Every day at work I can look out my window and see the shores of Windsor, BC. On a good day, when I get to spend some time outdoors, and if the wind is blowing JUST the right heading, and the Hiram Walker distillery on the opposite bank of the Detroit River is off-gassing at the right stage of their liquor processing, I can smell some really nice results of the fermentation process.
I think that part of my inspiration for this experiment may have been the MANY barrels of various kinds of liquor that poured across the liquid (riverine) border with Canada during the years of Prohibition. There are may houses on the small rivers and canals in the areas in and surrounding Detroit which have basement boat bays that facilitated the smuggling of this precious commodity. The liquor was brought across on a boat, and left the building sometime later in a truck.
This summer I bought two whiskey barrel halves to use as planters in the back yard. The first one was a VERY well charred barrel that I purchased at the exchange. I left it in the back seat of my trucklet for a few days (because the bed was too full of other crap, mostly sporting equipment like softball gear and golf clubs), and the aroma of whiskey residue was quite pleasant.
Since I have wanted a backyard fish and turtle pond for some time, I decided to fill the barrel with water and buy a handful feeder fish to live in there for the summer. I think the barrel was a bit too charred and saturated with alcohol, because none of the 6 fish that I bought survived more than 3 days.
A few weeks later a bought a nicer quality (and much more expensive) barrel half at a local garden store. This one I also filled with water and threw in maybe a dozen fish. This time I think the problem was that the weather was too hot, and the poor things were getting boiled to death. I grabbed a few out before they expired, and put them in with the turtles in the basement.
There were three HUGE goldfish in there already, as goldfish tend to grow very quickly when you feed them turtle pellets. I gave one of the large guys to a colleague after her son's fish had died. For the first few days he (Fred) refused to eat the regular goldfish food. He probably thought that it was dust falling into his new, much smaller home........
I think that part of my inspiration for this experiment may have been the MANY barrels of various kinds of liquor that poured across the liquid (riverine) border with Canada during the years of Prohibition. There are may houses on the small rivers and canals in the areas in and surrounding Detroit which have basement boat bays that facilitated the smuggling of this precious commodity. The liquor was brought across on a boat, and left the building sometime later in a truck.
 |
| [borrowed from https://www.reuther.wayne.edu/files/images/27833.preview.jpg] |
This summer I bought two whiskey barrel halves to use as planters in the back yard. The first one was a VERY well charred barrel that I purchased at the exchange. I left it in the back seat of my trucklet for a few days (because the bed was too full of other crap, mostly sporting equipment like softball gear and golf clubs), and the aroma of whiskey residue was quite pleasant.
Since I have wanted a backyard fish and turtle pond for some time, I decided to fill the barrel with water and buy a handful feeder fish to live in there for the summer. I think the barrel was a bit too charred and saturated with alcohol, because none of the 6 fish that I bought survived more than 3 days.
A few weeks later a bought a nicer quality (and much more expensive) barrel half at a local garden store. This one I also filled with water and threw in maybe a dozen fish. This time I think the problem was that the weather was too hot, and the poor things were getting boiled to death. I grabbed a few out before they expired, and put them in with the turtles in the basement.
There were three HUGE goldfish in there already, as goldfish tend to grow very quickly when you feed them turtle pellets. I gave one of the large guys to a colleague after her son's fish had died. For the first few days he (Fred) refused to eat the regular goldfish food. He probably thought that it was dust falling into his new, much smaller home........
No comments:
Post a Comment