Many years ago I made a barrel of hard cider.
Apple cider, raisins, yeast, sugar, as I recall, in an old whiskey barrel. Set it up with a cork in the top and a tube into a bucket of water to keep air out.
It started fermenting too fast and become effervescent.
I don’t know what the alcohol content was. But after drinking a large glass it was the first time in my life I fell asleep sitting up in a chair.
It tasted horrible but I kept sampling it just in case...
;-)
LOL!
One year my brother and his wife gave me a wine-making kit. I was very exact and sterile and everything, and thought I had done well. Maybe I did too well.
That wine was so strong, it gave me the first and only real hangover that I’ve ever had - horrible headache, the morning after our, um, ‘tasting’. My SIL said it was like port.
I haven’t made wine again ;-)
I’d like to make beer,though...
“...made a barrel of hard cider...”
Great story! In rural upstate New York the family farmsteads almost always grew apple orchards - mostly so they could make their hard cider to get through the winter! I don’t “partake” myself, however a good glass of fresh cider is so good.