You may recall from my story Brothers, that Bill and Aiko are brothers. Well not blood brothers, but brothers none the less. So Aiko's libations sorta includes both he and Bill but Aiko mostly, so let me tell you what Budro "tolt" me about Aiko.
Seems both brothers enlisted in the Merchant Marine during World War II, cuz dey was too young for the Navy. But really too young anyway. They were sixteen, but did not look like chillen, so this is when both leaned manly ways. But Aiko he learn't how to make libations.
Take the torpedo juice for instance. For those of you who have been on a submarine, you know the early ones were rather cramped. Well so were the Merchant Marine ships of World War II. The reason for mentioning submarines is to give you a clue about the word torpedo. Now that thang was propelled out of a tube and carried a really big wallop when it hit sumpin. So did torpedo juice and the name had its origin with the Merchant Marine, not the Navy. It consists of juice concentrate and a few ounces of pure grain alcohol. Juice concentrate was carried onboard frozen, then diluted with water. But torpedo juice is the frozen concentrate, about a glass full, topped with a few ounces of pure grain alcohol. Yup it carried a wallop. Sho made yo head ring the next morn too.
Guess that was the last time for torpedo juice, when Aiko and Bill mustered out of the Merchant Marine. More precisely, they were let out. Seems after a year at sea, their "young age" caught up with dem.
The call of the wild rang out on their eighteenth birthdays and off to Alaska to be ax men. You know cut those tall trees, make plenty of money and have some fun too. Dey worked eighteen hour days and at the end of seven had three days off. Problem was the nearest town would take three days to travel to and fro, so they stayed in the ice caves playing cards and drinking red eye whiskey. Now sum o you folk have probably drunk moonshine. It too carry's a wallop, but red eye whiskey, well it will melt your socks if you are not on the move consistently.
Red eye is distilled in small batches in the tradition of early pioneers. With its rich mahogany color and smoky, woody flavors with hints of vanilla and caramel, bourbon is the only whiskey in the world that can truly be called American. Red eye being a bourbon, was available to the ax men. It contained a considerably higher percentage of corn than 51 percent, was distilled at 180 proof (90 percent alcohol), aged for 15 years in new American white oak barrels that have been charred on the inside and were kept at room temperature. Nothing was added. The red color was natural.
Bill and Aiko not only saved plenty of money from their work, but made a killin' playin cards. So much money in fact that when dey left Alaska after 10 years, dey brought a railroad, filled 115 box cars with red eye whiskey and made way to where dey live now, near Mobile, Alabama where dey started farming.
Dey whiskey is buried all over the farm, which consists of 1,400 acres and only they have the map and know where all 14,620 barrels are to be found. Well not quite that many today. Dey dig up one barrel a year and in one sit-in' drink every drop with Budro as their guest. Talk about a rough head weeks later.
Not being gluttons for drinkin' the hard stuff, Aiko and Bill took to makin' home brew beer which they consume in modest quantities the rest of the year. Each tried to out do the other, with new recopies and methods of making beer, until one fateful day when Aiko had the "fear."
Aiko had made a particularly large batch of home brew. So large in fact that sixteen cases had to be put behind the Ben Franklin stove in the kitchen, the other half placed in six older ice boxes in his two car garage. The winter was really, really cold and the stove was kept in almost constant use. Aiko was awakened early one morning by a horrific explosion. Seems all that heat over activated the sixteen cases of home brew in back of the Ben Franklin. The smell was so bad, that he ate over at Bill's for the remainder of the winter until his kitchen was rebuilt.
He completely forgot about the remaining home brew in his two car garage until one night while over at Bills. In case I forgot to tell ya, they lived next door to each other. In the still of the night a rifle shot rings out. Naw it was a bottle of home brew blowing up. One by one, until a crescendo like the forth of July. Those bottles of home brew exploded for seven days and nights. Then a couple of months later, the garage door was opened.
Now if you have ever smelled crab and shrimp shells rotting' in the hot summer sun, you know a smell which will make you run til you heart stops, yo legs will not go further, or yo head explodes because of the smell.
Well a garage of exploded home brew smell so much worse. They buried an almost new Caddy, Rolls and the ice boxes. Tore down the garage and house too. Moved seven miles up wind later that year.
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