Fermenting and preserving at home is legal in South Africa without any licence. Selling the alcohol is not — that needs a manufacturing licence under the Liquor Products Act 60 of 1989 — and distilling spirits requires a still registered with SARS. We publish the first, and never the last.
The still room was the room in an old house where preserving, bottling, distilling and remedy-making all happened, usually in that order through a season. It is a better organising idea than four separate categories, because it is all one verb: taking what you produced and making it last.
It is also the pillar with the hardest legal line running through it, and we would rather state that on the way in than surprise you later.
Guides
Each one names its sources, and says plainly where a figure could not be sourced.
The Still Room
The ratio is simple and the method is forgiving. What is not forgiving is our summer — an inland South African January ferments a batch in half the time every recipe on the internet tells you.
The Still Room
Four hives, one harvest, and the most complete closed loop in these conditions. Also the point at which it is worth being very clear about what you may and may not sell.
The Still Room
Not a bunker. A deeper version of the cupboard you already have, sized by arithmetic rather than by anxiety, and rotated so nothing is ever thrown away.
The Still Room
A glut is a problem, not a triumph. Drying, bottling and fermenting are the three answers — and one of them has a hard safety line running through it that is worth understanding properly.
The other six
Nothing on a smallholding is a closed system. These are the pillars this one touches most.
The Dispatch
What we are building, what we have sourced, and what it costs — with the supplier named and the quote dated. No affiliate padding, no doom, no filler.
The list opens shortly — this form is not connected yet.