When You Think Moonshine…

,,,you most likely think about the deep South or the Appalachians, of stills talked way back into mountain haulers and people driving boxes of plain white whiskey to sell out of the backs of their cars behind bars and in dusty back allways.

I’m just here to say that my rural North Dakota homies, 90 years ago next summer,pretty much showed the world how it was done.

17 thoughts on “When You Think Moonshine…”

“Convoy” and moonshine.

Today is a good day.

Amazon sells whisky stills for $120 and up. Apparently it’s legal for personal consumption. Anybody ever tried home-brew?

When I think “appellation”, I think wine. When I think Appalachians, I think moonshine – brewed in stills, tucked back into mountain hollers.

JD. I make a little Cherry (in summer) and Peach (in the fall) wine every year. I’m going to try and distill some peach brandy this year with the help of a friend who knows how.

I haven’t looked up distilled spirits, but making wine and beer is definitely legal for personal use. Kind of like 80% finished firearm blanks.

I think if your still is less than 5 gals, no one is going to make much of a fuss.

Yep. Every time I try to do a blog post on Voice To Text while I’m distracted and doing other things, I wind up regretting it – or at least copy editing a liiiiiitle too late.

NW, just up the road from me is an area known as “the Dark Corner“. It’s famous for lawlessness, secrecy, kin loyalty and white liquor.

One family in particular, the Gosnell’s, is tied to the region. You’ll find that name on lots of grave markers up there, as well as on stores, mechanic shops etc. A fellow can still find white liquor up there today if the fellow knows a fellow who knows a fellow; but most do it out of a sense of tradition than a means to making a living.

There’s a lot of small, legal distilleries around here (in fact, one is called Dark Corner Distillery), but the ‘shine they sell is 80 proof, which would have gotten a fella strung up back in the day, as real ‘shine is 150 proof.

Damn, I thought sure I closed that hyperlink.

“Yep. Every time I try to do a blog post on Voice To Text while I’m distracted and doing other things, I wind up regretting it…”

I recognized that right away. You aught to see some of the texts I get from my wife!

The article’s behind a firewall, so I didn’t see if they mentioned the kingpin’s ethnicity. But among Norwegians, there’s a long tradition of home distilling. The Norwegian constitution of 1814 permitted householders to distill unlimited quantities of “brennevin” for their own use, something that led to widespread alcoholism, social dysfunction, and on-the-job accidents until it was repealed. Immigrants brought this tradition with them to the New World, and a network of Norwegian moonshiners existed across the Upper Midwest. I have a friend who tells me a) he is related to Andrew Volstead, author of the Prohibition law, and b) the family was heavily involved in this illicit trade. He claims Volstead was motivated, in part, by the profits Prohibition would bring to the family business. I do not always believe this friend.

Lars,

I’m fairly sure I went to college with one of Seiler’s grandnephews, from one of the little towns north of Jamestown. I think they were from the German crowd that dominates the region.

Lars, toggle to “reader view” on your browser to read firewall articles.

Bill, how do you do that in Firefox?

Kinlaw, when you arrive at a page, behind a paywall or not, on the right side of the field showing the url (http://www.blah-blah-blah), you’ll see an icon that looks like a page with some lines on it and the corner turned up slightly. Click that.

You can also use F9.

Note: you usually have to do this before the paywall popup loads. If you miss it the first time, go back and do it again.

^^Note: This only works on pages that actually load before the paywall pop-up loads. Some media sites (mostly fake news sites) check to see if you’re logged in before loading the page, and if not, they load the paywall before the page. You cannot “reader view” a page that has not loaded.

Thank you Bill