Ummm. I kind of forgot.
Anybody know the statute of limitations on this?
Drank some, I guess. I've even stumbled on a couple of old stills, down in the national forest. Out of production, one busted up real good. Shine is still made all over the place.
The operations split into two distinct classes, maybe 3. There are cooks who take great pride in their work. They make very small batches and generally give away the product they don't drink. Profit never comes into the picture.
Then there are the profit aimed operations. They work for a while, sell what they make, and move along. They know if they run too many batches the law will be on their tail. Its generally thought with every sales transaction some of it gets into the wrong hands. Be it the law, a competitor, or a religious fanatic. Soon after the law gets wind of it. Hard to keep a secret down in the hills. When someone is breaking the law, every contact runs the risk of arrest.
Within my sterling family, there are stories.
One uncle (cousin to me, but called an uncle) made his living as a hauler. Like everyone else, he had a "hot" car. Never taken to town, but at nights could be heard racing on the state highways. Their best scam was sending the car out to make its noise. Then the real stuff would move on the hay wagon behind the old tractor, just above walking speed. One family story involved the locals pulling the high speed tractor over. Then they dismantled the load, a bale at a time. Uncle raising cane the whole time. The were down near the end and just gave up. Then refused to help him restack it! The thing was, the way they'd stacked it to begin with, it was "keyed" so to find the small load of gallon jugs, the entire load had to come off!
For years after that, the uncle would bad mouth the sheriff and any of his deputies he recognized for unloading his hay wagon and no helping him reload it. If two more bales had come off, he'd have been in the pokey!
Another of the stories was they'd stopped at the still and took a full load off to market. The next day they were supposed to come back for more, but when he got there the still was completely gone. Vanished. Pretty confusing for a guy who was making a living. So he gave up and drove out the lane to go home. There was a whole bunch of revenooers a'waitin for him. Of course there was nothing on the truck at all. The still had moved during the night.
Just like the liquor agents had snitches that told who and where, they had leaks that tipped the moonshiners off. Picking up and moving is all part of the game. Back then it was an honorable living. Maybe illegal, but usually respected if you followed the "code", didn't poison anyone, and didn't turn anyone else in.
Lots of in's and out's. Every year the church got big donations from the moonshiners. The local judges and sheriff's candidates always had money for their campaign. The only folks with money were the ones running the stills. Don't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out where it came from. Dry counties were dry to protect the interests of the shiners. No different from crooked politicians today.
