Chapter 50

I pulled up my list of recipes for liquor from the 1700s to check them out again. Some were no more than flavorings for after the liquor was produced. A few were manufacturing recipes and those were where my interest lay. I decided on the next one to make, then I made a journal entry and went to bed.

When I awoke the next morning, I did my morning ritual before I left the house. I had two stops to make before breakfast. First was the local big box store. From them I bought four pints of molasses. From there it was just across the street to a chain grocery store where I bought exactly the same thing. Then I headed off to breakfast.

"Good morning Lucy," the waitress said as I seated myself. "You want your usual?"

"Sure why not," I said I had no idea what the usual might be, so it didn't matter. When the food came, I found that my regular was scrambled eggs with sausage. It was very good, so I knew why it was my regular. It was delicious.

When I passed a small discount store in one of those strip shopping centers, I bought the final four pints of molasses. With my new ingredient in hand, I made for the office. I found my recipe in the journal along with the explanation for the recipe.

It seems that late 1700's in Georgia refined sugar was not easy to come by, but the plantations could boil their on sugar cane to make molasses. So when the growing season ended the plantations had a surplus of molasses and corn. The plantation owners, who wrote the recipe, used the surplus corn and molasses to make a liquor to sell to the pubs as far north as Massachusetts.

It was that recipe I planned to use for my second batch of liquor. I was reasonably sure that I had the proportions right, so I began to make the mash. I added three pounds of corn, to three gallons of bottled water and 6 pints of molasses to each of my five gallon buckets of mash. The combination made about four gallons in each bucket. Once I added the two onces of yeast to each of the mash buckets I closed them into the bathroom and turned the exhaust fan on high.

Since I had used the coffee grinder to grind my own meal from the corn I bought as deer feed, there was no one to be suspicious. The fermenting smell was my biggest concern. If the last time was any indication, the smell was not so great as to be a real problem. At least I hoped not. In the back of my mind I was wondering about making bigger batches of liquor, but first I had to find out if it was worthwhile.

The plan was to make this batch and compare the two. If I couldn't make a better liquor than the moonshiners, then there was no need to continue. The risk and rewards were just not balanced in my favor with ordinary moonshine.

I had turned the phone off while I mixed the mash so for most of the day I was out of touch. The mash was in the buckets and tucked safely into the bathroom when I turned the phone on again. I did not expect the number of messages in my message box.

Since half at least were from Royce, I checked the computer to be sure, then called. "So partner, what's up?" I asked.

"I thought you were going to take the calls this week?" he asked.

"Not today, today I have been taking care of my personal issues. I can probably help you tomorrow, but we only have one phone with that number, you will have to drop it off at my place."

"At the condo or the office?" he asked.

"At the condo, I might be selling the office."

"Geese Lucy, you just bought it a few months ago." he suggested.

"Actually it was more like a year ago. To be honest it's just in the maybe stage right now," I admitted. "So meet me at the condo in an hour. Stop by and pick up another cell phone and activate it. I can keep a schedule for you and call you with the pick up and delivery information as you need it. You did find a cheap GPS thing didn't you?" I asked.

"Yes and those things are really worth every penny you spent on it," he said with a laugh.

"Right, get back to work. I will see you at the condo," I said. I called a couple of other people who seemed to be important, but weren't. Finally I found the message from Jason. It took me a few minutes to find him in the index. When I did, I wasn't sure how I felt about calling him back. I decided that I should call him.

"2nd Chance Consignment and Thrift shop," the female voice said.

"Hello, this is Lucy Avery, Jason called me," I said. I hoped that the voice on the phone belonged to his wife Marie.

"Oh yes Lucy, do you have any idea how popular you were at our party?" she asked.

"Since I haven't heard from anyone I thought I must not have been popular at all," I admitted.

"Oh no, the contrary was the case. We didn't call, so that you would have time to process the events of that night," she said.

"And for my body to heal," I suggested. I was madly checking my notes while she talked.

"That too I admit," she said.

"So what can I do for you?" I asked.

"I was hoping that you wouldn't see it as doing it for us. There is another party, but it isn't at our house. We were all hoping that you would come," Marie said.

"When is it?" I asked.

"Saturday evening," she said simply.

"I will let you know before then," I said.

"Very well, and by the way it's a pool party but you won't need a bikini," she said.