirit you make, if you know what's up.

Instead of distilling with heat, you could also freeze distill... that may work depending on what you're distilling, but it won't taste very neutral, and the astute among you would notice it doesn't do a very good job of separating heads and tails (methanol and higher alcohols) from the middle.

The shape of your still, and the number of times you distill, will depend on the type of spirit you want. Neutral spirit - whether grain or otherwise - loves column stills, which can spit out 90-95% pure ethanol with very little residual taste. Neutral grain spirits are usually the base of things like gin. On the other hand, aged spirits like various whiskeys should be done in a pot still, which spits out much lower proof with much more organic compounds - esthers, aromatics, etc - the stuff that smells and tastes like whisky without the oak. This stuff can be drunk without aging, or aged for a short while, or a long while if you have the money. You will note that the same base ingredient - grain, for example - can be distilled to be more neutral or less neutral. Same with sugar cane / molasses (rum), agave (mezcal/tequila), fruit (brandies). However, aging neutral stuff... will taste like ethanol and oak, usually, not a good combination.

You might also notice a lot of white whiskey on the shelves of a larger liquor store. This is because we have a lovely micro-distillery boom. We've never had more choice in the spirit we can buy. A micro distillery takes about a million dollars to start up and operate, but it needs cash flow soon after to sustain itself. Therefore, it produces vodka, gin, white rum, etc - stuff that can be sold without aging. It also produces white dog (white bourbon, rye, etc). A big distillery takes white dog and puts it in a barrel; a small one needs cash flow NOW so it will sell some of it to operate and age the rest. Hopefully several years later it has good aged product to sell. A lot of them also take short-cuts in bringing their spirit to market (small casks, pressurized liquor through oak, all sorts of "aging accelerator" bullshit), or buy from a contract distillery and market under their name. Hint to the wise: don't buy white dog at a store, it's a rip off, unless you want to support that distillery specifically. Also, a lot of big distilleries have jumped on the bandwagon - jack daniels sells a white rye for $40, the same price as their single barrel JD offering, which by the way is fantastic despite the jack daniels name and rather terrible quality of their standard lines. This is just a cheap way to get money from whiskey hipsters and ignorant people.

Hope that was interesting to folks.

DSKla

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #81 on: February 22, 2015, 11:34:47 AM »
Thanks gimp! That was awesome.

Louisiana has a law that says if there is an in-state product available, the casinos must buy at least 50% of their stock from an in-state producer. There were no distilleries in the state, but lots of casinos. So someone very smart smarted a rum distillery, and immediately had a very large, rich, captive market that was forced to buy their product right away in big quantities. Although I hear it's a pretty decent rum.

If some mustachian has a cool mil lying around and wanted to start a distillery, I'd recommend checking casino states for similar laws. Or go distill vodka in Louisiana. It's practically a can't-lose business.

Metta

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #82 on: February 22, 2015, 11:58:11 AM »
Hope that was interesting to folks.

Definitely!

MLKnits

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #83 on: February 22, 2015, 02:51:37 PM »
Trying to economize on alcohol tends to get me into trouble, as the cheapest* options are not exactly the most moderate--like, say, drinking straight vodka. The savings feel good, but the "does this count as questionable drinking behaviour?" nerves kind of ruin it.

But, I found a good option recently: there turns out to be a new small-chain burger joint a nice walk from my place that has cheap beer and offers a "small" (read: not ridiculously huge) burger for a very reasonable price. Makes for a perfect evening with a local buddy--dinner and a couple beers for under $12, and a nice brisk walk in the cold besides. Very pleased with this development!

*I 100% approve of Ontario's high liquor taxes, but they make beer or wine seem like a silly and wasteful option. I should keep an eye out for boxed wine, though.

mak1277

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #84 on: February 23, 2015, 09:06:16 AM »
I could cut down to $9 a month on liquor, but then life wouldn't be worth living, so nah.
You may want to rethink your life if you think your life isn't worth living without alcohol.

I did.
Its not.

my alcohol budget is closer to $90 a month.
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?

Perhaps if you had a drink you'd be less literal, and by extension less annoying.

zephyr911

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #85 on: February 23, 2015, 10:42:08 AM »
What I meant is...taken literally, you would kill yourself if you couldn't get alcohol?
Perhaps if you had a drink you'd be less literal, and by extension less annoying.
I'll drink to that.
I lost one of my best friends to suicide 2 years ago. Every now and then we remember him by having a shot of Jack and a shot of Stoli, just like he did on his last night. I don't know about all of you, and whom you've lost, but my departed friend in particular would want us all to laugh about it. He's gone, it can't be undone, and what's left for those of us here but to live well and strive for happiness?
One of his last posts on FB was that wonderful Bukowski quote: "We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing." Let's not be like that.

Miamoo

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #86 on: February 23, 2015, 11:09:50 AM »
My DH is now drinking Hamm's Beer (he likes it) and I am into Trade Joe's wine. We also think the bourbon at TJs is excellent.  It has been a journey/scientific experiment to see what we like and question our assumptions.  Currently, I consider a good month $50 on liquor. 

I am not going to tell you what the weather has been like on the Central Coast of CA. ;)  But guess what, I like to drink wine while I sit outside and watch the sun set, so the weather really doesn't impact this budget line item.


Wow.  I didn't know they even made Hamm's anymore.  Iggerint me.

zephyr911

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Re: Spending more than 9 bucks a month on liquor
« Reply #87 on: February 23, 2015, 02:05:56 PM »
On the subject of distillation, roughly speaking, what I've learned...

~~~~~~~~

Hope that was interesting to folks.
Yes, it sure was! And later today, I happened upon this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sungardas/2015/01/14/an-unexpected-source-of-innovation-throw-out-the-whiskey-barrel-youll-have-a-bottle-of-fun/

What do you think?

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!