Moonshine, with the mods permission.

[AKScott]

My grandmother told me they had a somewhat simpler method for making applejack out of hard cider. This was of course in upstate New York, and would not work in more Southern climes. Put the hard cider in a large barrel out side on the (unheated, uncovered) porch. Make sure you have a lid on the barrel. Each morning, before the sun rises, go out on the porch and break the ice from the top of the barrel. Make sure to let the liquid drain off it back into the barrel and then throw the ice away. It's almost pure water, he alcohol and other flavorings don't freeze. When you get only a thin scum of ice, or slush mixed in with the rest of the liquid, that's as strong as it's likely to get. This will only take you to 40-50 proof, depending on how cold a winter you're having, but for very little effort and equipment, that's ok.

Under current US law this practice is still considered "concentrating alcohol", same as using a still to distill concentrated spirits from legally home produced beer, wine or hard cider.

I did put a bottle of hard cider I had made in the freezer once upon a time. I meant to open it in 20-30 minutes but something came up. When I did pour it about four hours later, most of the liquid stayed inside the bottle in the form of ice, buit that litttle bit I got out sure was tasty.

The grey zone there for BATF is intent.

If you have a 200 gallon tank of hard cider in the loft of your unheated barn, in Vermont, kind of looks intentional. If you got a piece of re-rod leaning on it for breaking up ice chunks, and some kind of basket on a stick to fish out the ice chunks, well, lemme tell you a little about your new cell mate...

If you have one bottle of hard cider in the freezer and have a receipt to show you just now got home from taking a kid to the ER four hours ago...