[mtgp1000]

I had no idea that all those stereotypes about moonshine turning people blind and/or crazy were real - I guess methanol alcohol was a common enough contaminant in bootleg alcohol during prohibition. And wherever they make moonshine these days, though I imagine even backwoods people are wiser these days.

Edit: it's complicated: https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/alcohol-history/prohibit...

[082349872349872]

Distillation is a way for farmers to transform crops into a denser form with arbitrary shelf life. This means that if they think local spot markets are offering a raw deal, they have the options of both temporal and spatial arbitrage.

In my country, people with stills on trailers often come around to villages to help the farmers with excess crops, and home distillation is legal. I haven't heard of problems with CH₃OH.

Even in russia distillation has been legal for all of this century. I would not be surprised if a fair amount of the booze mentioned in "Выпил С2H5OH / Сел на «Ниву» Ростсельмаш" was homemade. (who needs a fancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency when one can express appreciation for favours in bottles?)

For that matter, in china, 白酒 is discouraged but legal.

Anyone know what the north korean line may be? If they're a repressive state on the order of iran or the soviet union, they might ban home distillation.

(Bonus tracks from "Darkside of The Moonshine": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLMsvaRWhY )