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What Is Moonshine?
If it shed any light on the subject at all — and it doesn’t remotely — I might be tempted to elaborate on the actual term “moonshine,” and where it originated (i.e., rural England, circa 1780), when country smugglers hid illicit barrels of French brandy in shallow ponds to avoid the taxman, but were discovered one fated summer night, when the moon shone down so brightly on the surface of the pond that it looked as if a wheel of cheese were floating there. These bootleggers told the taxmen that they were raking the water not for contraband but for a creamy piece of that cheese.
This, however, is all rumor and rodomontade, easily sliced with an investigative blade. It is in any case generally agreed that the term “moonshine” comes from the term “moonraker,” which indeed comes from this legend.
It is also generally agreed that moonshine — or white-lightning, if you prefer, or white-whiskey, or mountain dew — entered America in the early 1800s, when Scots-Irish immigrants, who back home often made their whiskey without aging it, began settling the Appalachian region of America.
Still, the question remains: if many vodkas are essentially white whiskies, and if many whiskies made of corn mash are not moonshine, what, in the final analysis, is the distinguishing characteristic of moonshine?
The answer, it turns out, is this: illegality.
Moonshine, notorious for its high proof — frequently hovering around 190 (yowza!) — is any distilled spirit concocted in an unlicensed still. That includes so-called splo, or bathtub gin, or the harrowing hooch cooked up by your next of kin.
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There may be more polished versions of the song, but the subject is white lightning.
Seawriter
Is that poetry?
There’s always this, which happened in my neck of the woods.
Yes, illegality is the distinguishing factor, but, to really quibble, the untaxed/unregulated nature of the product is the reason for the illegality and the basis for the term. Here in Virginia, our state stores sell a number of bottles marketed as “moonshine,” attempting to capitalize on southwestern Virginia’s status as one of the centers of the (genuine) moonshine world. We have a small quota for Virginia-made products in the state stores, and some enterprising distillers have gone the fake moonshine route to take advantage.
I’ve had a few brief, unsuccessful encounters with the real thing, and would highly recommend not diluting it (especially with fruit juice), since tasting it straight is the best way to avoid drinking more than one should and doing serious, hopefully temporary, damage to oneself.
If you want to call it that.
It was supposed to be.
(I know, I know.)
You’re absolutely right.
And those bottles now labeled and sold as “moonshine” are everywhere — which is one of the things that prompted this post.
Oh, that’s good.
The uncle of a childhood friend was a Russian Orthodox priest whose parish was somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere northern Canada. Each Christmas they would present him with some of their home-brew. He, in turn, would bring some when he would visit his family in the States. From time to time, I had the opportunity taste some.
Yowza!
Alone, it was frightening. But it did have a wonderful application. My friend’s Dad would marinate dried cherries in the home-brew for a year and then use them as fortified garnishes in Manhattans. They were amazing!
I once had a customer bring me something very similar to those cherries you describe!
I always thought that the distinguishing characteristic of moonshine was that it was always sold out of the end of the pipe, so to speak.
I was just wondering about your next post. And poof. There it is.
Thanks.
The closest I can come is my best friend in 5th grade, whose parents were from N0rway and they made their own root beer. I know, I know, I’m boring.
Geeze:).
Root beer!
Strictly for squares. ;-)
Thank you.
That’s me!
Ahh the filled fruit jar of happiness. Many a man has held up some 180 proof white lightning as a primitive mating ritual, the problem almost always being that hooking up that night with Nikki Minaj meant waking up instead with Nigel Farage.
Ha-ha-ha!
HHHUUUUHHHH. Bite your tongue.
One more drinkin’ song…
Squares make the world go ’round!
Where did Ya think the 300 mile rule came from, Doc.
My dad made moonshine. Us kids made root beer. Never the twain shall mix.
Appalachia + Bootlegging Moonshine = Colorful Personalities. This post brings to mind Popcorn Sutton. He was a bit nutty but became something of a country celebrity later in life for his persistent moonshining despite becoming a target of the Feds. He had a stone made for his grave that read “Popcorn Said F**k You”, but w/o the edit (just in case Ricochet objects). I’m not sure if it was confirmed but I heard Popcorn, or perhaps another moonshiner, wanted to be buried face down as a symbolic gesture that “they could kiss his backside”. That’s an irreverent character.
We think of corn being used, but sometimes fruits are too. I recall trying PeachShine that I got second hand from somebody that I thought was quite good.
Too bad you missed the Nashville meetup moonshine tasting a couple years ago!
Indeed.
My maternal grandfather was a Sutton who lived and made whiskey (I never heard him call it moonshine) in the same area (Cocke County, TN and Haywood County, NC) as Popcorn Sutton (pictured in the post), so I assume I’m distantly related to Popcorn. Whiskey was a much more valuable and transportable commodity than corn, and it could kill germs on wounds and in water, so it made sense from a number of standpoints.
I was an exchange student in Germany in the late ’70s and was surprised to find that nearly every farmer in the region had a still, including my wife’s uncle (I met my wife during that time). There are over 700 stills in that small area and the farmers use them to distill spirits from cherries, plums, pears, currants, and pretty much any other fruit you can imagine. They take their spirits into town where they purchase tax stamps and sell them in local stores. As far as I can tell, this process has operated for centuries without issue or controversy. Home distilling is also legal in New Zealand.
I believe the primary drivers of opposition to homemade spirits is tax revenue, of course, but also pressure from large distilleries to keep out the competition. After all, large breweries fought the legalization of homebrewing when that first came up. Distilling has some inherent dangers, including knowing which components to keep and which to toss, but also the close proximity of heat and flammable alcohols.
Oh, come now!