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   Fesshole 🧻 (fesshole@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-May-2026 21:24:12 JST Fesshole 🧻

   My father did house and office clearances. He got a whole bunch of chemistry kit and we built a still in our shed. We distilled spirits from wine, beer, and cider every year. I am confident that if we hadn't broken the law a little bit I'd not be research chemist now.

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     John Maxwell (jmax@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-May-2026 00:43:32 JST John Maxwell

     in reply to

     @fesshole My high school advanced chemistry teacher had us make rum as a class project.
     (We must call it rum, because the starting point was molasses. In retrospect, the end point was more rotgut than rum.)
     You never saw 18 teenagers so motivated. When all was said and done, our net output was maybe 20cc of ethanol.

     Class: "Awww!"
     Teacher: "Have I tought you enough to have calculated your yield back when we started a few weeks ago?"
     Class (reluctantly): "Yeah."

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     lemgandi (lemgandi@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-May-2026 03:20:16 JST lemgandi

     in reply to

     @fesshole Whoa. I brew beer at home, but that's more biology than chemistry.

     You can't make unsafe beer. Nasty, yes, but never dangerous. A home still, however, can produce a toxic product. Plus, if the Law finds you in America, they will put you ** under ** the jail.

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     acb (acb@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-May-2026 07:51:10 JST acb

     in reply to

     @fesshole I suspect that’s a typical research chemist origin story.