Moonshine is a forgotten spirit

Moonshine, is a forgotten spirit to most and it was so much more than what people see on the TV shows. 

However, it was more referred by the name as Stump, Stumphole, Corn, or simply Shine, as we will explain more around the culture, and history on our blog,  podcast, and maybe a book in the future.   Moonshine had a much deeper and richer story in the American landscape, where farmers, politicians, preachers, law enforcement and the distiller had a special relationship when laws made it illegal. We know about Prohibition, but there were other scenarios when making liquor was illegal and still illegal.  The laws have an impact on the illicit distilling in wet and dry counties.  This liquor should be held in much higher esteem, as it was locally made from the manufacturing of equipment, the ingredients provided by local farmers, the water, and to how it eventually got to consumer.

In communities across the south, this spirit was key to survival in both the country and city.  

Times were hard, and so the equipment of manufacture was not always what it could be because why make an investment in something that may get destroyed if busted.  Some folks took more pride in their setups and others did not because they did not have, or simply they use what they had access like old radiators as an example, which were poisonous.  The levels of makers, varied but some of the makers were masters and others gave the culture a bad rap.  Considering the work environment, some of the better shiners had to be masters, to work through various things like low light, swampy terrain, rain, possible visitation from wild animals, and building wood fires after trudging to their still site. The ability to operate and execute a high level of cleanliness to generate any decent product, one could only do so much one can in the woods.  We are celebrating this moonshine, as this spirit had far reaching impacts, to educating young people, providing an opportunity for a community to survive, helping to maintain land ownership, and simply putting food on the table.   

Now that Shine can be made legally, we are doing it, building off an overlooked history to go into the future with the best processes that we can implement with old recipes.