Maybe Louisiana has different laws, but distilling alcohol without a license is illegal in every other state. Even if it is for "fuel".
shareIt's kinda like shows that show someone smoking crack or shooting up.. How do these people not get in legal trouble?
share[deleted]
We distilled alcohol in 9th grade science class for educational purposes. I'm sure the Discovery Channel can get away with it in the course of filming a TV show.
shareThis, basically. I'm sure for educational purposes they aren't about to unleash the ATF BECAUSE A BIT OF ETHANOL WAS MADE OH MY GOD. I'm sure you could twist the laws around and half the stuff the mythbusters did was 'illegal' in a few states.
shareDiscovery probably bought a license. Then again, he may have not been actually making it. The production team probably told him to go through the steps without actually making it. Once it was "made" they could have easily used real AV Gas for the "airplane" motor. Real aviation motors use 100 Octane leaded gas, not bio-diesel...There is one plane that I have heard of that runs on diesel and it's used in airshows.
Dreammaker182
alcohol isn't bio-diesel and it can be used to run a little piston engine like they had.
shareThe engine was supposed to be an aircraft engine from a crash site where they also used the tail of the plane for the wind mill and the flaps for rudders on the fan boat. I thought they were going to mix the alcohol with animal fat converting it to a diesel like fuel. Oh well.
Dreammaker182
Okay, so you weren't paying strict attention.
Fight the FOCA
I'm convinced the distilled fuel didn't end up working in the end so they 'planted' the gasoline in the invader's camp as a cheap way to get them the fuel.
shareIt didn't have to work if it was never made! I think that production probably swapped his moonshine still for real gas once they were convinced he was capable of making the real thing. Also, you can smell a still in operation from a distance... The community around the shoot site may have taken notice to it. When you look at the site from satellite you can see that they are less than a mile from civilization.
Dreammaker182
[deleted]
You can get a license to distill, and it's possible the show obtained one to do this.
However if you want a more nit picky issue, there's no way he was getting all that alcohol from his wort.
The show mentioned it would need about 2 weeks for a good brew, and that's true, that's a common brewing time for homemade alcohol. However they mention he pulled the plug on his brewing and began distilling after only 5 days. Very little alcohol would have been made. And the way they show it shows him doing a one time distillation, but with so little alcohol, he'd have to do it multiple times. And never get very much from it.