I've just taken my barrel of future kirsch to the distillery. It's its opening day of the season. Last went 3 years ago as there have been no cherries on my tree in the intervening years. The 6th generation is running it now, so you get a website with useful information about how to ferment your fruit properly. Distillerie de Julien Michel, accueil The good news is that my barrel is in fine fettle so I will be expecting about 7 litres of kirsch from it - 10 bottles @ 43%. Can't be bad. The other good news is that the guy said that boscop apples make very good apple eau de vie. I had heard that as cookers, they didn't. So when I get my barrel back, I'll fill it with apples for that seing as I have a treeful of them and there are only so many apple tarts I can make. Only prob is that the apples have to be either pressed or mashed up in some way, so I'll need to find another peasant establishment that has the right machine.
Do you pay tax - I guess that's a stupid question but I guess it's illegal to start your own distillery ? I was going to have a go at marrow rum
Bought a new Helmet this morning, 15% off in Fowlers. I went for a Shoei GT Air in matt black, it has the drop down tinted visor. I was going to get a Neotec but prefer the D ring fastening to the ratchet. They are selling off the XR1100 range greatly reduced price which I thought would be good with the photochromic pin lock but nothing my size even on order, loads of medium and large though. we went to the Bath Cats and Dogs home open day this afternoon, persisted down the entire time we were there. Such a shame as it is a major fund raiser for them and they get a lot of interest from people considering rehoming an animal. Compared to last year, which was dry and sunny, there were few people around.
This afternoon I have watched BSB, slept, ate a humongous bag of maltesers, pissed about on here and FB and I'm about eat my evening meal. A lovely day considering it's pissed down most of the day.
Good lid. Good colour choice. People of taste wear matt black GT's. They look the biz and so light you'll hardly know you're wearing it.
Yes, you have to pay tax on the alcohol. It's levied by a special government body (of course). TBH, if you want a big money saving, making your own kirsch really isn't it. By the time you've paid the gov't and the distillery for the job it's done the savings over buying the stuff from the supermarket aren't that huge. If you factor in all the time and effort, the savings are minuscule. But you could say much the same for making your own jam. But there is something very cool about having your own eau de vie from your own trees, and as the alternative is just to watch all the fruit rot, it feels almost essential to do it. And it is also cool to have peasant status: you pay less tax on the stuff if the fruit comes from your own trees. You'd have to be a bit of a nutter to buy the fruit from a supermarket to turn into eau de vie. Starting your own distillery would be a red-tape littered process, although you probably could if you were mad enough. As usual, homemade is better than the bought stuff.
I did do a label last time. Will probably just change the date on it. Bottles of kirsch make good gifts - don't know that I bothered for home consumption.
Yes. Most of it is barn (typical local farm construction). Most of that barn is very empty. You could build a couple more sizeable dwellings in it (if you had the money and wanted the neighbours).
