I would stock a couple of whiskey stills and stock copper tubing. You could do much worse than making moonshine:
Gold is important and the future rich will be physical gold and other precious metal holders. Physical as in hand and available. Paper as in money will be worthless. Other metals such as platinum and silver will be worth their weight in gold also, but in my world, the person that can make good alcohol is going to be wealthy, as in well fed. The one thing worth more than gold, diamonds and silver will be a good stiff drink. That is when the SHTF…
This is true no matter where you live…
The one thing I have seen, from Vietnam (Budweiser was our god, when they air dropped pallets of beer) to America, to Mexico, to Canada, to Britain and all the way to Russia. That person that can pull out a jar of pure crystal clear moonshine, has any price he wants. I grew up with this fact and have watched such a phenomenon even in the Tiny Russian Village…
Most of the time it is bartering that gets the moonshine, but always the moonshiner gets something of value, and I have seen people trade weapons and ammunition for a gallon jug of moonshine…
We had jugs by the dozen in the basement of grandpa’s house…
My grandpa sold moonshine off the back of the wagon as we sold milk and eggs to the locals. That was the one substance I could not touch as a little kid. Grandpa would deal solely with people for the best moonshine around. Forget milk and eggs, moonshine rules the roost…
It dawned on me (When four and five years old,) that many people would take a drink of the hard stuff over food almost any day…
It is not hard to make moonshine, but it is hard and it is an art to make “good” moonshine…
How true:
In primitive society, man produced directly for the satisfaction of his own wants, but with the development of society came differentiation of function; exchange and barter arose, various trades sprang up, and with the necessity of commercial intercourse came the invention of money. – Charles A. Beard
Bartering is endless and priceless:
From the arrowhead maker for the village, the doctor who took chickens as payment and that babushka who makes the smoothest moonshine in the county. Bartering will always be there and if you make a product that is in demand, you will never starve…
That is all you should actually ask out of life….the rest is all trimmings on the windows…
WtR