The Sun Don’t Shine on a Moonshine Still
Get a bleary-eyed view of moonshining from a modern day bootlegger.
In the hills of the Bluegrass State, a place frontiersman called “the dark and bloody ground,” there is a preference for strong spirits beyond barrel-aged bourbon. Some folks tinker and others perfect a skill of sugar or corn distillation to create hard, super-potent liquor dripped from handmade copper devices that are stored in places where the sun doesn’t shine. Moonshine is the most common term, but it goes by many other names: sugar spirits, mountain dew, rot gut, skat, white mule, stump juice, hooch, white lightning. If it’s good enough and pure enough, it burns true blue.
I’m referring to Kentucky moonshine, of course. I moved to rural Kentucky from suburban Northern Virginia in the Spring of 2013 and fully embraced the Southern tradition by sampling the pride of the Bluegrass: basketball, bourbon, slow-paced life, allergies and moonshine. So enamored with the potency, process and heritage of the hard stuff, I set out to score an interview and sample a jar (maybe two) of the good drink. It didn’t take long to find a guy who knew a guy who, well, so it goes. He calls himself the “Shinologist,” and he invited me into his home-styled distillation abode (on the condition of anonymity, of course) to talk, photograph and learn about an unspoken pride of the Bluegrass.
My first question was a myth buster: Is it true that these homemade moonshine stills can blow up a house? He paused, sighed and said, “If the person who’s making it is fucking retarded.” I knew I was in good hands … or I hoped.
Another question I was set straight on upfront was the start of shining in America: Moonshine did not begin with Prohibition. It existed much earlier — think early as in the earliest American settlers. In fact, alcohol in its various forms is a staple in all cultures, ancient to modern, and home distillation and fermentation was just as common a trade as blacksmithing.
Corn is where moonshine got its start, but the word is now synonymous with nearly any type of illegally home-crafted and distilled liquor — sugar, corn, rye, wood and so on. Early Americans had corn aplenty thanks to trade with Native Americans, and from that crop came good corn liquor. “You can distill anything with starch,” Shinologist told me. “Corn, oak, hickory, sugar, whatever. Yeast, water and your starches, and you can ferment and distill it.”
But let’s back up and see how it all started.
THE HISTORY
Stills — as in distillation contraptions and the art of home liquor-making — came to America with the early settlers. The Scots, English, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans and Spanish all had a taste for alcohol, and with them they brought stills, expertise and generations of knowledge on how to ferment, brew and distill. One of the most beloved carry-on’s aboard ships sailing to the New World was yeast for the bread and beer and liquor and other eau de vie. The wild spores of America were untested by Europeans, so to be safe they scraped the lees and dregs from the bottoms of homeland vats and transported those strains abroad to be assured of some consistency in their alcohol. People carried on happily brewing and fermenting and distilling until war changed everything.
As a result of the Revolutionary War, the American government was overcome with debt. In an effort to generate revenue, it applied a federal alcohol tax to help manage the financial fray. Home distillers were furious. The Revolutionary War was fought, after all, to free Americans from being subject to British Imperialist taxation, so citizens were furious when the Distilled Spirits Tax of 1791 was created. Most Americans who had distilled continued doing so despite the taxation laws and refused to pay. As a result, the government sent forth tax collectors to obtain their share of the alcohol profits — tax collectors who were greeted with beatings, tarrings and featherings, and who subsequently trod lightly and forced collection halfheartedly. Distillers and farmers, many of whom were one and the same, remained furious, and in July 1794 the Whiskey Rebellion began. A militia force was sent by Alexander Hamilton to eradicate the rebellion, but, in reality, it served to drive distillers deeper underground.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson repealed the whiskey excise tax and Americans were once again free to legally distill. From 1812 to 1817, the liquor tax was enacted to fund the War of 1812; post war, the tax was repealed. In 1861, burdened with debt from the Civil War, another liquor tax was imposed and has remained ever since. Making liquor (legal or not) was deeply ingrained in the culture of the American South, and for many people, it was the only means by which they had to make a living. The alcohol taxes applied post-Civil War were viewed by Southerners as an extension of Yankee tyranny. As such, local Southern politicians did little to enforce the laws on moonshiners.
Push ahead a few years to an experiment in piety also known as Prohibition. As it turns out, Prohibition was anything but dry — in fact, it’s where ‘shiners really revved up and made a name for themselves, profiting immensely from the low supply of legal alcohol. In the Southern United States, the number of moonshine stills quadrupled and illegal liquor production was at all-time high. To avoid the law, men modified their cars to outrun the police so they could transport moonshine to distribution points. Some of these drivers were the earliest stock car drivers who created NASCAR.
World War II and rationing caused a drop in moonshine due to sugar shortages, but farmers still grew corn crops, and things changed drastically in the 1950s and 1960s, when technological advances improved distillation. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, one out of every five gallons of liquor in America was moonshine. Most large-scale backwoods stills were shut down by 1980, but the practice remained, as recipes and skills were often handed down from generation to generation. Despite arrests and fines, underground distillers persist in producing hot liquor.
But why? What is the magic behind this high-proof, noxious and notoriously illegal spirit that most people have heard of but few understand?
I posed the question to Shinologist. “It’s part of my heritage, being from Appalachia and all. That type of thing is important to me, knowing where you come from and keeping traditions alive,” he said. “I really got interested in the process through the Foxfirebooks, and things evolved from there.” Foxfire, he explained, are a set of guides designed to teach the survival and daily living techniques from old Appalachia. “Things like tanning hides, distilling liquor, growing herbs — the kind of skills important to the heritage of this place.”
And why call it moonshine? He laughed. “Well, the sun don’t shine on a moonshine still. Seriously, though, back in the day, ‘shiner’s did their thing by moonlight. Things have changed a little over time, but it still ain’t the sort of thing you’d do in broad daylight out in the open.”
I looked around Shinologist’s distillation zone: quart Mason jars in stacks, some empty, many full, filled with crystal clear liquid. Copper, freezer, cooker, two 50-gallon mash barrels and enough sugar to survive a zombie apocalypse. I could get behind the whole heritage part of it, but why go rogue and brew illegal hooch when you can get a buzz from the liquor store store?
“Because I love moonshine, it’s part of the history of this area, and I think that’s important. At least it’s important where I come from. If not for ‘shine there wouldn’t be an America. This whole region to Maine to Tennessee is survived by bootleggin’ liquor. It’s in the American heritage, and that’s important. I remember back when I was younger, before I got into it, a person would say, ‘I gotta jar of ‘shine,’ and people were like fuckin’ buzzards swooping in trying to drink it.”
Shinologist was right. There was a certain allure about the stuff. “The illegal aspect of everything makes it all the more interesting to people. And, truthfully, that was probably one of the most intriguing parts of it when I started. Simply put, you can’t get it — at least not easily. Nine times out of 10, you get a jar of ‘shine from somebody, it’s gonna taste like piss or burn or make you hungover for three days, but it will not make you go blind, contrary to popular belief. That’s just bullshit. I wanted to make something with the intrigue and with a good taste.”
So, we were back to the age-old mystique of having something hard-to-get. It was the type of curiosity and willingness to push the envelope that founded the New World and offered a hefty state of altered consciousness along the way as a bonus.
I asked him what it meant when someone said “It burns true blue?” I thought, at first, it had something to do with Kentucky, the Bluegrass State and the blue banners of the cultish following that surrounds the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team. I was wrong. (Again.)
“It’s about purity and the pour,” he said. “A lot of people think the bluer it [burns], then the more stout and pure, but it’s really about the hotness of the flame and the gases from the alcohol.”
Another of Shinologist’s motivators for distillation came in hopes of finding liquor he could drink in large quantities without getting a hangover. “You see, it’s about hydration, purity and minimizing toxins,” he told me. “The best Scotch, whiskey, vodka, bourbon — they all still have toxins. The higher end, the better, as far as avoiding hangover, but I wanted something so pure and so high proof it would bypass all that. They don’t sell it commercially, so I started to make my own. A hobby turned into a quest for perfection, I guess. Not even the ‘shine you buy in the stores is this high proof.” The idea of avoiding a hangover was noble and practical and, as an avid drinker, held my interest. He pointed to a passel of jars in the corner. “Now, see those over there, they’re not filtered yet and need another run.” I asked about the numbers marked on the lids, and he told me it represented the proof of the liquor. “These two, as you can see, are 165 proof.” Back in the old days, home distillers painted Xs on their moonshine jugs: XX, XXX and so on. The Xs represented the number of times the spirits had been run through the still. Shinologist manages his runs by spacing and magic marker, not exactly the same as an X-marks-the-run, but the general intention remains unchanged.
“I do filtration because of the toxins, particularly the fusel oil that comes off of the alcohol. When I finish the whole process, then I’m left with the most pure spirit I’ve ever drank. Only two things give you a hangover: toxins and dehydration. If you get the toxins outta the way and make sure you fuckin’ hydrate, then you’re gonna wake up and play baseball in the mornin’.”
THE PROCESS
“The key to makin’ good, smooth liquor is slow and cold,” Shinologist explained.
