The card was advertising free moonshine tastings somewhere in Tennessee. It showed a bright red Mason jar of whole cherries that looked more like canned fruit than illegal whiskey.
I’d never heard of or seen cherry moonshine. I’m sure real old-time bootleggers are turning in their graves and the new ones are having a good laugh at the thought of someone flavoring the stuff.
I showed the card to my sister-in-law Predita and asked if Steve, her husband and my brother, might be interested in getting a taste. We were headed to Cincinnati, OH, with their 15-year-old son Desmond to our first family reunion in seven years.
When traveling by car, I love side trips because you never know what you’ll find, and this seemed to be a good place to stop.
Predita had driven for about four hours into the trip when I took over. As we cruised north on I-75, I saw the sign. Up head, it promised, was moonshine, my head filling with photographic images of plain-faced Appalachian men in overalls standing starkly near an old still.
I didn’t catch the exact exit for the place, so I kept on the lookout for another sign, because I was sure it was coming. And it did, Exit 134, Highway 25 west – the Liquor Barn in Caryville, TN, northwest of Knoxville.
It was a weather-beaten (by intent, it seemed) building on top of a low hill on the left side of Highway 25. As we got out of the car into the parking lot, Steve wondered about the safety of being African American out here in the hills of Tennessee. He was likely remembering not from memory but from history the times when it was not so safe for people like us.
No worry, I assured him. What I’d found – at auctions, especially – was that most people were pretty friendly in face-to-face encounters. I was more interested in checking out the surroundings. On the front porch of the store was an old rusty red Coca Cola cooler. I oohed and aahed over it; I’d seen a few of them at auction. I knew that anyone who loved old coolers couldn’t be all bad.
Desmond remained in the car, since he was too young to enter the store. Inside, we found ourselves right smack in a liquor store like one you’d see in any state that allowed private liquor sales (except for my current state of Pennsylvania). It was clean, cool and well-lighted on a hot day, and the shelves seemed to stretch forever. Where was the moonshine, I wondered, and then asked a cashier.
The stuff was right in front of me, staring me in the face, clear bottles of it on a tall wooden display case. Nearby was an arrangement of reproduction stoneware whiskey jugs, one company’s nostalgic stab at trying to be authentic. “These are all moonshine,” the cashier said to me, waving her hand toward a whole section of shelves.
This was not your great-grandfather’s moonshine. The bottles and Mason jars were beautifully labeled and presented, with different flavors and too-high prices. I gravitated to jars of Moon Pie moonshine because I love its namesake. MoonPies are a southern treat: They are marshmallows squeezed between two large wafers and covered in chocolate (or banana). The store had Moon Pie moonshine in three flavors: chocolate, vanilla and banana.
“The most popular (moonshine) is Short Mountain,” the cashier said. It was selling for $35.99. “When you get into the fruity ones, they taste like cough syrup.”
I was not expecting to see moonshine in as many flavors as sodas, so I started calling out the names. Steve and Predita conferred over the choices and decided on banana Moon Pie, made by Limestone Branch Distillery.
The cashier invited us over to the counter for a tasting, and we dutifully followed her. Steve and Predita tried it, but I abstained because I was driving and I’m not much of a drinker. Besides, I was there to scope out the product, not partake of it.
Steve took a sip from a Communion-type cup, lightly smacked his lips to test the taste and seemed to like the stuff. So did Predita, and they bought a jar. I tried it after we arrived in Cincinnati and didn’t like the sharp taste.
On the shelves, Moon Pie was joined by Ole Smoky (the cherry moonshine on the card); South House in original, cherry limeade and apple pie; Backwoods in heritage and strawberry; American Born in apple pie (83 proof, “traditional mountain recipe”) and Tim Smith’s Climax with a lovely illustration of his hound Camo on the label (Asheville, NC; 45 percent alcohol, 90 proof; made of corn, malted barley, rye and sugar cane). There was also a Moonshine Tool Kit with a jar of Ole Smoky Lemon Drop moonshine and a Mason jar with a glass spout for easier pouring.
All of the Short Mountain moonshine was clear. On its website, the company offered recipes for adding your own flavors.
Most of us southerners have heard a story, had a relative or perhaps knew of someone who actually had a still and sold moonshine to make a little extra money. Its characters and legends – along with the hillbilly stereotypes – are as much a part of America’s illicit history as Chicago mobsters and Prohibition speakeasies. NASCAR was connected to moonshining through a few drivers (Junior Johnson had been a hauler), owners (Raymond Parks) and mechanics.
These were not only white Appalachian bootleggers. A 2012 University of Southern Mississippi exhibit related the history of both African American and white moonshiners in that state.
Today, the story of bootlegging is romantically told, and the practice has gone mainstream. Real moonshiners have their own reality TV show called “Moonshiners” on the Discovery Channel, but it’s not clear if they do or they don’t actually make the stuff. Tim Smith of Tim Smith’s Climax moonshine is a star of the show, and his Climax is legally made by a North Carolina distillery.
Early on, most of the craft moonshine – or faux moonshine, as it should be called – was made by newcomers, but now some of the country’s major distillers make it for stores where it is advertised openly and sold legally. There are also so-called “small-batch” distillers across the country (even in Lake Tahoe, CA) along with people who make it in their home.
It can even be found in Walmart and Sam’s Club, according to a 2013 Time magazine story. The Ole Smoky moonshine, for example, is sold in 49 states.
Ole Smoky was among the first to open a distillery and start selling moonshine in Tennessee in 2010, a year after the state loosened its laws to allow people to legally make moonshine, as a way to put money in the state’s coffers. A slew of distilleries in the Appalachian area were born.
As for Steve’s jar of Moon Pie, some male family members at the reunion drank, not sipped, much of it. He and Predita lost half of the jar to them; the other half they kept to take back home to Georgia, which itself has a long history of moonshining.
