A very versatile liquid and one that I recommend we all have is alcohol. It can be bought now in shops but because of the exorbitant taxes put on it by our puritan government it is very expensive to buy. That state will only get worse until, like tobacco, it’ll mainly be bought from the back of a lorry from white van man.
Alcohol has many uses in survival starting with the obvious; getting drunk because you just lived through TEOTWAYKI and want to blot it out as well as, a more respectable, using it to soften the blow and make life more livable. I don’t drink but I can see the benefit of a drink after a hard day slogging in the fields.
It can also be used in a medical environment as an anaesthetic for some of the more major surgical procedures such as limb removal, being knocked out by drink is preferable to the pain of an operation and the alcohol doubles up as a antiseptic. All alcohols are poisons and thus they inhibit the growth of bacteria in and around wounds.
As a fuel it can be used to power cookers, lights and even vehicles. There are many lamps and cookers available now that can be fuelled by alcohol. Vehicles though are a slightly different matter as engines need modification to use alcohol and modern engines are too finely set up to burn that fuel. Like biodiesel older engines and industrial engines are best. Conversion kits can be purchased though which makes life easier.
All in all though buying expensive whisky and pouring it into your lamp is probably not very cost effective. You should keep that stuff for the drinking options. I’ve been looking around and there are many inexpensive kits for making raw alcohol. Sort out the ingredients and make them more sustainable and you can have a ready supply of alcohol suitable for fuel and antiseptic use straight away. It should be an option in your prepping toolkit.
If you do decide to make some drinkable stuff for personal use or barter you need to do a few more steps, nothing spectacular, but enough to distill out the main poisons and stop you going blind and dying which I’m sure you would agree is not a good way forward.
Whatever your requirements alcohol should be somewhere on your lists. Learn it while you can as it won’t be in the shops after an event and like many other things will be a great barter item.
apart from the odd glass of cider i have been teetotal for 13 years, the last thing i want is to be “blotto” when TSHTF, i think we need to be in control of our faculties for what we are about to face, although i can see the point in having a SMALL amount of alcohol for medical reasons.
A little nip now and again does no harm especially if one is a bit cold. Getting blotto serves no useful purpose in my book. For medicinal purposes and for fuel for cooking and or a bit of heating it would be first class.
I did manage to make a ‘burner’ out of a couple of fizzy drink cans and it works quite well using meths. Of course meths will run out eventually should all things go wonky. Some tips on where to get a bit of kit for small scale production would be much appreciated this end – especially for the burner.
Alcohol is a most versatile substance. It’s done wonders for me. The health-giving benefits are legendary.
Alcohol is reasonably easy to produce. Sugar can be used to produce it and used with a good turbo yeast it will produce a 20% spirit. Distil this to produce stronger alcohol. 20% Alcohol will produce many herbal tinctures. Now that my Computer is up and running again, I will now be able to con-tribute info to the forum. Another thought, A very good Spirit Hydrometer is necessary for measuring Alcoholic strength. Kenneth Eames.
A homemade still (or just about any bit of simple machinery) can be made from the kind of crap that’ll be lying around on the sides of roads after the SHTF, also bits of recently-redundant electrical equipment (due to EMP or outage) can be used (old washing machines, microwaves etc.) for various bits needed to fix most things.
Thanks for again making me aware of i hadnt considered.
I know how to make wine from just about anything, but I hadnt considered bothering with it as I am an Ex-alcoholic, so didnt really plan on having any around.
I had considered it for medical purposes and intended to just scavange for what I could once the alcohol wipes had run out.
I hadnt thought of actually using it as a fuel,
making a distillery would be pretty easy so it could be a long term fuel solution.
obviously not enough for heavy usage (unless you live near an orchard), but for many things it could be usefull.
I already have most of the parts needed for a still, and its only ilegal to have one , not ilegal to have the parts to build one.
by the time I need it , I assume there would be no laws to be breaking.
Soak white wood ash in alcohol until the mixture reaches a neutral PH. Sieve it through a j-cloth and then add it to used vegetable oil (used is better because it has a lower water content) at a ratio of approx 1:10 Mix well and leave it to stand until it has separated out into a layer of liquid with a layer of soapy solids beneath.
The liquid will serve as a very unstable veggie diesel (use it up fast) while the soap can be pressed into bars and dried. Make sure you strain all the solids out properly or you’ll end up standing by the roadside scratching your head as to how to flush out your injectors.