I well remember the wine-making years. MiL has never forgiven DBH for six bottles of exploding raspberry wine in the car on the way up the A1M. They thought they were under terrorist attack. 
(Ex RAF jitters!) But as I drenched my kitchen twice last year, with elderflower champagne, I am no better!
On the subject of exploding alcohol, does anybody remember ginger beer plants?
It was all the rage among my parents' friends when I was a child and one of their friends, who was Manager of the local Trustee Savings Bank used his strongroom to store his bottles in ( being cool and dark).
That was until the time the police called at his house above the bank in the middle of the night to say that there has been reports of the sound of gunfire in the vicinity of the back of the bank, or possibly dynamite(?) and they feared an attempted break-in. So Mr Walker in his PJs followed the police into the bank, down the stairs to the basement and (somewhat fearfully) unlocked the strongroom.
Only to find shards of glass everywhere and everything soaked in ginger beer!
Seemed! She is deceased (not killed by exploding ginger beer though!)
Agreed!
Alea How awful!
Yes, we too had a dreaded ginger beer plant, started in desperation by my mother one school summer holiday, she said it was cheaper than buying squash back then. It lived in the scullery, where it couldn't do too much damage, after it broke the kitchen window! I used to watch her halving the yeast and starting off another batch, but she also started off one to allow it to become alcoholic. To me it tasted vile, but the adults seemed to like it at summer lunch parties. 
She made it for years and years. It put us all right off gingerbeer for decades!
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