New show "Moonshiners" on Discovery

[Border Ruffian]

This only mildly related to zoot shooting but it does give a view into Moonshining and distilling illegal booze as was done in the 1920s.

[Lucky R. K.]

This only mildly related to zoot shooting but it does give a view into Moonshining and distilling illegal booze as was done in the 1920s.

It is still being done here in East Tennessee and western North Carolina.

Lucky 

[Border Ruffian]

It is still being done here in East Tennessee and western North Carolina.

Lucky 

I've never had Moonshine and I was wondering if it tastes better or is preferred for some other reason to "store bought" spirits.  Does anyone know?

[Don Nix]

I've drank enough of both to float a boat in my youth. it all depends on taste. good shine can be as smooth as your mothers love. some tastes like kerosene.
When I was a kid my Dad and the Sheriff busted up  a lot of stills. Daddy always brought some of the better evidence home. he had a 10 gallon keg in the barn that he sharred on the inside. he would put an apple in the keg and fill it with whiskey and let it age.
It looked like  rusty tap water when poured in a glass and went down real smoooth. But it would make you want to fight a Grizzly with a toothpick.
Me and my buddies (all about 12 or 13) would take a sip or two when dad wasnt home. this worked pretty good until he began to notice that the barrel had a "leak".
We later on got to buying or whiskey from a still  that was run in an old junk yard. You would drive into the junkyard at night  and there was a fruuitjar sitting by a big Oak tree next to the road. You put your money in the jar  and drove on through the junkyard and when you circled back out a quart of whiskeuy wouhld be sitting at the base of the tree.
It was good whiskey but Daddy found out about it and told us that the  bootlegger was using radiators to condensed the whiikey and that we would go blind or get the jake leg.
that was when we switched to  Jack daniels.T
I dont drink anymore but I still prefer good moonshine to bottled and bonded whiskey.

[Lucky R. K.]

Jack Daniels is moonshine that has been cut in strength and aged in a charred barrel for a period of time.

I used t have a friend who aged moonshine in one gallon sized charred kegs.  He cut the 'shine to about 100 proof or 50% and put the keg in in his basement for about a year.  Except for the difference in strength (Jack Daniels is now 80 proof) you couldn't tell the difference.

Lucky   

[Nokose Fixico]

Yeah Don, when they run it thru radiators you have to be careful only way to test it. Yes there are still clowns making it that way. If you get some pour a little on a plate and strike a match to it if it burns blue the shine is true. If it is orange you got ripped off do not drink it but you can use it to clean out drains and such on the farm. I still test mine this way when I can get it.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

This all reminds me of a person that I knew who went blind and paralyzed on one side .... t he one time he didn't inspect the still the man used an old used radiator as the condensor ... and he got lead poisoning from the antifreeze and motor metals that had been in suspension and traveled through the radiatior.

I watched as the lead worked out of his system and slowly he became able to use his paralyzed side. You could see it in his fingernails and hair ...

Finally, after months of rehab, he was (miraculously) totally recovered.

I asked him if he was ever going to drink moonshine again .... but his answer startled me  .....

'Hell yes!' He replied, 'But next time I'm gonna look at the still first!'

[Nokose Fixico]

All I read was antifreeze and motor metals, that scares me too. I am happy to know he survived it that time.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

He was an old guy from the hills and tough as the day is long ... I mean, the initial shock of it would probably have done me in ....*S*

[Nokose Fixico]

In all reality It would have done me in too. I consider shine to be sippin stuff.