I do think something can be said to effort put in vs what you get however - I've enjoyed some very good beer that took a little bit more work than letting some grain lying around ferment. Of course, on the other hand, plenty of beers are brewed in Belgium using essentially that method, so it all comes down to one's taste I suppose.
> I expelled all my breath and sucked down another glass. Vinegary, yeasty, with a rusty shank of an aftertaste. I was feeling a slight buzz, but I didn’t think I could stomach another glass. It was booze all right, but two glasses was my non-incarcerated limit.
I had expected your link to be the classic Steve, Don't Eat It! Prison wine story. So here is the obligatory link to that: http://www.thesneeze.com/2005/steve-dont-eat-it-vol-8.php
We go to great lengths to keep our fruit juices from fermenting. In fact, non-fermented juice is a relatively recent invention in human history.
Take some decent apple juice without preservatives. Add a bit of yeast; baking yeast for bread at the supermarket will do just fine. Observe basic sanitation principles. Add some sugar, perhaps 150 g per litre of juice. Leave the concoction in a cool, dry place for a few months. A one-way seal for the CO2 release is preferable (a balloon works) but is not strictly required; leave the cap on loose. Carefully pour off the result into a new vessel. Let this settle for another month.
A very palatable drink results at about 4 - 5% alcohol by volume. People figured this out thousands of years ago. And they did not have plastic bottles, germ theory, or infinite hot water on tap. It's trivial to make an alcoholic beverage. The rest is finesse. And posturing.