[inglor_cz]

The eastern part of Czechia (Moravia) plus Slovakia will distill anything that grows, too, and methanol poisonings are almost non-existent here. Don't underestimate centuries of tradition and know-how.

The only exception was a methanol affair 15 years ago, but that had nothing to do with home distillation. In that particular case, two bozos inspired by a badly understood Wikipedia article bought and mixed enormous amounts of industrial methanol with ethanol and sold the resulting mixture on the black market, killing dozens of people and triggering a temporary prohibition as the authorities scrambled to find all the poisoned booze.

They are now both serving life.

[ihalip]

Not underestimating, but I've seen first hand how these are made, from my uncles and neighbours as I'm from rural Romania. The equipment may not be clean, people tend to get drunk because QA is literally drinking it and that affects the next batch, the precursor fruits could be half rotten, etc. I appreciate homemade spirits because of the genuine taste, but be aware of the conditions they're made in.

[ciupicri]

> The equipment may not be clean

Same could be said about food: dishes, knives etc. Anyway the high temperature should kill some of the germs.

> the precursor fruits could be half rotten

So what?

[ciupicri]

It's the same in Romania. Basically there shouldn't be any issues with drinking home made alcohol, it's like eating a home made cake.

We also had some cases of crap being sold, but that's a different thing.