moon shiners

[Peter Drouin]

You guys in the south don't do that no more, do ya? maybe in the old old days but not now, I see this thing on tv today and it can't be real :D :D :D

[sawguy21]

It goes on and not just in the south. I have had home made hootch that kicked like a rented mule yet didn't leave a hangover.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

"Moonshine stills" are wide open down here. One of the stills you see on T.V. is in the next county over from me.
The T.V. show is staged. However, the Old Boys on the show are real mountain people. I have heard some of them just put on a show by the way they talk.
The stills are real but I have heard....for the show......the moonshine is nothing but water OR these are legal stills that are taxed.
Our farm has several old stills,  still visible but are pretty much rotten.

So it still goes on......you can drink to that.

[Rocky_Ranger]

"Shine" is an acquired taste - fortunately, I have acquired it. :D

[T Welsh]

I have been riding my motorcycle in the exact area that the show takes place for over 20 years. I have come across local shine many times,it is there,but not like the show depicts. Remember it is still illegal and you do not flaunt it in the open.My best friend and I stayed overnight at a small motel in the area and we where going out to get beer and the owner said to us no need for that and gave us a small mason jar. Gota love southern hospitality ;D. Tim

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I have been riding my motorcycle in the exact area that the show takes place for over 20 years. I have come across local shine many times,it is there,but not like the show depicts. Remember it is still illegal and you do not flaunt it in the open.My best friend and I stayed overnight at a small motel in the area and we where going out to get beer and the owner said to us no need for that and gave us a small mason jar. Gota love southern hospitality ;D. Tim

I don't drink it but I have cleaned paint brushes in it before.
You can also use it to intensify a fire.....or BLOW up a mailbox.  :D :D :D

[rooster 58]

    Yes, stills are alive and well in Pa. It's a very lucrative operation. 25-30.00 bucks per gallon. Mash is available too ;)

[Qweaver]

It's readily available here in W,Va but it is really costly for good stuff.

[WH_Conley]

The last I heard the good stuff was about $80.00 a gallon.

[JuniperBoss]

Heck yah, they are out there. People even do it in Oregon. A relative of mine found a fairly recent still near his property on the coast. Another found an old one out in the deserted mountains of east oregon. I'm not sure, maybe all that has died down now, but I do believe people do it a lot (maybe a lot is not quite accurate) out east.

[Al_Smith]

My father grew up near Pittsburgh Pa during the depression .Their house was the only one on the road that didn't have a still .My granddad used to laugh about the hens drinking from the drainage ditch and getting snockered .

Granddad had a commercial garage and one of his customers was local boot legger .The old boy had a Packard with steel plate and 1" thick bullit proof glass .It had to have a special suspension system and heavy duty tires to support all that weight .Pretty tough bunch in Pittsburgh those days .Might still be for all I know .

[Mooseherder]

I think some States allow you to make a certain amount for personal use.

[lowpolyjoe]

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit i'm rather addicted to that Moonshiners show.  Although it does often look very staged and some of the good ol boys are dreadful actors  :D  Still entertaining.

What i don't quite understand is why it is so expensive?  Why are people paying so much (ie. WH saying it can go up to $80 and they make similar claims on the show)?   From a lot of accounts it's somewhat nasty to drink straight.  Why not just buy a gallon of cheap vodka? 

Who knows what these guys might be cutting it with (one episode claims some people cut it with water and bleach to stretch production).  And i think if you distill at the wrong temperature you get some toxic stuff? 

Is it just the fact that it's really high proof?  100-150 i think i've heard them mention?  You can get smirnoff 100proof vodka or 151 without any legal risk and less questions about what's in it.

Obviously there is outrageously expensive legit liquor out there too, but typically that's stuff that's been aged for decades or made through exotic process or with rare materials.  How can these shiners demand such high prices for simple corn/barley based liquors?   I'm really curious.

I find the distilling process really interesting.  Would love to try it 

[JuniperBoss]

I think some States allow you to make a certain amount for personal use.

How personal is personal use? :D  :D :D

[LOGDOG]

I like that ole' Jim Tom on Moonshiners. Me and him could hang together and eat baloney and cheese sandwiches any day. Beautiful part of the Country those guys are in.

[NWP]

In MO I heard you can possess 100 gallons for personal use if you're over 21. If there are at least 2 people over 21 in the household you can have a maximum of 200 gallons. I think this also applies to homemade beer and wine. I don't know for sure. I don't make it or drink it.

[lowpolyjoe]

In MO I heard you can possess 100 gallons for personal use if you're over 21. If there are at least 2 people over 21 in the household you can have a maximum of 200 gallons. I think this also applies to homemade beer and wine. I don't know for sure. I don't make it or drink it.

I have heard something similar.  However, i've also heard that federal law restricts that allowance to beer and wine only.  I know you can make your own beer and wine for personal consumption  8).  I make my own beer sometimes and know of  people who make wine.  I think fermentation of beer and wine might fall in a different category from distillation of spirits.  Curious to hear what others say on the subject 

[muddstopper]

First off, you are not allowed to possess any amount of untaxed moonshine. A thimble full will get you arrested. The criminal charges do vary according to the amount of product you have, selling gets bigger charges and heaven forbid you get caught transporting it. That goes for every state and just about every country. Yes, you can manufactor up to 200gal of wine or beer per year, but beer and wine are not distilled.

Second, making moonshine has never stopped in the south and I suspect the same can be said for other parts of the country as well.

Typically, a pot still will produce a 150proof product, thats a + or - number, a lot just depends on how efficient your still is and how careful you are about maintaining proper temperatures. Reflux stills can get you up to the 190proof range, but its very difficult and practicly impossible to get any higher proof than that without a lot of very expensive equipment. Most of the stove top stills will usually incorporate some sort of reflux to get high proof whiskey. A thump keg( some call it a doubler) on a pot still is actually a type of reflux system in that you get a second distillation as the steam is reheated as it passes thru the keg.

Good moonshine wont give the sick hangover you can get from other whiskeys. Bad moonshine can make you go blind and even lead to death. Blindness is caused by the methanol alcohol and acetone that occurs naturally in the fermenting process. Oddly enough, corn whiskey contains very little methanol, fruit whiskeys will contain more methanol and acetone, but produces a smoother moonshine. Any fruit whiskey is actually a brandy and not moonshine, but the fermenting and distilling process is the same, so homemade brandy is still considered moonshine. If you are going to distill fruit mashes, you must core and remove the seeds.the seeds contain cyanide. You can tell if the moonshine has been made with uncored fruit because the whiskey will be bitter. Dont buy or drink any moonshine that has a bitter taste. Whether or not there is enough cyanide in the finished product to really hurt you can be debated, but Cyanide isnt something i really want to injest.

Methanol and Acetone both have lower boiling points than ethanol and is the first liquid that will come out of a still. this is why most people will just toss the first few milliliters before they catch the good stuff. Methanol will start to boil at temps around 152degrees f, Acetone at 158Degrees and ethanol at 172 degrees. With careful watching of the still, you dont need a thermometer to tell when each part is being vented off and just catch the part of the product you want to keep. You will also get fusel oils from the mash once the temperature starts reaching 182 degrees. These oils are what give the moonshine its flavor, but it very easy to get to much of a good thing as these oils can cause a major hangover.

The moonshiners show is just for entertainment and of course if they where making anything illegal it would be pretty hard to keep it hid with all those cameras running around. With that said, I have tried the George Washington Recipe, I know who made it and that person is on the moonshiners show. Whiskey was super smooth with no burn, but probably proofed out under 75proof. I suspect it was cut at least in half with water. I also tried some of their scotch, stuff would gag a maggot. They are now selling tee shirts for $30 a pop

[celliott]

Is it just the fact that it's really high proof?  100-150 i think i've heard them mention?  You can get smirnoff 100proof vodka or 151 without any legal risk and less questions about what's in it.

Obviously there is outrageously expensive legit liquor out there too, but typically that's stuff that's been aged for decades or made through exotic process or with rare materials.  How can these shiners demand such high prices for simple corn/barley based liquors?   I'm really curious.

I think it's largely in part because it's "moonshine", because it's illegal, they aren't supposed to have it, etc. Same idea as kids under 21 binge drinking, it's mostly because they know they're doing something they aren't supposed to, the thrill of that is a big driver.
I see it quite often here in college, unfortunately.

[Ianab]

Muddstopper gave a pretty good rundown on making moonshine. 

Here in NZ it's legal to distill your own, but not legal to sell it (without paying the tax anyway)

The commercial home stills and supplies (you can buy from various stores) set you up to simply make vodka using sugar as your feed stock. I guess technically you could call it white rum, but the idea is to get as pure an alcohol as possible, with the least amount of methanol, acetone and other by products. Then they sell you little bottles of flavour to get what you want. You can just leave it unflavoured and call it vodka of course. Or throw some fruit in to make a fruit vodka (lemon, chilli etc)

Because the sugar and special yeasts give a very "clean" wash, with nice pure alcohol coming out of the still (once you dump those first few mil of "paint thinner" anyway) you get safe booze, that's pretty easy on the head next day. You would normally water it down to a normal 40% strength, otherwise your buddies drink it like normal booze, and tend to fall over  :D

Making proper Whisky (or Whiskey) is trickier. Because you are relying on the flavour from the mash to flavour your end product, if you get it wrong at any stage, it's terrible. :'(

We had a weird legal situation here a few years back where it was legal to sell a still, own a still, and posses alcohol from one. The only actually illegal part was actually running the still, unless you paid the excise tax. But there was no mechanism to pay the tax, even if your were that honest that you wanted to.  ??? So a the police and tax dept just turned a blind eye to home stills, unless you started selling it, then you could get in the deep do-do.

Eventually they just changed the law so you could run a still for "personal use". It's still illegal to sell your product, but making a few gallons for you and your friends is no worries.

Ian

[thecfarm]

Thank you muddstopper. Not many stills or grits around here.  ;D  I have heard of hard cider around here,years ago.

[lowpolyjoe]

Great info, thanks muddstopper

Those two guys who dug the whole to make the underground still looked like they were using rough sawn beams so i was wondering if they might be lurking around this forum  :D  Or maybe a buddy of theirs.

[SPIKER]

I like the show mostly for Tickle and Jim-Tom.   recently they have been putting Tickle (acting plastered) giving hints and quotes for life or some sort of sayings.   Usually between show breaks in the commercial sections.

I've had some (ok a good bit) of home made wines, brandy and even REAL shine & apple pie.   (I'm not a drinker mind ya) but just for fun and or to taste stuff to see what I like.    smiley_alcoholic_01
I got a bit of clear stuff in the fridge now that made it's way from KY.

When I was a kid 14 or so me & my cousin ran (full time in summer part time in winter during school) landscaping (mowing and trimming trees building retaining walls, clearing land et all)   One of our regular customers was a retired doctor who made the BEST homemade wine  ;D smiley_alcoholic_01 part of the payment was free samples.   Seeing as we didnt drive trucks yet they served lunch with 2 or 3 open bottles of different wines (they were from one of the OLD countries.)   I was particularly attracted to the strawberry he made 8) which I used in chile and steak simmering  ;)   The Blackberry & Plum were also very good!   We worked at his place for about 3 or 4 weeks straight 12 hrs a day putting in Rail Road tie retaining wall around the dam in a 12 acre lake.   His lawn was manicured I we had to hand carry the ties about 200~400 yards from the street.   At the time we were NOT all that big but worked hard at that job.   The Dam was ~150 yards long and 4 or 5 ties high each tie was put in with 3ea 36" 1/2 S.S. rods.   We had to HAND DRILL the ties at first out at the dam using old timber framers seat drill.   We convinced him to let us power auger them out at the street as long as we cleaned up all the savings each night... :

 
Mark

[WDH]

Spiker,

That story about the ties and the dam on the lake could drive a man to drink  :D.

[SPIKER]

WDH we did that in Late July into mid to late Aug.   Most days it was in the upper 80's lower 90's.   Kind of like one of Jerry Clower's stories  (It was HOT WHOOO boy it was DAANG HOT lemme tellsya)  hehehe :D

I dont think they were FULL PENETRATE ties as I don't remember them being all that heavy but we would take about 5 of them then start hammering em in as a break.   The front had trees but NONE all along the dam so NO SHADE we had to do it then as all the neighbors (RICH BIG HOMES) all watered out of the lake and drew it down 3 or 4 feet by that time.   The top 2 were just above water level the rest were below water when the pond/lake came back up the next spring.   the homes around the lake were on I think 3~5 acres that were pretty wooded by homes & street but little to nothing around the lake other than paddle boats & docks.   He had a pretty nice boardwalk & dock & was the owner that mowed the dam (ok we mowed the dam.) 

the neighbor was my brother-n-laws boss & owned "Standard Welding & Supply" in Medina.   they had maybe 40 employees there.   His place only had about 3/4 acre to mow but also had part of the dam his was the last home in the culldesac with heated pool fancy (shop made) iron gate/fence.   We put in a BIG stone retaining wall dry stacked flower bed for him though we were OK to use a Skid Steer for that one  8) but some of those rocks were 4 or 5' around.  We were back in school by the time that was done.   We went from those jobs to winter clear cut for Kenny Cleveland Builders for the North East side of town condos/development.    The area was pretty much all pine plantation & we cut 1000's of 8~10" pine into 8' logs.   most were going to a fence post place I guess as they wanted square cut ends and exactly 8'6".   We Bucked, De-limbed and loaded them into piles about 100 yards long & as high as we could pitch em.   I think we had 5 piles like that prior to the log trucks showing up & stared loading out.   We used bulldozer & skids to get them over to the piles.   That was a total mud pit it rained most of the days froze up at night and warmed up & rained more...   12~14hrs a day over thanksgiving & x-mas break.   JR and I did most of the grunt work while my uncle and brother-n-law ran dozer/chainsaws.   The dumb part was they went back in and planted more pines around all the homes once they were build  :   We DID get to run 4x4 trucks plowing the developments KC had going.   That was some fun...

Mark