Saturday, April 22, 2006


White Litnin

Remembering Tennessee's Moonshine


By WBIR

KNOXVILLE, TN -- When WBIR first began broadcasting, 50 years ago, moonshining was still big business in East Tennessee.

There was an ongoing battle between the moonshiners and lawmen whose mission it was to destroy thos illegal stills.

Time after time, local and federal officials raided the moonshine stills, charging the operators with a violation of internal revenue laws. Thus, the federal agents were called "revenuers."

Thee moonshiners, for the most part came from a long line of whiskey-makers, employing a craft they had learned as children.

In a 1986 interview, former ATF agent, the late Red Beeler described them as, "backwoods people, country people. People who had no other way of making a living except to make moonshine liquor and put it on the market. "Most of them are rather ordinary people. They're usually born within the county where they're operating."

Beeler was a legendary revenuer who worked in East Tennessee for years. He was interviewed in 1986 by Bill Landry for the "Heartland Series." Beeler said that during his career he made thousands of arrests at thousands of stills and he destroyed as many as 50 stills in one day.

"Most of the time we used dynamite," Beeler remembered. "Occasionally we'd run out of dynamite and have no way of getting any and we'd take an axe in and chop holes and stuff in 'em."

The transporters, those daredevil drivers who delivered the illicit merchandise, created a mystique in the history of moonshining. Driving souped up cars, they often eluded law enforcement.

"(They could)hit a ditch line, ride it for thirty or forty yards, come out of that ditch and go right on down the road," said Beeler of the drivers.

Those daring drivers were immortalized in the song "Thunder Road," with lyrics which had the drivers coming from Kentucky through Knoxville. But Beller said that's not quite right.

"Thunder Road was supposedly have been from Middlesboro to Knoxville, but the real Thunder Road was from Cosby to Middlesboro."

Aside from making whiskey, many moonshiners were apparently upstanding citizens. At least that's the opinion of red beeler, who remembers one in particular who went to prison three times, but put two of his children through college.

"One of them told the judge he couldn't promise he wouldn't make liquor because if his family got hungry, he'd make liquor before he would steal. People of that type you had respect for. At least I did."

When retail liquor laws were relaxed in the 1960s and 70s, demand for moonshine drastically declined, marking the end of this fascinating era in our area's history.


Our area has its own brand of Corn Liquor too.. There is Blanton Creek and there is Cuthand Creek and River Rat Shine.. Thats the kinds that I have tried anyway.. I imagine there are more, but thats the ones I can attest to of their quality.. Cuthand Creek shine is the best of the lot, as far as I'm concerned !! It had a fresh and clean taste and very little after-taste..
Blanton Creek shine was the second best, but it had a taste kinda like Lone Star beer, which tastes like unfiltered well water, if ya ever had any of that..
River Rat shine was way down the list of my favorite drankin whiskey.. It had a greasey taste to it and the jar had a film on it you could see..
The factor in these shine's taste and quality usually came from the water used in em, but some of the makers used some nasty equipment to make it in and some weird shit in the ingredients..
There are still a few folks that keep a still cookin around here to this day.. Most take orders and already have their batch sold before ever lightin a burner..
I used to have a charcoal keg that I would put up a case of shine in each year and let it sit for a while till it got to where I couldnt stand to wait any longer or somebody would visit that I thought "just had to have a snort" !!
Who Knows?? Maybe I can start to "supplement" my meager income a little !! snicker snicker
Yeah.. I know.. That would work about as well as me runnin a cathouse !! I'd eat up all the profit !!

1 Comments:

Blogger citizen_us said...

That is a great story, Wild Bill. It's cool that people still make around ya.

Wouldn't that be "drinkin" up all the profit? Well, when referring to shinin, anyways. ;-)

Most folks around here have wells. And for the most part, we prefer our wells unfiltered.

Hope ya'lls doing good.

7:06 PM, April 25, 2006  

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