Apple... Jack...

Those two words bring me back to an Ozzy Osborne concert in Frankfurt, oh, about April, 1986.

What also comes to mind is the fact that after seeing a great show and drinking a bottle and a half of the stuff, I fell asleep/passed out on the train, missed my stop in Ansbach and woke up in Munich with no cash, no prospect of getting any and a 180 kilometer trip home.

My two travel companions, Chuck Stover and Steve LaPrad decided to get on the northbound train sans ticket. I chose to avoid the prospect of a call to my commanding officer and thumbed a ride back to the barracks. Six hours, and four very nice German drivers later, I arrived back with nothing more than a wicked hangover and the Beatle's "Shout" (in German) playing over and over in my head (ala, driver no. 3).

The lesson was learned, i.e. never drink Apple Jack at 2 a.m. on a train after seeing Ozzy.

That having been said, we've got an apple tree that is just bursting with newly ripened apples and we need to do something with them. Too many to eat and too many to throw out; if we don't pick them the bears will come down out of the mountains and eat them.


Apple Jack, bad... bears, worse.

It takes a year to make good apple jack, but only a couple of hours to chop up some apples and put them in a carbouy.



Let the fermentation begin!!!