Moonshine Suspects To Face Trial

Associated Press ^ | September 8 ,2001 | Chris Kahn

[Church Lady]

While I do frown on spirits ,its amazing to me thay moonshinging is still around. If you do drink,please be very careful around moonshine, because as the article mentions you might get poisoned.

[hinckley buzzard]

This story cannot possibly be true. We all know that when the government calls a truce in the War on Drugs, and legalizes a mindbending substance, illegal supplies dry up and the illicit traffic goes away.

[secretagent]

``There'll always be someone here trying to make a buck.''

Including the "revenooers".

[In veno, veritas]

Moonshine is still around, and still pretty good. One problem, not on this particular case, is making moonshine for your own consumption illegal? If the government taxes that, will they soon be taxing the vegetables I grow in the garden?

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live.. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile..private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. This is the tendancy of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in it's train wretchedness and oppression." -- Thomas Jefferson

[zeromus]

I didnt know it was possible to so totally miss a point. For every man who drinks moonshine, there are a thousand who don't. Legalization of alcohol isnt supposed to toatally eliminate the demand for bad alcohol, it is supposed to allow the supply of good alcohol (if i may use the strange term) to be supplied to the people who would demand it. Why force people demanding good alcohol to drink bad alcohol by keeping it illegal? the exact same situation would apply to drugs. Some people smart enough to do "regulated", official drugs would be able to get their fix much more safely than they can now.

[piasa]

MAybe- on the other hand- some of it is extremely good stuff. Until they arrest the Kennedy clan they ought to leave the other moonshiners alone.

[Senator Pardek]

Hale's defense attorney, state Sen. W. Roscoe Reynolds, did not return repeated calls to his law firm.

Ya gotta love rural folk.

[BluesDuke]

If the government taxes that, will they soon be taxing the vegetables I grow in the garden?

You want to give the bastards any more brilliant ideas or something? *wink*

When I was in the Air Force, I first lived in the lower apartment of a two-family home. The couple upstairs was another Air Force couple; the wife often spoke of her father in Tennessee making prime 'shine. Sure enough, she brought us a jug of the stuff. As Jackie Gleason used to say, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-boy! was that good booze! Not good enough to make me switch from my beloved bourbon, but very good, indeed!

[MistrX]

A friend of mine used to make his own whiskey. Double distilled (all joints silver-soldered) and final filtered through a tube sock full of charcoal. A one-half gallon Ball jar had a faint blue tint to it. It was mighty smooth with a kick. And no skull pop.

[headsonpikes]

"...some of it is extremely good stuff."

When I was a stripling lad, I helped run off 30 gallons of moonshine in rural British Columbia that was smoother than premium rye. It was beautiful whiskey. Once you diluted it a little , to 40% or so alcohol content, anyone could drink it straight-up without mixing it...no gagging. That could get you drunk in a hurry!

Of course, bootlegging and homemade booze is a Canadian tradition. Home-made hootch keeps you warm at hockey games, eh?

[etcetera]

"... is making moonshine for your own consumption illegal?"

You can ferment your own mash to make beer or wine, but DISTILLING it is illegal.

[CommiesOut]

"its amazing to me thay moonshinging is still around"

Don't believe in this silly gov. propaganda...
Glad to be back on FR. I was terribly busy all day. Just finished work half an hour ago.

[sawsalimb]

I used to work with a gentleman from the Kentucky/West Virginia border area,and he would show up on occasion with some moonshine that was made by a real craftsman. Good stuff,and the man that brought it was a fine person that I was proud to be acquainted with.

[logic101.net]

I have no doubt that the story is true. Moonshine is a TRADITION in that area. You also have to keep in mind that it is one of the poorest areas of our nation, and these people have struggled for survival for generations. If you really want to learn about the area, read the FOX FIRE books; they are a how-to series of how the people of Apalachia have done for themselves, and even include a section on how to make, run, and hide a still. Since the "revenuer's" as the natives call them are going after the current manufacturers of moonshine so heavily, it is too bad they can't take the proceeds from past illegal 'shine sales. Old Joe Kennedy got his start running illegal alcohol during prohibition! MARK A SITY www.logic101.net

[the irate magistrate]

With all due respect to you Church Lady. I do not believe this clap-trap government propaganda newspaper report for a minute.

It sounds more like a setup coming for more property seizures around the nearby UN Biosphere, in concert with CARA.

I've known real moonshiners in the past that made the stuff for economic survival in order to feed their families. They claim that this art of wiskey making is some of the most expensive, risky and, back-breaking work that could be ever concieved.

Sure, it's still made in the rural South; but, it's my experience that it's mostly persued as a hobby of tradition, for self consumption; and, trade to close friends that appreciate the art of it.

[The FReeper, Ratcat] had an excellent map of the UN Biosphere area posted on his FR thread last week.

I sure hope that Ratcat answers this post and, posts the map of The Southern Appalachian Biosphere again on this thread for all to see.

Then maybe, we won't be so fast to believe the government police agencies in their propaganda, aided by the socialist news wires.

Moonshining is simply not an economically viable business anymore.

This is definitely "news" contrived to feed the sheeple on the East Coast, to make the land grabbing to follow more palatable.

[Mo1]

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[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Moonshine is still around, and still pretty good. One problem, not on this particular case, is making moonshine for your own consumption illegal?

Distilling your own alcohol is still illegal; you have to get all kinds of permits and pay lots of taxes.

You can brew your own beer, wine, cider, mead, and other fermented alcoholic beverages, for your own personal use (they changed the law to allow this some time back in the 70's or 80's). For some reason, the federales did not legalize home distilling when they legalized home brewing. I guess they figured that the BATF might get pissed off if they removed one of "their" prime reasons for existing.

One can't help thinking that if home distilling were legal, that what little moonshining that remained would virtually disappear. There can't be that much of an economic incentive to moonshine; legal booze is pretty darn cheap as is. Nostalgia for moonshine could be quickly cured by hobbiests allowed to legally set up their own home stills for purely home consumption.

[doglot]

I have always heard that these stories of radiators were crap almost always. The moonshine gets tainted when it gets to the urban areas and is cut with whatever is at hand to make the drink houses more profit.

The most creative thing I believe I have ever seen was when I was a kid and the Yadkin County, NC sheriff conficated a "mobile" still. He put it on display at the court house when they brought it in. It was an old ton truck with the mash vat, etc. mounted on the bed. I will admit it looked nasty because yellow jackets, flies, etc. decided they wanted "a little drank" out of the vat. It was mid-summer I think. What the heck. I guess distilling would kill anything bad in the mash.

For once I was in the right place at the right time to see this masterpiece of engineering.

[piasa]

I am of the personal opinion that the best moonshiners should be given the formal title of "American National Treasures" - sort of along the lines the Japanese have honored their traditional craftsmen and artisans. Such skill should be preserved as some have a touch that cannot be surpassed by a commercial distillery. if there can be microbreweries, why not microdistilleries?

[norraad]

yes & cheers all'round to an "American National Treasure"!

You know, the BATF propaganda always manages to shoot itself in the foot when looked at in detail.

$19.5 million lost from tax revenue over the years pales when you compare the tax revenue they consume.