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Making moonshine was a way of life in early Clay

By Mary Jo McTammany
Posted 5/30/18

In the early 1800s, more and more families drifted down from the mountains and rural areas of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee to make new homes in today’s Clay County. They came as prepared as they …

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Making moonshine was a way of life in early Clay


Posted

In the early 1800s, more and more families drifted down from the mountains and rural areas of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee to make new homes in today’s Clay County. They came as prepared as they were able. Most arrived by wagons and carts piled high with household furnishings trailing precious livestock and bringing with them the family “receipt” for home brew.

Homemade liquor was simply a part of life like planting, or churning or slaughtering hogs. It was a natural way of using all resources carefully because survival often hung by a thread. Public consumption was pretty much restricted to men but any quick-witted youth knew that the worst trouble he could find would result from messing with his grandmother’s sippin’ wine.

Before prohibition laws, turning out a few batches of shine was just a form of diversification for the family business. It fit right in with raising crops, keeping cattle, hogs and chickens and cutting timber. It all put food on the table. No one made a career out of making moonshine but the short turnover time from mash to cash was hard to resist – especially at tax time.

Also, they prided themselves on the quality of their product. Good shine, it is claimed, is 100 to 105-proof and doesn’t result in hangovers or cause knee-walking in the wet grass like the official bonded whiskey can.

The bubbles tell the story, so they say. When you gently shake moonshine in a clear mason jar, if it’s 100-proof or better – small uniform bubbles will form in clusters, move to the center, connect and hold their shape a moment.

The best shine was aged in oak barrels (probably hauled from the mountains on those wagons), brought more money and was the drink of choice among professional men. It was especially sought by the Northern powers of industry who vacationed in the area.

The manufacture of moonshine involved the entire family like any other activity on the farm. Men often hired out to work for someone else from daylight to dark or were collecting free roaming cattle two counties away. Tending the still became the responsibility of women and children.

Even the smallest youngster knew to give a holler if one of the huge hogs that stayed in the shade under the house rose up and sauntered toward the still. But ...if a hog caught a whiff of fermenting mash it usually took a broom and a stick to change his mind. Cows, too, will get in a still and give milk that some say smells enough like alcohol to bring a good price.

Once the shine had dripped into whatever containers were available, the job was just beginning for these early brewers. Aging someplace cool and dark was necessary to produce the quality these old-time distillers demanded. It was customary to bury in batches. This could lead to new problems.

Sometimes the location of a cache was forgotten and found only when an unsuspecting mule fell in the hole. Often the corks blew off and the aroma would attract a whole nest of rattlesnakes.

They didn’t do it strictly for the money although a few dollars surely could make a difference. They made moonshine so that, at the end of the day, they could sit on the stoop and sip from a tin cup and feel connected to the generations behind them and, perhaps, those to come.