Echoes of Appalachia

For nearly 60 years, my daddy made moonshine that people would drive from all over to get. His shine was as clear as glass, and folks would cross state lines just to fill a jug, some coming all the way from California. Daddy didn’t need fame—his reputation traveled on its own, built on word of mouth and the unmistakable quality of his moonshine.

Making moonshine was hard work, but it was something we did to make ends meet. I remember sitting with him and my brother, shelling corn by hand into burlap sacks. It was a long, tedious job, but just the start of what was to come. Once we had the corn shelled, we’d haul it down to the creek and let it soak overnight, so it would swell up and be ready to grind the next morning. Then came the real heavy lifting—carrying the ground corn, along with massive bags of sugar and yeast, up the mountain to where we had our eight mash barrels buried in the ground. That mash would sit and ferment for about a week or more, and when you uncovered those barrels, the smell of fermented mash hit you like a freight train.

Daddy’s still was nothing fancy, but it was effective. It was made up of five barrels—a big metal drum filled with water, three wooden barrels holding the mash, and at the end, a copper “worm” tube. He ran an old furnace motor to heat the first barrel of water, and once it started boiling, the steam would flow through the mash barrels and down the copper worm. By the time that steam hit the air, it turned into liquid gold. When that first drop of moonshine trickled out, you knew you were in for something special. Daddy’s shine was as smooth as it was clear, and people would rave about how good it was, and you could see the pride in daddy’s face when people complimented him over his moonshine. Daddy charged $7.50 for a 1/2 gallon of moonshine the highest price you could get back then, and people would still pay it and never complain.

Moonshining was dangerous business, and it had to be kept secret. Most of our neighbors knew what we were up to, but instead of turning us in, they’d keep an eye out. If they saw an unfamiliar car lurking around or a stranger asking too many questions, they’d give us a heads-up. We were careful, but we couldn’t hide everything. Folks around here often called moonshine a “sin,” but that didn’t stop them from accepting money made from selling shine when it ended up in the church’s offering plate. For many families, it was a way of getting by, especially when times were tough.

Daddy wasn’t in it for the glory, but his moonshine was the best. I know a lot of people talk about Popcorn Sutton, and I’ve met him a few times. He was a master at what he did, and I’ll never take that away from him. But there were plenty of other men in these mountains who were just as good—maybe even better. My daddy was one of them. His shine spoke for itself.

Then, in December 2009, when Daddy was 79 years old, his luck ran out. After decades of staying under the radar, he finally got caught. The raid took place up in Madison County, in North Carolina about 100 yards up a steep, wooded mountainside, near daddy’s house. Authorities seized more than 400 gallons of mash and 36 gallons of distilled moonshine. The burner was still warm when they arrived. It made the papers—the Asheville Citizen-Times reported it was the first and largest moonshining raid in the county in recent memory. It was a rough moment, but Daddy always knew the risks. When he went to court, they just gave him a fine and a slap on the wrist and that was the last time daddy ever made moonshine.

Looking back, making moonshine with daddy and my brother was more than just producing whiskey; it taught us the true meaning of hard work and how to provide for our family in the best way we knew how. I’ll always cherish those memories of sitting by the still, hauling heavy bags of sugar and corn up the mountain, and eagerly waiting for that first drip of moonshine. Although Daddy passed away two years ago at the age of 92, his legacy lives on in every recollection of those days and nights spent together crafting a guilty pleasure for so many. Those were some of the hardest yet most rewarding times of my life.

By Tim Carmichael