White Lightning

[62_Kiwi]

Something I saw on television tonight started me thinking about the old days of prohibition in the Southern USA...MOONSHINE...white lightning...the moonshine runs and Nascar racing etc.<br /><br />It would seem to an outsider Kiwi bloke like me that this whole moonshine thing was a bit of a sport - tinged with the danger of getting caught - but all the same, a lot of fun! <br /><br />Does anyone here have connections back to the old moonshiners..? <br /><br />There must be some good stories out there I'm sure.... <br /><br />"The instant he swallowed the stuff he feels as if he was sunburned all over, his head begins to buzz as if a hive of bees had swarmed there, when he closed his eyes, he sees six hundred million torch-light processions all charging at him, ten abre@st, and when he opens his eyes the light blinds him and everything seems dancing about."

 

[crab bait]

Re: White Lightning

i don't myself .. but do know that the original mountain dew caused alotta blindness... the shiner's used old lead core car radiators in their stills...<br /><br />i was partnered up on a job with an old guy from north carolina.. old chew tobbacca CECIL.. he was way past retirement age an refused to do so cause he knew he'd die shortly after if'n he did.. <br />OH, the stories he'd tell..!!! he's the best & the funniest darn partner i ever had..we'd laugh all day ..!! i'd beg him to stop..but once he got limbered up,, ther was no stoppin' him... he'd go home once a month for a 3-4 day weekend. <br /><br />he'd bring me back some 'fresh made' if'n i asked him to... good guy ,that ole cecil <br /><br />it ain't to bad ,, really .. powerful but pretty smooth if'n it's made right..

 

[JB]

Re: White Lightning

Ahoy, Kiwi!<br /><br />Growing up in North Carolina I heard many stories about whiskey making in the backwoods and mountains. We had a neighbor who made whiskey. He was an old man and wasn't known to sell it, though he sure gave a lot of it away.<br /><br />As I understand it, both Scotch and Irish settlers who first came to Carolina and Tennessee brought whiskey making skills and traditions with them.<br /><br />They grew corn and tobacco. They found that it was much easier to transport their corn to markets in liquid form, easier to store it and that it brought higher prices.<br /><br />Differences in taxation drove the Carolina whiskey makers "underground" and encouraged the growth of commercial enterprises in Tennessee and Kentucky.<br /><br />In the early days, almost all homemade whiskey was "corn likker", or bourbon. Sugar shortages and prices resulted in the development of "sour mash" whiskey.<br /><br />I tasted homemade whiskey. The quality varied from as good as Black Jack to worse than any thing else I ever tasted.<br /><br />I once found a couple of gallon jugs of nearly 190 proof stuff near a wrecked still in the Tennessee woods while squirrel hunting. I was told that "Moonshiners" often saved the first few gallons from a "run" because it would be nearly pure ethanol. They would use it later to blend their stuff to around 100 proof.<br /><br />I have many tales of local moonshining and "shine-running" from my youth, But that is enough for now.

 

[John Carpenter]

Re: White Lightning

The making of 'shine was a thriving industry in this area years ago (Western Kentucky). One of the local towns...Golden Pond, was named because it was the hub of that industry. The product is still available if you know the right people. Like JB said, the quality varies wildly from not fit to drink to very good. BTW JB, you need to get off that Tennessee swill (Black Jack) and try a good Kentucky bourbon....Maker's Mark

 

[SlowlySinking]

Re: White Lightning

hi 62_kiwi, if you get the chance look around for an American movie entitled "Thunder Road" with Robert Mitchum and Gene Barry, made during the 50's or 60's as I remember. Good movie about the delivery aspect of moonshine, fast cars and fast car chases, I understand that this movie is a cult film is parts of the south.

 

[62_Kiwi]

Re: White Lightning

Thank you all for your replies, which were very informative and entertaining - especially since I intend to be a tourist in those parts some day. <br /><br />I notice that North Carolina seems to get mentioned a lot on the subject of moonshine! <br /><br />...and I'll look out for that film "Thunder Road".<br /><br />Thanks <br /><br /> In the North Carolina Mountains...

 

[Bear]

Re: White Lightning

62_Kiwi,<br />More about the movie Thunder Road (1958)

 

[DJ]

Re: White Lightning

The Carolinas are also the, sometimes disputed, birthplace of NASCAR.

 

[Fishbusters]

Re: White Lightning

NASCAR was a dirrect result of the fast souped up cars the shine runners used. It just kind of went hand in hand because every good ole boy wants to prove who was fastest. As to shine I would not know anything about it, who makes it or where to get it. I also would not know how to make it or why anyone would want it. But i want to know can anyone tell me where I left that 50# bag of sugar??? <br />Many of my relatives both made and ran shine and it was not all car chases and hiding out from the law. In fact for the most part it was looked upon as part of daily life and accepted. The big boys in the industry were the ones that were getting busted and whose stills and such were found and broken up. In many small towns you can still find the bootlegger and get a jug or two for medicinal purposes and many are still usung a still made years ago by thier fathers and one or two grandfathers. <br />Personally I prefer to have some liqour guarenteed to be like the next bottle or a bottle I buy next year than the varried degrees you can get out of one batch of cheap shine however some of the moonshiners have it down right so that each and every batch is about as good as liquid gold and these rare folks that you want to find.

 

[Scoop]

Re: White Lightning

Check out the Movie Greased Lightning. It stars Richard Pryor as Wendell Scott. Wendell Scott was a real person who got his racing experience by runnign shine. While some critics pan the movie, I watch it every time its on. I wish it was out on DVD, but it is only on video. <br /><br />Shine is still available in a lot of communities. I rember visiting Chatanooga Tennesee. For something special, they went down to the neighbors and brought back a quart jar half full.

 

[Hooty]

Re: White Lightning

I'll bet they still make whiskey here in Texas. It's been over twenty years since I drank any but they use to make it over in the Big Thicket in east Texas. Like somebody said, some was good, some was real bad.<br /><br />c/6<br /><br />Hooty

 

[crab bait]

Re: White Lightning

yeah,,, it's a close thread between moonshine & turpintine...<br /><br />like how JB said that the area,, was settled by the irish & the scots..<br /> bluegrass music,,the music of the area has a distinct scot/irish sound in<br />it's roots...

 

[sloopy]

Re: White Lightning

is itjust me or is Moon Shining against the law?

 

[NOSLEEP]

Re: White Lightning

Nuthing to see around here.<br />no moonshine.We did get a couple of<br />bottles of Everclear and Snake bite once.

 

[Scoop]

Re: White Lightning

That's a good question Sloopy. I know with beer and Wine, you can make your own as long as it is for personal consumption. There is a limit to the amount. I think 100 gals is the limit. I would assume that shine is like that. I have seen a website that shows how to set up a personal still and make it using corn syrup. You use a tea kettle to distill the product.

 

[miloman]

Re: White Lightning

In my good ole days I was known to make a batch here and there now dont have the equiptment time or desire any more but I tell you it was good stuff I made plum brandy bought small oak barrels aged it measured the specific gravity to keep it at around 75 proof. It sure was good it really is a lost art.

 

[DJ]

Re: White Lightning

Sloopy,<br /><br />It's not the making of it that's illegal, it's the selling it that the Fed's tend to discourage.

 

[SCO]

Re: White Lightning

I looked into the idea recently. Learned that poor quality has methanol byproduct and that can cause blindness, palsey etc. If you ripen grapejuice, you are likely to poison yourself with methanol. Ive heard(from web search) that the first distillate is tossed as a matter of course because it has a lot of dangerous byproduct(Methanol I think).You can test purity by measuring density, boiling point etc., but I'm not sure Billy Bob Barnette does that. Beer and wine are not as pure as distilled products and give a worse hangover because of the methanol and other. In a nutshell, Sloopy, dont do it without full knowledge of the chemistries involved, and not till you're of legal age. Given all my parade raining, armed with proper knowledge, it would be fun to grow some corn and still it but I think it's illegal to distill spirits, ok to make beer/wine.

 

[Jack Shellac]

Re: White Lightning

When I was a kid visiting with my grandfather in central Alabama, he was familiar with a variety of bootleggers. Some ran their business fairly openly, selling their product at a fruit or vegetable stand or the like and others were more secretive. The car of choice for "running shine" was a '40 Ford coupe with a flathead V-8. It was so much a part of the culture that every teenager's first ambition was to get a '40 Ford. There seemed to be a sort of a code among the fraternity based on who made "good shine" and who made rotgut.

 

[Fishbusters]

Re: White Lightning

In response to Sloopy beer and wine are natural unrefined results of the fermentation process and you can make 100 gallons of it per adult over the age of 21 in the house with an upper limit of 200 gallons. You can gain micro brewery status or hobbies winemaker and make something like 2000 gallons I think by becoming registered but as someone who has made some in the past that would be a whole hell of a lot of work. The distillation of the results of fermentation (making shine) is illegal and you can't do it. Even doing this in small personal use amounts if illegal because of several reasons not the least of which if you don't distill at the correct temps and take a couple other precautions you can poison yourself and others causing in the least severe vomiting and illness and at the worst death. Of course this is the law (or the jist of it) in South Carolina and I think it is the same as the National ones.