The Blue Flame

The Blue Flame. http://www.aramco-brats.com/museum/bf_toc.htm

Lets talk about opportunity. Some say that one must make their own opportunities. Luck happens when opportunity meets preparation. Blaze your own path. A cursory glance at some of the most successful entrepreneurs says that It needn't be legal. There is a dividing line between illegal and immoral. Joe Kennedy earned the money to start his banking empire through boot-legging. Richard Branson, owner or the Virgin Group, made his initial nestegg by employing a scheme to avoid paying tax on popular records. He almost went to jail for it. Most of us have seen opportunities in our lives but I wonder how many of us, for various reasons, failed to grasp at them. Therein lies the dilemma. How much risk are you willing to accept measured against the gain. This is a personal choice.

I fell into Opportunities for easy money three times in my life. Once in Vietnam, Once in Florida, Once in Saudi Arabia. All were illegal. I took advantage of all three of them. Let me describe the opportunity in Saudi Arabia, and before you begin moralizing hear my story and ask yourself if you would have done the same thing.

One day while working as an avionics technician in Saudi Arabia, my boss approached me and asked if I would like to make an extra $50 per week. That evening he introduced me to his still, which was set up in his villa and adjoining shed. For my $50 per week I humped and mixed 100lb sacks of sugar, 5 boxes of bakers yeast, 5 cans of calgon water softener into 4 300 gallon fiberglass vats. Each of these vats produced about 30 gallons of 190 proof alcohol per week. In those weeks I learned how to maintain and operate a still that produced large qualities of high quality drinking alcohol. The way we measured the proof for instance was to measure so many milliliters of product into a saucer, put a match to it, watch the pretty blue flame until it died and then measure what was left over. I should have paid him.

Before the fall of the Shaw and the Revolution in Iran things in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia , were pretty lax. The politicians were in control. Oil Production had brought high rise apartments and shopping centers offering the best of what New York and Paris had to offer. They imported Americans and European expatriates in huge numbers to maintain technology they could now well afford but not maintain. There were roof top parties nightly in Jeddah, where I lived where alcohol flowed freely. Most of the alcohol consumed there was a home brew locally called Sadiki which is Arabic for 'friend'. The risk was low. The water and electricity supplied with the villa. I heard OPPORTUNITY loudly KNOCKING!

When it presented itself 6 months later I paid $5000 cash for a stil which I installed in my villa and ran 24/7 pumping out 30 gallons of ethel alcohol a week. I sold it wholesale in 5 gallon water jugs. The materials cost me $400 per month and for the better part of a year I was grossing $6000 per month. This was not rot-gut alcohol. I followed the rules set out by Aramco Chemical Engineers in a book called the Blue Flame. The Blue flame outlined the exact procedure for turning the fermented "beer" in the vats into Sadiki. The process involved cooking the mash 4 times in specially designed and constructed stainless steel vats. These vats were built in the hangars of Saudi Arabian Airlines by American aircraft mechanics. The copper piping was all silver soldered. For a condenser the radiator from a '57 Chevy was especially valued because it was also silver soldered. I had an electric pump to pump the beer into the first run vats. I cooked the first and second of 4 runs in these vats in one room and the 3rd and 4th run in two other vats setup in a bathroom. We would cook the brew to progressively lower temperatures. This method alleviated the necessity of a 30' stack with obvious implications. The wastage from the 3rd and 4Th runs was almost entirely methyl alcohol and highly flammable. I used it for charcoal starter. When I bought the still the seller insisted that I also buy his fire extinguisher. Glad I did but that's another story. It is surprising discovering hidden talents and capabilities while in pursuit of your own dream. Opportunities grasped present benefits beyond mere money.

Before I sold my still for $5000 cash just after the Iranian Revolution I had saved $40k in just under a year.It was 1978. I went home on vacation and squandered $5000 for kicks. I bought new tires and fancy wheels for my van. The money was, pun intended, intoxicating.

So I made a lot of booze in Saudi Arabia. Illegal? Yes. Enforced? No. Not before the Revolution. OPPORTUNITY! I took my gains and spent $15000 on a commercial Cropduster pilot license. I eventually went on to multi-engine charter work and some of the most satisfying and rewarding work I had ever experienced. If it hadn't been for that easy money I would never had been able to make my dream materialize in the short period of time that it did. Hey! Just like Joe and Richard.

I presented you with a description of an opportunity that came my way. You learned how to make good drinking alcohol and charcoal starter. I saw opportunity, weighed the risk and consequences, and then acted upon it. Would you have done the same?