Alcohol and Prepping

Distilling Plastic into fuel is the better option, as plastic has like 50,000 year shelf life and at any time can be converted back to its former self with ease

www.youtube.com...

Many simple ways, and many youtube links to help

Distilling Alcohol is just as simple, but can't easily be used as fuel in a real, no fuel to be had event, where plastic can

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

What a great thread. I don't know how I missed it.
Distilling would probably be the way to go.

Get enough booze so you and a few friends can stay drunk right through the SHTF time. Once you sober up you might find everything is back to normal again. Don't forget to have something to mix with that. A hundred cans of peanuts and maybe some tomato juice might be a good idea.

Why wait for the SHTF, it could be used instead of a vacation every year for practice, then restock it with the money you would have spent on the vacation.

Prep wise I think wine is bad because it's fragile and bulky and frankly I don't think wine drinkers are going to last as long as liquor drinkers when SHTF.

I suspect that a good buzz (Let's call that 4 ounces of whiskey) tonight will always be worth breakfast tomorrow to somebody. If that's true a gallon of whiskey is worth two meals a day for 16 days. Get a plastic half gallon off the bottom shelf for ten bucks and that's a week of food in your pack in a best case scenario. It doesn't appreciate in value, but it's not really an investment either.

But if you want to be a post apocalyptic entrepreneur, what you really want is something renewable. In the context of alcohol, yeast distilling equipment, and a recipe involving a locally available source of sugar or starch is my recommendation.

If you want to invest in something that will appreciate either way buy a barrel of crude oil.

a reply to: SPECULUM

Thanks! I bookmarked that vid. It wasn't too great at explaining what was going on, but it is an intriguing process. There will definitely be an abundance of plastic laying around! Sometime when I'm bored I'll do some research on exactly what that set-up entails and how it works.

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

Thanks for the reply. Not really interested in the high kind, not only cause I dont like to be high but because it would harder to defend in a post shtf scenario. I was thinking of growing it fresh every year.

Sugar wine (wine made with only water,sugar,and yeast) is fairly simple, and fermenting fruit juice works...as for something slightly more advanced rum is fairly easy and has minimal ingredients and investment

I tried to make booze out of coffee once. I made the coffee strong, added sugar and yeast, bottled it and stored it in a dark place. The bottle ended up almost exploding from gas build up. Not good lol. I caught it in time. The end result was quite nasty. I don't suggest doing it.

Come SHTF, we have a few income ideas for trade (after things have settled down some).

Tobacco - grow it, dry it, prep it
Corn - alcohol, biofuel
Water - well and rain catchment
Produce/Seeds - of course
Eggs/Chickens - sparingly
Home Canned Goods - sparingly
Fish and Game - prepared, preserved
Shoes/Leather Goods - made
Herbs/Herbal Medicines

SERVICES

Repair - leather, minor metal, etc.
Mechanic - auto
Seamstress
HAM Communication
Medical
Temporary lodging

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

Isopropyl for trade, Jack when there is nobody to trade it with. A distilling apparatus of one's own would be good if when the SHTF one could dwell for long enough...

Anyway....

Stock up on alcohol as a trade item. Go with distilled spirits.

And since you're planning to trade it away, get the cheapest grade possible. Customers won't be willing to pay a premium for quality when the world goes to hell. If a bottle of booze trades for 10 lb of flour, then nobody is going to give you double for a single malt scotch in a collector's tin.

It's a general rule of barter: quality will get lost in the shuffle. A gun is a gun, unless its loaded. booze = booze. Traders often lack any means of "making change." Even if they could make change with a few 22lr cartridges, they aren't about to tell you that.

Diamonds and other high end investments are terrible barter items. You'd have to be an expert to tell the real diamonds from clear quartz. And who can tell if that Elvis plate is truly an Franklin Mint original? But the basics, life flour, gasoline, cigarettes and chocolate, anybody can tell if those are good or not.

Things I stock up on for trade:
alcohol
bandages in sterile packaging
camp-stove fuel
dust masks
LPNG
adapters for LPG tank-to-camp-stove
kerosene
lanterns mantles
22lr ammo and 9mm ammo
feminine products
multivitimins
solar/ crank radios

Booze is terrible for peppers I find it only has a few days of shelf life in my house...