Chemistry lessons in rural Java (Indonesia)

I was with a newfound friend at a shopping mall in Surakarta. We had met earlier at a tourism conference and decided to skip some dull sessions for an adventure. My friend was from Jakarta and was talking about  how connected young Indonesians are on social media. To demonstrate, she posted a message on Twitter asking the locals to recommend something interesting for us to see. Soon, two local teens, her fans, showed up at the mall on motorbikes. They promised to show us something interesting.

We rode with them outside the town for about 30 minutes. We ended up at a setup that felt like it was hurriedly put up. It was like the houses around - made of wood with a sloping ceiling but larger. Our guides told us that what we were seeing was technically illegal but there are many such factories in the surrounding villages. It was a local alcohol brewing setup. I was worried that the owner, an elderly lady, might not be happy with a foreigner randomly showing up. However, she was eager to show me around, with the only condition being that we do not take photos of her or her staff. We were allowed to photograph the equipment. We suspected her operation was illegal.

To thank her, I bought a small bottle of her home-brew. Back at the hotel, when the manager saw the bottle, he immediately knew where I had been. He joked that the stuff was so potent it could drive a space rocket.