Shine On:

Distilling, Cultural Rebellion, and the Fluid Construction of Criminality

Carl Root and Edward Green

“They were outlaws but only because a distant central government ‘criminalized’ part of their way of life by imposing a tax on home-distilled whiskey they had produced for generations.”

—Wilbur Miller^[1]

In 2008, two graduate students in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University wondered aloud why their hometown of London, Kentucky, harbored a headquarters of the Appalachia HIDTA. HIDTA is an acronym for “high-intensity drug trafficking area,” and the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia are under the purview of the Appalachia HIDTA. Funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the organization’s stated mission is to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations in the Appalachian region. Having seen multiple markets rise and fall with regard to illegal drugs—whether marijuana, methamphetamine, or more recently, heroin and other opioids—we were interested in examining what made our part of the world such a hotbed for drug trafficking, use, and abuse. Our first thought was creating a cultural history of the manufacturing of illicit substances, flowing all the way back to white lightning, hooch, and mountain dew: all nicknames for that untaxed white whiskey more commonly called moonshine.

Considering this historical context crucial in understanding the present conditions of Appalachia, we began to conduct research and eventually set out to interview individuals about our region’s storied past of moonshiners and revenuers. It wasn’t long at all before we became convinced of something the late Southern author William Faulkner once noted: “The past is never dead, it’s not even past.”^[2] Just as quickly as we began speaking with family and friends with prior knowledge and experience in the craft of distillation (more specifically, the illegal manufacture of the aforementioned untaxed alcohol, moonshine), we were encouraged to speak to others with more contemporary information, experience, and insight. With what researchers refer to as a “snowball sample,” where one interview leads to another, which leads to another, we went into some surprising locations to discuss and observe the very current practice of an age-old art and craft. It turns out that rumors of the demise of moonshine and moonshining had been greatly exaggerated. Instead, we found ourselves right in the middle of what has now been recognized as a sort of renaissance, or a renewal, of white whiskey in Appalachia and the United States.^[3]

We met moonshiners in bars, suburbs, and even inside a gated community—hardly the hollers and hills that initially concerned our study’s funders and the university’s institutional review board. As part of our research, we were given a VHS tape that had been created for the sole purpose of passing on the tradition of making moonshine the old-fashioned way within a family. The sometimes-shaky footage focused on two fellows tending to a still somewhere in the woods of West Virginia. They explained how they didn’t want this set of skills, or their knowledge, to die with them and were producing this video so that it could be shared with future generations. They described the process in an easy-to-follow manner and shared plenty of personal observations and opinions on moonshining and its historical troubles with the law.

The video had been recorded years before a similar film titled This Is the Last Dam Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make made a man named Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton a cult classic example of the mountain moonshiner.^[4] Before we had the chance to reach out to him, Sutton died by suicide before he was to report to federal prison after being convicted of charges involving moonshining and illegal firearm possession. We attended his funeral service in Cocke County, Tennessee, and our curiosity was piqued as country music star Hank Williams Jr., also in attendance, told the press that “we’ve got something big in the works.” It would be some time later before we learned that Williams was one of the investors in “Popcorn Sutton Original Small Batch Recipe”—one of many marketing strategies recently responsible for making moonshine a legal, and taxable, commodity. Williams and his associates have since trademarked the tagline “America’s Original Rebel Spirit,” and it also serves as the subtitle for a 2018 book by John Schlimm.^[5]  

By 2017, there were at least 137 distilleries marketing some kind of unaged white whiskey as moonshine.^[6] Visitors to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, can sample a cornucopia of flavors, try moonshine-soaked cherries, and take pictures in front of a huge copper still. In 2021, over 5.7 million people visited the four Tennessee locations of Ole Smoky Distillery, more visitors than any other distillery in the world. By comparison, 2.2 million people visited all of Scotland’s 134 whiskey distilleries the same year.^[7] Appalachian counties and cities previously flooded with “revenuers” from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in search of mountain moonshiners are now teeming with tourists looking for a taste of “that good ol’ mountain dew.”

How is it that the same recipe that resulted in a prison sentence for Popcorn Sutton is now mass produced and marketed widely without fear of such consequences? As it turns out, the history of moonshine and moonshiners is one that has undergone multiple transformations, from respected to reviled and from romanticized to demonized and back again. These ebbs and flows in reputation have a curious connection to the history of laws and taxes related to liquor in the United States. This history has turned into a more contemporary conversation, and echoes of this past persist in the 21st century’s renewed interest in mountain spirits.

17th and 18th Centuries: Whisky as Necessity and Right

“The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learned to like it.”

—Winston Churchill^[8]

The word whiskey comes from the Gaelic term usquebaugh, which is most often translated as “water of life.”^[9] Making whiskey was a crucial part of Celtic life for the Scottish, the Irish, and the Welsh, as documented by some of the earliest Anglo-Saxon invaders.^[10] Of course, these traditions traveled with the people. There is evidence of English settlers distilling the maize, or corn, of Indigenous peoples into whiskey as far back as the 1620s, when George Thorpe and other settlers established the Berkeley Plantation on the frontier just beyond the original Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Thorpe embraced corn and distilled it, writing home to friends about how he preferred his “drink of Indian corn” to English beer.^[11] In fact, alcoholic beverages were the drink of choice in early colonial life since other options were either too expensive (coffee and tea), too scarce (milk), or unpleasant to taste (much of the water). Unfortunately, very little research into the earliest years of alcohol production in colonial America exists. Sarah Meacham reveals how the activity was a necessity, as she states, “critical to survival.”^[12]

While the 20th century image of a bootlegging or moonshine-making man escaping the law persisted through media, the history of alcohol production tells a different story. Primarily under the purview of women, cider and ale production and the associated tavern keeping was important work in a society dependent upon alcohol as a safe drink, medicine, cleaning product, and sometimes currency for encouraging voters. In 1656, Englishman John Hammond published a denouncement of the “slothful and careless” Chesapeake women for not making enough alcohol in hopes of publicly shaming them into increasing production. He stated that “they will be adjudged by their drinke, what kind of housewives they are [sic].”^[13] Farmers found corn whiskey to be preferable economically to raw corn or grain. Much more could be transported to market for much more profit. By the 18th century, the practice was widespread, and farmers produced somewhere between 100  and 1,000 gallons annually.^[14] 

After the Revolutionary War, the social and cultural view of alcohol production as a necessity and critical for survival ensured conflict in 1791 when George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, promoted the passage of the first tax on a domestic product by the U.S. government: the whiskey tax. The tax was seen by the administration as a crucial tool in paying off the debt accrued from the American Revolution. Farmers and others vigorously protested the whiskey tax initially and advocated for its repeal. When nonviolent actions were ignored, violence ensued. A tax collector was tarred, feathered, and whipped in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Large-scale resistance and avoidance of the tax were reported throughout Appalachia. Tax collectors as well as those who complied with them were threatened and subject to reprisal, such as having their barns and stills burned. By the summer of 1794, the uprising known as the “Whiskey Rebellion” was in full swing.

Eventually, President Washington sent more than 12,000 well-armed federal troops to round up suspected rebels and to quell the rebellion. This action is widely considered one of the first real challenges to the authority of the U.S. government. Washington’s administration “passed the test,” so to speak, as the whiskey tax remained in effect until 1802. The tax remained terribly unpopular, as proven by subsequent difficulties in collection followed by Thomas Jefferson’s successful campaign strategy of promising to repeal it, which he did upon defeating incumbent President John Adams in 1800. Jefferson’s promise led to what historian Joseph Dabney referred to as a “golden era of American whiskey as a tax-free agricultural enterprise and frontier cottage industry.”^[15] With the exception of three years, during the War of 1812, this untaxed period of whiskey-making lasted sixty years. Ironically, by 1797, even George Washington was making whiskey: “His farm manager, a Scot named James Anderson, knew how to build a distillery and how to operate it, so Washington had one of his unprofitable farms converted to the growing of rye and had Anderson build a five-pot distillery.”^[16] Even in the beginning, views on the legality and morality of making whiskey in the United States were quite fluid and subject to change.

19th Century: War and Taxes

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

—Benjamin Franklin^[17]

As a result of Jefferson’s repeal of the whiskey tax (and firing of federal tax collectors), the regular and routine practice of whiskey-making resumed, or perhaps “continued” is more accurate. Historian Bruce E. Stewart says of this period, “Before the Civil War, no stigma had yet been attached to mountain residents who made alcohol.”^[18] During this “golden era,” whiskey’s reputation as a medical wonder was maintained; likewise, it was present at most social events, including elections. Daniel Pierce explains how in the Great Smoky Mountains “voters generally expected those running for office to ‘treat’ them with whiskey and provide some entertainment.”^[19] Demand was high, as the annual individual consumption of liquor reached 7.1 gallons by 1830.^[20] Of course, this demand proved an economic incentive for mountain farmers, who needed an agricultural product to turn into cash to use to pay taxes. For example, the farmer could get about $10 for a wagonload of corn or around $150 or more for a wagonload of whiskey in 1890.^[21] Therefore, the mountain folks making whiskey during this time were respected. As Stewart acknowledged, they were “not marginalized criminals but entrepreneurs responding to the marketplace. As such, they gained the appreciation of mountain people, who regarded drinking—and distilling—as a vital element of their economy and culture.”^[22]

Then in 1861, the country went to war with itself. Again, a whiskey tax to help pay for war was implemented in 1862. Much like in previous times, opposition to the tax was high, as was the evasion of paying it. Table 1 shows the drastic increase in whiskey prices from a New York sample as a result of the tax.

Figure 1. Price-Chart of Cheapest Grade Whiskey for 56 years.

Image Credit: David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries

Alongside the whiskey tax, the nation established its first income tax. In response, the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue was reinstituted and, according to IRS figures, “in its first year, 1863 . . . collected $39.1 million.”^[23] The development and professionalization of the Internal Revenue Service were necessarily intertwined with the enforcement of unpopular liquor laws during this time period.^[24] Historian Wilbur Miller addressed this enforcement and corresponding resistance: “By 1876 most of the work of district attorneys and the marshals in Appalachia was revenue cases, in Georgia amounting to four-fifths of federal prosecutions.”^[25] During these years, distillers were often referred to as “blockaders,” as they “ran the blockade” of revenuers to sell the product. During the time after the 1862 tax, the label “moonshiner” arose to describe those who distilled alcohol illicitly, perhaps due to their work under cover of darkness.

In 1876, under orders from President Ulysses S. Grant, the IRS increased the enforcement of liquor laws, seizing over 3,000 stills and arresting twice as many moonshiners in the next four years.^[26] This growth in the manufacturing of illicit alcohol has often been attributed to cultural forces, but the external forces of industrialization and urbanization play a more important role. As coal and timber companies moved into the Appalachian region, populations exploded. Miller describes how Middlesborough, Kentucky, went from sixty farmers to 5,000 residents between 1883 and 1889, for instance.^[27] This population growth necessarily translated to expanded markets for moonshiners, as the now-criminalized practitioners of the ancient art of distilling were known.

In the late 19th century, readers of American magazines and newspapers began seeing articles about the industrious residents of Appalachia, including mountain moonshiners. Unfortunately, many local color writers expanded the periodicals’ audiences but relied heavily on stereotypes of mountain people as isolated, backward, and fundamentally uncivilized compared to the rest of the nation. These stereotypes and negative connotations would surround representations of mountain people, and particularly moonshiners, well into the 20th century. The power of outside forces in shaping the Appalachian economy and identity likewise persisted. The century began, in fact, with the widespread passage of laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol altogether.

20th Century: Prohibition and Profit

“Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”

—Will Rogers^[28]

Not only did prohibition laws dry up a revenue stream for the federal government, they were also great for those in the moonshine business. These laws came early to the Appalachian region, and by 1920, national prohibition had arrived. By this point, even many moonshiners had accepted the existence of whiskey taxes (even if they chose to evade them), but the notion that the government could deprive people of the right to turn their corn into whiskey was completely unacceptable and outrageous to entire Appalachian communities.

Between 1900 and 1930, it would be safe to say that Southern Appalachia had been fully transformed into an industrial region of resource extraction, specifically logging and mining. Many in Appalachia resisted employment in these industries, preferring instead to maintain their more traditional agrarian existence, sometimes supplemented by the newly criminalized activity of distilling corn into whiskey. These individuals formerly known as entrepreneurs therefore became outlaws and the primary focus of the IRS.

Miller described the turn toward national prohibition as “a far greater expansion of the state than tax collection” and explained how this effort “led federal officials from a difficult task to an impossible one.”^[29] This task was seen as impossible in large part due to the fact that this intrusion was viewed as “moral instead of merely fiscal.”^[30] Resistance was inevitable and profitable for many. After all, laws meant to prohibit production and consumption did nothing to curb the nation’s appetite for alcohol.

Instead, Prohibition created an economic incentive. The exponential increase in the value of alcohol during this time led many moonshiners to increase production. Dabney described how during this time “corn whiskey went big-time—attracting fabulous prices from thirsty consumers everywhere, but particularly in the major cities, where the big gangs contracted for every drop of homemade whiskey they could lay their hands on.”^[31] Many moonshiners upgraded from forty- or fifty-gallon stills to those capable of producing over 500 gallons at a time. Pierce explained, “What had once been a craft, now became an industrial process.”^[32]

As the name of the game became increased production and increased profit, multiple innovations beyond the use of bigger stills emerged in the production of moonshine. Moonshiners began using sugar and baker’s yeast to decrease fermentation time, some added adulterants to give the impression that the whiskey was stronger than it actually was, and some used car and truck radiators instead of copper condenser worms to speed production. Henry Ford’s assembly line automobiles and the state and federal highways likewise revolutionized the business of moonshining, and the innovations of bootleggers and rum-runners transporting illegal alcohol laid the foundation for what is now known as the National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR).

Prohibition might have failed at eliminating the mass production of alcohol in the United States, but it succeeded wildly in revolutionizing the business. While it was still portrayed in media accounts through stereotypes of backward, even primitive, mountain people, Pierce comments that “in reality almost overnight it had become a modern, integrated, industrial process” and, referring to the Great Smoky Mountains area, that moonshining “probably employed more people and made more profit than any other business in the region.”^[33] Of course, this industrialization was big business for revenuers as well, and the cat-and-mouse game continued throughout the century although the repeal of national prohibition by the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1933 decreased demand for moonshine considerably.

In many Appalachian regions, however, prohibition was maintained through state and local laws, and economic hardship in the area continued to provide motivation to moonshiners. Once again in the 1950s, increased taxes on liquor made moonshine an attractive option, and production increased to meet the demand. This decade is referred to as the “Thunder Road” era due to the prevalence of heavily modified vehicles used to transport moonshine. Hollywood, always eager to depict a good car chase, capitalized on the excitement of this era with films like Thunder Road,^[34] connecting the illicit behavior of moonshine running in Kentucky and Tennessee with the excitement of pushing the limits of the law while driving race cars.^[35]

Ironically, around the same time that some popular culture romanticized the moonshiners and their business, other celebrities, such as Andy Griffith, worked in coordination with the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division (ATTD; later the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF) to raise awareness about the dangers of illicit alcohol. In order to increase profits and production during this era, like under prohibition, some moonshiners again took particularly dangerous shortcuts, such as adding adulterants for “kick” and using radiators from cars and trucks, resulting in cases of lead poisoning, blindness, and death. In addition to their effort to raise public awareness of the dangers of moonshine, the ATTD mounted an aggressive campaign called Operation Dry Up in 1962 and by the 1970s had greatly increased the number of enforcement agents and decreased moonshine production in several states.

Another strategy implemented by moonshiners throughout this period to increase profit was the use of sugar instead of corn. Doing so decreased the time of production and increased the amount of whiskey produced. This incentive disappeared in the 1970s after the U.S. government’s embargo on Cuba caused a doubling in the price of sugar. Other necessary materials such as copper and corn likewise increased in price, which all but erased the profit in making moonshine. Much of the market remained since the moonshiner could sell their product cheaper than legal whiskey due to avoiding the taxes. With an increase in production costs, however, moonshiners had to raise prices almost to the level of legal liquor to make money.

At the same time, other economic opportunities appeared in Appalachia, and many moonshiners “went legit.” Between 1967 and 1977, the number of moonshine stills destroyed by federal agents dropped from 6,000 to 500. By 1997, that number was about twenty per year.^[36] Lippard and Stewart point out that “by the end of the twentieth century, journalists, scholars, and mountain residents alike had concluded that moonshining as well as the knowledge of making unaged corn whiskey were on the verge of extinction.”^[37] These conclusions were a bit premature, however, as the 21st century has seen another monumental change regarding moonshine production and distribution: legalization.

21st Century: Legalization and Commodification

“We need continually to remind ourselves of one single simple statement that a criminal act has to be defined through social and cultural processes that are in themselves played out separate from the essence of the act itself.”

—Mike Presdee^[38]

During the last decade of the 20th century, there were fewer than 100 legal distilleries in the United States. Kenneth Sanchagrin describes the exponential growth of whiskey-making facilities: “by 2011, when 26 states had reformed their laws, the number of distilleries had jumped to 356, and in 2016, when nearly every state had reformed its distillery laws in one way or another, the number of distilleries jumped to 1,118.”^[39] By 2023 this number reached 2,150, an increase of over 2,000% according to census data from the North American Industry Classification System.^[40]  This expansion is a direct result of changing laws at state, county, and municipal levels.^[41] The majority of alcohol manufacturing laws involve and apply to small craft distilleries. Plenty of distilleries—both within Appalachia and beyond—have found moonshine and the history and outlaw nature of the spirit to be a profitable investment.

Popcorn Sutton’s name, image, and legacy help to market “Popcorn Sutton Original Small Batch Recipe.” For example, his image and the slogan “Jesus turned the water into wine, I turned it into likker” greet visitors to the company website. Unfortunately, Popcorn is portrayed as a salesman of this taxed and legal version of his “likker” in name and image only, since he died by suicide rather than go to prison for the charges he caught for distilling spirits just a few years earlier. Similar moonshine “celebrities,” NASCAR drivers Junior Johnson and Bill Elliott have also gotten in on the legal moonshine business, with Johnson’s “Midnight Moon” marketed as being “inspired by Johnson’s family recipe.” Their website describes how when “young Junior ran ’shine for his family, driving like a bat out of hell evolved into more than just a necessity. In order to outrun the cops, he built the fastest cars and invented gutsy driving moves, like the famed bootlegger U-turn. His racing savvy soon turned into passion and Junior crossed over to NASCAR, where he became an instant star.”^[42] The website goes on to describe how Johnson was eventually caught by revenuers (not driving, but at home) and served eleven months of a two-year sentence before returning to his racing career. Junior Johnson passed on in 2019, his criminal past seemingly forgotten, evidenced by being proclaimed the “Last American Hero” by journalist Tom Wolfe in 1965^[43] and having been granted a pardon in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan.^[44]

A growing body of research by cultural criminologists has investigated this phenomenon of the selling, or commodification, of cultural resistance. From the production of television shows like Sons of Anarchy and the sales of associated items, from T-shirts and leather vests to motorcycles, it is possible for fans to purchase some semblance of the outlaw biker lifestyle without encountering any of the associated risks, harms, or stigma.^[45] This same process has taken place with regard to Appalachian outlaw culture and cultural icons related to moonshine and moonshining. Given the number of distilleries currently producing some version of white whiskey (a.k.a. moonshine) and the number of visitors to these distilleries, this appeal to the human urge to misbehave makes for big business.

Distilleries maintain that their technology, recipes, and techniques are all exact replicas of the way moonshine was historically produced. Some argue, however, that it still isn’t the same. In fact, some go as far as to say that if a product is taxable, it ceases to be the same “rebel spirit,” or even be moonshine at all. In fact, one definition of moonshine is “a distilled beverage that is illegally produced.”^[46] As a result, even a proliferation of “legal moonshine” distilleries from coast to coast has not completely killed the art and craft of making moonshine in what is seen as the most “old-fashioned way”: illegally. Many individuals make moonshine in the smallest of small batches and outside the confines of legally established distilleries. Unlike so many who came before them, these moonshiners are not motivated by economic hardship, lack of other employment alternatives, or even the pursuit of profit. Instead, they do it for more personal reasons, sometimes informed by an understanding of the aforementioned history.

Sentiments at least as old as the Whiskey Rebellion were echoed by an older gentleman known around London, Kentucky, as the “General.” The General had spent time in prison for moonshining in the 1960s and explained living outside the law:

Nobody wants to pay taxes—and they’re right in that, I never did like taxes . . . and it’s a form of rebellion as far as I’m concerned. It says, you know, it may be a law, but I don’t have to live with it, I don’t have to abide by it; it’s on the books, if I get caught I pay the penalty . . . but I won’t abide by it. It’s a way of protesting I think.^[47] 

While the General was interviewed in a modest home and recalled tales of working “out in the woods,” not all moonshiners work in hiding; at least one practices his rebellion from a three-car garage nestled within a gated community. Much like the moonshiners of yesteryear, this self-proclaimed “hobby distiller” likewise loved to build fast cars, earning him the code name “Speed Racer.” His cars were meant to win trophies, however, and not to transport the moonshine he made in the same garage. Speed Racer explained his moonshining motivations as being primarily personal, with a hint of the old economic urge thrown in, just for good measure. First, he exclaimed, “I do it because I love it! And it’s addictive!” Later, however, he explained the bottom line: “I drink George Dickel or, used to ’til I got this still. You take a liter, it’s what? Twenty-four-something dollars a bottle. This [making it himself] is four dollars a liter.”^[48] 

Speed Racer illustrates how the 21st century has resulted in some technological innovations useful for moonshining in the new millennium. Over the centuries, changes in the process have been slight, but Speed Racer acquired his still from a website dedicated to hobby distillers. Along with gaining access to useful ingredients like turbo yeasts, he was able to call for tech support if he encountered any problems during the process. Several such sites exist, some stating explicit warnings that these stills are for decoration only or disclaimers that visitors/customers who practice the continued illegality of home distilling should “use at your own risk.” Despite such disclaimers, the rebellious cultural memory, admiration of the craft, and thirst for moonshine remain intact and enticing enough to encourage risk-taking and law-breaking.

Individuals or groups depicted in media as deviants blamed for crime or other social problems are what Stan Cohen calls “folk devils.”^[49] Moonshiners have certainly been subject to such portrayal in folklore. They have also been seen as folk heroes, and the current renaissance uses a cultural celebration of their deviance and defiance in rebranding these rebellious spirits for new markets and media. Simon Hallsworth describes how, throughout centuries of history, the paradoxical theme of “the outlaw” exists both as folk hero and folk devil, at times respected or reviled, demonized or romanticized.^[50] Media and public opinion ebb and flow and laws come and go, but moonshine and moonshiners persist. Whether made and marketed for mass consumption in licensed and taxed distilleries or in more intentionally illicit manners and locations, moonshine certainly seems to be here to stay. Likewise, the attitude of many in Appalachia is that some laws are made to be broken. While moonshine may not be of particular interest to those tasked with Appalachia HIDTA, the political and economic conditions that made it such an attractive option for so many in the region persist to this day. Perhaps both structural conditions and subcultural dispositions are important in understanding underground economies in general.

Conclusion

For much of U.S. history, distilling spirits has been considered a natural right. Entire regions, including those within Appalachia, have used the process to supplement income, to create a product for cleaning, to develop fuel, and to craft other medicinal and/or recreational purposes. Taxes have come and gone, particularly rising around wartime, and in the past century, laws have shifted from pure prohibition to legalization for purposes of craft distilling. Federal law still prohibits home distillation for personal use or profit, however, and much like every other legislation meant to slow or stop this age-old practice, this law continues to be creatively ignored and resisted in Appalachia and elsewhere. The motivations for moonshining in the history of Appalachia were primarily a result of economic hardships imposed by structural forces such as industrialization for the extraction of natural resources and associated exploitative labor practices. In the 21st century, national legalization in favor of the craft distilling of moonshine provides the possibility of profit to entrepreneurs willing to pay for proper permits, taxes, and other prices of admission. Despite this easing of legislation, many modern moonshiners still seem more interested in ensuring that “America’s Original Rebel Spirit” continues to be made in the same tradition of Popcorn Sutton and so many before him: illicitly.

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