I don’t know what else the doctor put in his but the main ingredient was mountain moonshine. I lived way back in the mountains in a cabin in the late 70’s and early 80’s and I could stand by the stream that ran behind the house and smell the runoff from the stills. My dad was walking in the woods one day and walked up on the still while they were working it. After that he made a trip there now and then for a bottle for Mom to make cough syrup.
Law enforcement doesn’t bother the moonshiners anymore. Meth is the new moonshine and they can make more money by arresting them. Now that moonshine has been made legal in Tennessee (because they pay taxes on it, regulate it, and it’s a lower alcohol content) I doubt any of the old time moonshiners bother anymore.
We found the remains of 2 stills on our property after we bought it in 1986, just outside of Nashville!