Moonshine Revisited

A re-post from '08. It may be the continuing snow that has me thinking of strong drink...

I wouldn't know, myself, where to find moonshine for sale but thanks to the proverbial 'friend of a friend,' we were given a jar a few months ago. It came from Tennessee and, who knows, maybe even from Pop Corn (see Thursday's post) himself. Those are sliced peaches in the jar and I'm told this is a fairly common practice -- using fresh fruit of various kinds to flavor and color the white liquor.

We've been given jars of 'white' before this -- always from friends who swear they know the origin of the stuff and can vouch for its safety. We keep it around to offer a 'sup' to visiting flatlanders who are curious about this infamous local product. (It tastes a lot like tequila to me -- not bad but not something I'm crazy about.)

In the old days, the local folks didn't go to making whiskey out of a desire to break the law or to get drunk. It was a simple matter of economics. If you live in a remote mountain cove and your main crop is field corn, how will you make more money -- hauling bushel after bushel of dried corn down the mountain and to market to sell for animal feed or cornmeal -- or do you turn that same corn into distilled whiskey, using the knowledge and skills your ancestors brought over from Scotland and Ireland?

Whiskey was easier to haul, more valuable, and it kept well. One of the earliest 'value added' products.

Of course, with taxation, Prohibition, and dry counties, things changed and moonshining turned dangerous. And then, as the bootleggers used fast cars to transport their illegal cargo over twisting mountain roads (see Thunder Road with Robert Mitchum), it all led to NASCAR.

Aye, law.

I have no idea what folks pay for white lightning but I suspect it's not cheap. I've heard tell of the tour buses of country music stars lined up at one particular bootlegger's home and and the quart jars being loaded on by the case.

It's a nostalgia thing, I suspect.

A Wilkes County copper moonshine still
Courtesy of Applachian Cultural Museum
Applachian State University
Boone, North Carolina

For more information on moonshine, go here

More Moonshine

,

I wouldn't know, myself, where to find moonshine for sale but thanks to the proverbial 'friend of a friend,' we were given a jar a few months ago. It came from Tennessee and, who knows, maybe even from Pop Corn (see Thursday's post) himself. Those are sliced peaches in the jar and I'm told this is a fairly common practice -- using fresh fruit of various kinds to flavor and color the white liquor.

We've been given jars of 'white' before this -- always from friends who swear they know the origin of the stuff and can vouch for its safety. We keep it around to offer a 'sup' to visiting flatlanders who are curious about this infamous local product. (It tastes a lot like tequila to me -- not bad but not something I'm crazy about.)

In the old days, the local folks didn't go to making whiskey out of a desire to break the law or to get drunk. It was a simple matter of economics. If you live in a remote mountain cove and your main crop is field corn, how will you make more money -- hauling bushel after bushel of dried corn down the mountain and to market to sell for animal feed or cornmeal -- or do you turn that same corn into distilled whiskey, using the knowledge and skills your ancestors brought over from Scotland and Ireland?

Whiskey was easier to haul, more valuable, and it kept well. One of the earliest 'value added' products.

Of course, with taxation, Prohibition, and dry counties, things changed and moonshining turned dangerous. And then, as the bootleggers used fast cars to transport their illegal cargo over twisting mountain roads (see Thunder Road with Robert Mitchum), it all led to NASCAR.

Aye, law.

I have no idea what folks pay for white lightning but I suspect it's not cheap. I've heard tell of the tour buses of country music stars lined up at one particular bootlegger's home and and the quart jars being loaded on by the case.

It's a nostalgia thing, I suspect.

A Wilkes County copper moonshine still
Courtesy of Applachian Cultural Museum
Applachian State University
Boone, North Carolina

For more information on moonshine, go here

Pop Corn

You can't make this stuff up. (And thanks to Pat in TN for first alerting me to this story!)

from The Mountain Express - Asheville, NC

In case of Maggie Valley moonshiner, a plea for leniency

NEWS

Jason Sandford | 11/11 | 05:06 PM |

Dozens of people from eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina have signed a petition asking the federal government to go easy on legendary mountain moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, who was caught earlier this year with hundreds of gallons of untaxed whiskey.

In March, federal agents raided Sutton’s property in Parrottsville, Tenn., and found three big stills and gallon upon gallon of moonshine and mash, as well as a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver. He faces three charges related to the manufacture and possession of selling untaxed whiskey — white corn whiskey, to be exact — and one charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Sutton has entered a plea agreement with the federal government and faces up to 10 years in federal prison on the firearms count and up to five years in prison for each of the moonshining counts. He faces up to a $250,000 fine on each count, according to the the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

The penalties could add up to a life sentence for the 61-year-old Sutton. His defense attorneys have been asking friends and supporters to sign a petition, which states in part: “Considering his basic nature, age and significant medical problems, we ask the court to consider leniency in sentencing Popcorn.” People from all over the region, including a few from Asheville, have signed.

Sutton is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Greeneville, Tenn., on Dec. 15.

The government has said forcefully that it’s vigorously pursuing the case, despite the fact that “moonshine has been romanticized in folklore and the movies.” The production of illegal liquor “is a dangerous health issue and breeds other crime,” the government said in a press release.

Sutton has solidified his celebrity status as a moonshiner over the years. A spiral-bound book about his exploits has been produced, and he’s starred in a homemade video.

Then there are the thousands of gallons of liquor he’s produced and sold.

According to the plea agreement signed by Sutton earlier this year, federal agents began investigating Sutton after firefighters responded to an April 2007 blaze on his property in Parrottsville. He admitted that he had moonshine on his property and he was arrested and convicted for possessing untaxed liquor in July 2007 in the criminal court of Cocke County, Tenn.

The arrest didn’t stop Sutton from cooking more corn liquor. On Feb. 7, 2008, an undercover agent of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission met with Sutton and bought 80 gallons of moonshine. One week later, the undercover agent met with Sutton again and bought about 100 gallons of firewater. The two met again on Feb. 28 and the agent bought another 100 gallons, according to the plea agreement.

During a March 3, 2008, telephone conversation, Sutton told the undercover agent he had counted all the moonshine he had available to sell — 500 gallons in Tennessee and 400 gallons stored in Maggie Valley, N.C. On March 12, the agent arrived to buy the 500 gallons of whiskey and agents swooped in. Aside from the moonshine, agents report finding 1,100 gallons of sour mash that would have produced another 130 gallons of moonshine, as well as three stills. The smallest still had a 500-gallon capacity, while the largest was nearly twice that, according to the government.

According to the plea agreement, the government has agreed not to seize Sutton’s Tennessee residence. Sutton has agreed not to appeal his conviction.

Click here to go to the Xpress Files and read Sutton’s plea agreement, view pages from his leniency petition and read the government’s argument for a sentence that reflects the seriousness of the offense.

— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor