Rocket scientist by trade, mathematician by training, teacher by vocation ... moonshiner by genetics.
Sugar, corn, and water are easy to find - that is why we had the whiskey rebellion.
I was talking more about the materials for the actual still. Copper tubing and fittings and such.
Lead poisoning killed my ‘shiner grandaddy back in the 30s.
He *almost* made it across Rattle Run and into PA but the bullet was quicker than him.
Right in the back, all because there were no jobs and he had a wife and 3 kids to feed, one of whom had a heart defect.
She dropped dead in the farm lane a few years later.
[ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ about the ‘genetics’ of the family]
:)