MUGI – My Unique Gift Idea

It wasn’t long ago that I noticed that buying a $15 bottle of wine for Friday night Sabbath dinner began costing me about $60 a month, which is more than my cell phone bill. “How do they make this stuff anyway?” I’d always asked myself. I knew it had something to do with yeast, but where do you get yeast from? Yes, I know it’s in the air and all over the place, but seriously. How do you catch the stuff? And who suddenly decided that it would be a good idea to put yeast in grape juice and see what happens, especially after it tasted a lot different and made you dizzy and uncoordinated? He must have been one of those bored highschooler types with a fascination with chemistry sets.

Whoever discovered this must have been really annoyed that patent law didn’t exist yet, or else he’d be really rich, and probably be able to afford $60 a month on a wine budget. In the meantime, here’s a nice idea for those guys who are brave enough to put their own yeast in their own grape juice and save some money.

Wine-Making Kits. Checking this thing out, I discovered that yeast is not the only thing involved here. There is also something called “yeast nutrient” which…nutrifies the yeast in some way so it’s healthy and strong and all the more anxious to spit out millions of molecules of alcohol as it is anaerobically respiring. There’s also “yeast energizer” which is like PCP for yeast, and is probably highly addictive for them, so before you use it on them, think about the children, because yeast don’t have the mental capacity to “just say no.”

Of course I’m joking. I’m really not sure what it is. I just know it’s included in the kit, and that it is an illegal performance enhancer that is banned by the Olympic Yeast Commission. Also included is “wine tannin,” “pectic enzyme,” and “campden tablets.” Let me tell you this: if the original genius who discovered wine had to worry about all this stuff, he would have never invented wine.

For those seriously interested, it’s a fun adventure. Here’s an introduction about the kits.