Moonshine is not a type of liquor, it’s a catch-all term for any spirit that has been made illegally or by using a backyard still. Whiskey, rum, brandy, vodka are all commonly referred to as moonshine if they meet the basic requirement that they are made by some guy in his backyard. People think of moonshine and 90% alcohol comes to mind (also its terrible taste). It’s true, what comes out of our still is that strong, but we pay close attention to taste and fermentation. We water it down and charcoal filter it. Finally, we age with fresh fruit and toasted oak chips to give it flavour. It doesn’t taste like a commercial product. It tastes more personal and not as neatly categorized as liquor store aisles.
The process of making liquor is a little like alchemy. The whole thing is a steam punk’s wet dream. Huge copper containers with pipe and hose jetting out every which way, steam flowing through the pipes and, somehow, dripping out pure alcohol. In actuality, it’s science 101. The entire process is based simply around the idea that alcohol and water have different boiling temperatures. We make a wine, heat it up enough to turn the alcohol into vapors and then turn the vapors back into liquid. That’s it, the rest is details.
Distilling is slow. I get up at six in the morning to turn everything on and I finish around nine in the evening. The day set aside for distilling is a sort of forced leisure, where all I can do is sit around and slowly watch alcohol accumulate drip by drip. The whole process could be an art history diagram to explain minimalism; we’re getting down to the essence of something, stripping away all the unnecessary to get to the pure form. It exists in accordance with my own life in that I need a device like this to allow leisure. I wouldn’t set aside an entire day to slow down if it was not for distilling.
We always intended this as an artwork before we started. We are not interested in the artisan craft of the distilling process, although, we have been doing it for a year and after drinking many of our “artworks” we have become significantly more concerned with the craft. Our upcoming exhibition “The Secrets of Building an Alcohol Producing Still” will bring our still to a local gallery and to ignite this project in a public and critical setting.
The Everything Co. is a collaborative art project started in Montreal. We are interested in the dichotomy of work and leisure; we see all art as a playful process of work. For now, our identities must remain anonymous because the nature of our current artwork is illegal.
The Everything Co. will be holding 12 speakeasies throughout the city at various locations in coming months. Please email everythingcothe@gmail.com to get on the mailing list and be informed of these upcoming events!