The Secret Economy of the Appalachian Mountain Folks

by Deborah Brookshire

It was the end of a long night in the back woods of the Appalachian Mountains as the men finishing packing in the last of the supplies.  The men stopped for a short breather due to the back -breaking work and the hidden location of the work site deep in the moonlit woods in one of the poor counties in the Appalachian Mountains.  It has always been this way for as long as the men can remember. For generations there had never been enough money to feed their families, no jobs to speak of and no one in the family had ever graduated from high school.

With no jobs or education men had to find ways to make a living and the one legacy,  passed down from generation to generation  the making of moonshine whiskey, white lighting,  or bootleg liquor.  It is known by many names and is the lifeblood for many of the poorest families in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains. ”.

I grew up in a small town in South Carolina named Travelers Rest.   It is at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was the first place travelers came to after crossing the mountains. They would stop to rest and feed their families and animals. It is a nice place to live if you like living in the country. Part of country life was the making and consuming of “moonshine”. 
 
“Moonshine” was always around and it was a normal part of life.  I thought everyone’s family knew about moonshine and was involved with it in some way.   My grandfather, uncles, father and other family members talked about making it and delivering it to their buyers like any other merchant would do. I would sit at the dinner table and listen to my family tell the stories of running from the law when the revenuers would find the still and everyone would scatter. The moonshiners always had the advantage because they grew up in the hills and knew the best escape routes. The revenuers knew whom they were chasing but could not arrest them unless they could catch them at the still making the liquor. When they found the still their only alternative was to destroy the still and try to get them another day.
One of my favorite stories was about my Uncle Billy.  Supposedly, there was photograph of him on top on one of the biggest stills ever found in Upper Greenville County. I always wondered if the story was true so I called my uncle to find out. Uncle Billy in now eighty years old, so I was not sure if he would be able to remember what happened almost fifty years earlier. Well to my surprise, he was a wealth of information. Yes, the story was true. He sent me a newspaper article from the Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina dated January 17, 1961 showing him on top the largest moonshine operation ever raided in Greenville County .



His operation produced 1200 gallons of liquor six times per month. WOW! This was no amateur operation by any means. The article went on to say he was making and selling 1200 cases per month at $20 per case, which totaled $24,000 per month.  This was a hefty income for an uneducated country boy. He operated this still for two years before being arrested.

Uncle Billy said he learned to make moonshine whiskey from his father, my grandfather when he was about fifteen years old.  My grandfather made moonshine from corn because he and other local folks grew the corn and they could take it to the mill to be ground. When Uncle Billy started making moonshine, he used sugar instead of corn. He bought the sugar from the local stores and merchants. In those days, times were hard for the store- owners because the community grew their own food so they were not making any money on groceries. The bootleggers were supporting the communities and merchants by buying sugar and other products to make moonshine. Everyone knew what was going on and supported each other. They had a law that one person could not buy 100 pounds of sugar so the merchant would take one pound out of the 100 pound bag and then sell it .

During WWII, sugar was scarce and rationed, so they had to use molasses or hard candy. Some people had connections so they could still get sugar.  The moonshine had a different taste when made with molasses or candy but still came out clear. The clear variety is un-aged so that is where the name white lightning comes from. If you put moonshine in a barrel and age it then it gets the brown color. During certain times of the year, you can get Indian peaches and put those in it, which makes it smoother to drink and the peaches are good to eat. Uncle Billy said he makes moonshine, with the peaches, every year to give to people as gifts.  Old habits seem to hang around for a while.

Growing up as a child that had moonshiners in the family, we were always involved in stock car racing. My uncles and my father owned and drove racing cars. Getting to meet Richard Petty when you are fourteen years old, how cool is that!  I just chalked it up to being a country girl living in a small town .

Once you made the liquor, you had to sell it, which means hauling it. By my early adolescence, I knew this was against the law and it was a cat and mouse game with the moonshiners and the revenuers.  The game continued once the liquor was bottled and ready for transport. Now, how do you deliver the liquor without being caught?  Well, the only way to do this was to have the fastest car and be a hell of a driver. Being poor meant that you had to modify the stock engine in your car so that you had the advantage over the revenuers. I was fascinated as well as entertained by the many tales of “out running” the law while hauling moonshine. I loved to hear the “tall” tales of days gone by from the people who actually made and delivered the liquor.

The ante was upped, in the hills to determine who made the best moonshine but also who had the fastest car and was the best driver.  The good ole boys began racing on the dirt country roads, hauling shine to make a living.  In the forty’s you could get twenty cases of liquor in your car. They took everything out of the car, so all the liquor could fit, including the seats, and they sat on a couple of cases of liquor to drive.  Moonshine hauling race -car drivers have now given way to the new young guns of N.A.S.C.A.R.

One of the most famous moonshine haulers was Junior Johnson of North Carolina.  He later became a race- car driver in a new organization, founded in 1948 under the name of the National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing. This organization thrived and is now a multi-million dollar business known as N.A.S.C.A.R.  The rules were simple in the 1940’s; you could race with a “stock” car and other than tweaking and tuning of the engine, but no other modifications.  In 1952, roll bars were mandated, prior to this date, some used ropes or aircraft harnesses as seat belts. The rules have sure changed over the years. I wonder if the millions of N.A.S.C.A.R. fans have any idea of how this organization began or who started it.

There are many such legends in the hills of the Carolinas and in the mountains of the Appalachians. One of the most famous moonshiners was Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton of Tennessee.  He has the look of an old mountain man with a scruffy beard, a slight frame, humped back, from carrying bags of sugar for many years, chain smoked cigarettes and  used foul language.  He did not mind showing you the gun that he always carried or to lecture you on how to make the best moonshine around .

Marvin lived in a rundown shack in the backwoods of Tennessee.  He is famous for making the best moonshine and stills in the country. He was quite the celebrity in his own right. You could take your picture with him for $5.00 or you could buy his book titled, “Me and my Likker: The True Story of a Mountain Moonshiner”.  Popcorn drove around in a Model “T” pickup that he named “Three Jug” because he paid three jugs of moonshine for it.  He may not appear to be a smart man but he was no fool either. Most people thought Popcorn lived in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, where he had a Post Office box and sold his goods, but in actuality, he lived sixty -five miles away in Parrotsville, Tennessee.

For many years, the Sheriff “turned a blind eye” to Popcorn’s business ventures due to the tourist trade, which brought revenue to the county. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) were not as tolerant as the Sheriff and paid Popcorn visits throughout the years.  They   arrested him, for the last time, in 2007 for illegal possession of firearms and moonshining.  They found 850 gallons of moonshine in an old school bus on his property.

He received an eighteen months sentence in 2008 in federal prison.  No one will ever know why, but Popcorn chose not to serve his sentence -- maybe because there is no smoking in prison. His wife found him dead, in his green Ford truck, from what appeared to be carbon monoxide poisoning. He was sixty-two years old. He chose to go out his way, which is a sure indicator of a true mountain man .

The 18th Amendment became part of the United States Constitution in January 1919. When the Amendment went into effect in January 1920, it prohibited the manufacture, sale, importation, exportation, or transportation of intoxicating liquors in the United States. Under the Volstead Act, people could drink liquor that they had acquired before Prohibition, if they consumed in their own homes. Drinkers could manufacture “non-intoxicating, less than .05 percent alcohol, cider and fruit juice at home. It was legal to manufacture and sale alcohol for medicinal, industrial, and religious uses if you had a special permit.  The only other way to get alcohol was to make it.  This is was the job of “bootleggers”. They were the people who made, smuggled or sold illegal liquor.  The nickname came from the frontier days in the Oklahoma Territory when smugglers carried illegal whiskey tucked in their high boots .

In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed prohibition and Americans celebrated.  It was legal to drink, manufacture and transport legal alcohol. This created over 500,000 jobs for Americans when jobs were hard to find.

One thing it did not do was stop the flow of moonshine in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains. The mountain men continued to produce and sell moonshine for several very good reasons. The most important reason was the revenue it created and secondly the liquor was good for personal consumption.

Old family traditions and family recipes live on today. Junior Johnson now offers Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon in Southern liquor stores. The legacy of Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton will live on through the selling of Tennessee White Whiskey, sold legally by country and western singer Hank Williams, Jr.  Although Mr. Williams never met “Popcorn”, he attended a memorial service for him with Mr. Sutton’s widow, Pam Sutton.

Now you can patent and sell moonshine legally, so you must pay the revenue for the product. One of the main reasons that moonshiners made their own liquor was to avoid having to pay the revenues.  Prohibition was not the beginning of illegal liquor production, it just caused a huge jump in demand. When prohibition ended the demand did not stop, so the moonshiners continued to make and sell illegal liquor otherwise known as moonshine.

If you ever happened to be in the Appalachian, Blue Ridge or Smokey Mountains on vacation hiking, make sure you stay on the designated trails. I wouldn’t want you to accidentally stumble over some good ole’ boys' still and mysteriously disappear.  If you ever find yourself in Travelers Rest, South Carolina and feel the need for a cool drink of an adult beverage, just ask for Bubba. He has the best moonshine in town. I just called him and he said the price has gone up a bit in recent years, but you can still get a gallon of good shine for $60.00! Just remember to tell him Deborah sent you or you might get shot!

Brookshire, Billy. Interview with a moonshiner Deborah Brookshire. October 2010.
Bubba. Moonshine prices Deborah Brookshire. 6 March 2011.
Dekerivers. Obituary of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton A Tennessee Moonshiner. New York, October 2010.
Hafer, J.R. "Popcorn Sutton: The Last of the Appalachian Mountain Men." n.d. October 2010 <http:/www.grubstreet.ca/article/jr/jf-popcornsutton.htm>.
Lucas, Eileen. The Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments Alcohol Prohibition and Repeal. Springfield: Enslow, 1998.
Martin, D.J. Stock cars and bootleggers: The Real Story. Charlotte, August 2010.
Mitchell, Henry. Popcorn Sutton Comments on Local Moonshine Tradition. Chatham, 2002.
News, Knoxville. Hank Williams Jr to market Popcorn Sutton's legal moonshine. Knoxville, October 2009.
Shelton, Ted. "Huge Underground Still is Smashed." Huge Underground Still is Smashed. Greenville: Greenville News, 17 January 1961.
Spear, Debbie. "Moonshine Interview ." n/a. Greenville: n/a, 2005.