BOOZE as currency

[barnetmill]

Maybe a good way to look at your pears would be to juice some through a juicer and drop a tool in to measure the amount of sugar. It is a glass tube with a weight and scale that floats at different levels depending on specific gravity. If you have 7-9% sugar available, it should work good. When the fermentation is done, there gravity will show all the sugar consumed. I like champagne yeast for the ciders.

Yes that is what I recall people say for fermentation. It is called Brix. And from my reading the perry pear seem to be as you described for your small pear producing tree. I tried grafting perry grafting wood and while the grafts took, the resulting trees did not do well in northwest florida. Perhaps callery hybrid pears would work here. Florida is hard on many pears such as Bartlett. I have specific gulf coast cultivars that do well here.

[BadgerShooter]

I live in central Wisconsin so our climates are lots different. I grafted some cider apple trees and the deer got them all. Fenced the trees completely and mulched and the voles ate the bark off for the first 3 feet over the winter. Just got in from picking blueberries and waiting for tomatos to get ripe. Started a batch of cucumbers this morning for old style fermented dill pickles.

[Eddie Southgate]

Problem with a still is they throw you in jail for using one without the right paperwork, taxes paid, etc.

And a still has a particular smell to it, you can smell it a ways off.

Now up here in the north country, if you make a good fruit wine with plenty of sugar and distillers yeast, you can get alcohol up near 20%. Bottle it in reused 2 liter pop bottles, set it out on the porch on a -20 or colder night.

Next morning take anything that will run out (sugar and alcohol with some water)
You can leave half or more of the water behind.

Let it age for a couple of weeks and bottle it again.
I call it freeze brandy.

No smell, no hardware to find. You just have to keep quiet.

But then I'm also sitting on a few cases of very good burbon whiskey and a case of mixed vodka, rum, etc.
Just in case.

A shot or small bottle of good whiskey can make a great deal sweetener.

Your freeze method is called "Jacking" . Ever hear old folks talk about Apple Jack ? That's how it is made. When your cider goes hard you set it outside in freezing weather then pour the alcohol off and you have Apple Jack. Been a thing since man first figured out fruit juice made alcohol .