wine an rakia making in bulgaria

[Bjm]

hi,
while living in bulgaria, we had so many grapes that we could not possibly use them, so i got some advice of the locals with what to do with them, as follows.
obtain in our case 4* 45 gallon drums and pick the grapes and put them in the drums three quaters full. (note that the grapes are not sorted, good ones,bad ones,stalks the lot went in) water was then put in to just cover the grapes.
the lid was put on loosely and the whole lot was left in in a dark ish barn.
nothing was added, the grapes were not crushed. around five days later i went into the barn to see large amounts of purple froth down the sides of the drums.
this was fine,i could stair it and when it stopped frothing,around 3 weeks later we were told we could bottle it. and it would keep just fine.
as you can imagine we ran out of glass bottles and used plastic ones.

well it never stopped there, we made nearly two full drums of what was left over, just what i thought was waste.
this was taken to my mates house where he had a large copper still.
it was in 2 bits big enough for me to hide in, it sat on blocks where i fire would be lit under it ,my drums of waste were put in then the top was placed on and sealed with strips of material covered in mud.
the top of the still finished into a point or spout, this was connected to around 3 metres of flexable coiled copper tube that sat in a trough of water where there was a tap at the bottom and a hose pipe over the top. the copper pipe left this and stopped with a tap on the end around 2 feet of the ground, with a 2 litre plastic bottle underneath.
a gentle fire was lit and kept going at a steady pace while we talked and drunk each others health.the mud seal was checked for leaks then after around 20 miniutes the tap on the copper pipe was checked for steam, then around every 5 miniutes after that. after 40 miniutes or so the it would steam like a gooden and the cold water hose turned on, also the tap on the bottom of the trough was opened and that water ran into his garden to water the veg patch. a few miniutes later the copper pipe tap was opened and a clear liquid came out in a slow trickle, two two litre bottles were filled, then the gallon bottles came out to be filled.with a glass each to try, lol
we were told that that we could not drink the two litre bottles as they would contain pure spirit,that will be used for other things but would make us go blind if drunk it.
after cleaning up, and drinking loads we ended up with 7 gallons of rakia. in each gallon container a debarked 6 inch piece of stick was placed inside. i was told as the rakia matures the stick would give it colour, the darker it got the mellower it would be.
they would make it this year for drinking next.
what a good way to spend an afternoon, and no tax to pay!