Moonshine Makers Set Up Shop in Georgia City Hall

WALB ^ | Nov 17, 2012 | JEFF MARTIN

[DogByte6RER]

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Moonshine distillers are making their first batches of legal liquor in this tiny Georgia town's city hall, not far from the mountains and the maroon, orange and gold canopy of trees that once hid bootleggers from the law.

[DogByte6RER]

A common folk test for the quality of moonshine was to pour a small quantity and set it on fire. The theory was that a safe distillate burns with a blue flame.

[Wiggins]

My grandfather used to make Grappa during prohibition.

[Vigilantcitizen]

My ancestors..the Carsons...left a lot of rubber on the old Atlanta road.

[duckman]

Back in the day when I first got married some of my wife’s relatives came up from Ashville NC to Northern NJ, where I lived, for the wedding. They brought a quart of moonshine they had made. I had been a drinker so I was used to alcohol. The moon shine was the worst thing I ever tasted, could not drink it. After they left I tried to use it to clean paint brushes, it worked somewhat. My first thought was what does their insides look like after drinking this stuff?

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“The moon shine was the worst thing I ever tasted, could not drink it.”

Some people know how to make it, and some don’t. Sugar stuff is not good, but real corn mash, done right is abdo-lutely delicious. The guy I used to buy from would always ask what proof I wanted, and would cut it to my taste. He learned the skill from his Great Grandfather in W. Va.

[bgill]

Too bad Popcorn Sutton didn’t live in GA. But he did leave a message for the revenuers on his tombstone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Sutton

[freekitty]

Back in the 60’s when I went to school in GA, I was told of this Sheriff who had a still near his home in one of these small towns.

[Theoria]

Funny.

Right down the road from Dawsonville is Dawson Forest WMA[Wildlife Management Area]. The City of Atlanta owns the property but you can hunt on it and hike. I've done plenty of hiking and hunting there and in the depression they used to run moonshine operations in that area. You can still come across some of the ol' torn up stills in the woods.

Throw in the NASCAR museum and the original creation for fast cars in the area.

[ExCTCitizen]

Outside city hall are old, abandoned cars from the days when Ford Coupes and other models from the 1930s and '40s hauled moonshine down Georgia Highway 9. The windy mountain highway became known as Thunder Road, because it was filled with the screaming sounds of car engines as bootleggers hauled their moonshine to Atlanta. The young drivers were sometimes pursued by "revenue men" from the federal government, and the chases sometimes led to overturned cars and deadly wrecks. Townspeople are proud of how young Dawsonville men raced their cars at places like Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta after moonshine deliveries, which helped stock-car racing gain a following in its early days.

Dawsonville, the home of 'Awesome Bill from Dawsonville', Bill Elliott.(Beside 'The King' and 'The Intimidator' one of my favorite drivers growing up.)

[BwanaNdege]

“Corn used by the distillery is also grown locally, and the distillery sticks to authentic recipes and doesn’t use any sugar, Wood said.”

When I was a kid of about 11 back in the 1950’s, my grandfather, “Pa”, and I picked several bushels of corn from his field. When we got back to town, he sent me up to Lunceford’s store for “10 pounds of sugar and three cakes of yeast”.

Cranston, the clerk, grins at me and says, “Looks suspicious, don’t it?”

The next day we went out to drop off the laundry with old Rene, the washer woman. Pa leaves the corn, sugar & yeast.

The following week when we collected the laundry, Pa also got two 1 gallon Coca-Cola syrup jugs of a clear liquid, “for medicinal purposes, only”. One sat on the floor in the corner of the kitchen for ages, with the level in the jug going down very slowly. I guess Pa really did use it “for medicinal purposes, only”.

[BwanaNdege]

“MACON, GA (Nov. 12, 1967) — Bobby Allison held off a late surge by Richard Petty and won the Middle Georgia 500 at Middle Georgia Raceway ...

The 267-mile event went on as scheduled even though Federal and State officers located a huge moonshine still neatly tucked under the .534-mile facility. Peach County Sheriff Reggie Mullis called it “one of the most well-built stills ever operated.”

The officer said the still was located under the Middle Georgia Raceway with the only entrance through a ticket booth at the north end of the track. Mullis said agents climbed down a 35-foot ladder leading from the trap door. There they found a 125 foot tunnel where the still was located.

“This is one of the most cleverly run moonshine operations I have ever seen,” said one Federal agent. Following an investigation, it was discovered that the still was capable of producing 200 gallons of actual whickey every five days.

At the end of the tunnel, there was a 2,000 gallon cooker, a 1,200 gallon box fermenter and a 750 gallon gas fuel tank for cooking. The operators had installed yellow lights to keep bugs out of the mash.

Authorities put the still out of operation a couple weeks before the race. Most of the 6,800 spectators who attended the race were unaware the still was ever located at their hometown track.

Track President H. Lamar Brown, Jr. was charged with possession of apparatus for the distillery of illegal liquor.

The case came to trial on December 12, 1968, with Brown being found not guilty after a two hour deliberation by the jury.”

IIRC, they had built the still under the high banking of the turns. A deputy had stopped by the track and noticed that the fuel truck, which had just dropped off a load of racing fuel at the track, seemed to be going up through all the gears as he left the track, like he still had a heavy load.

The deputy watched the same thing happen with later deliveries of fuel. They finally figured he was hauling high octane racing fuel INTO the track, and leaving full of the SUPER HIGH OCTANE WHOOEEE BOY stuff.

[Georgia Girl 2]

My fiancee’ went into mourning when he heard Popcorn died.

[freekitty]

Never underestimate what man can do.

[CodeToad]

I found out later in life that my dad was a rum runner by the time he was 15. His old family barn still had moonshine gallon jugs from those days. It seems the storage hole had been forgotten after he left town.

[Vigilantcitizen]

When my grandpa died...he had three old ‘40 model plymouths under a 3 sided shed. They needed some tunin and cleanin....but they were mint. They held 100 gallons a run...and prolly knew the Dawson county-Atlanta road by heart.

One uncle sold them out from under my mom and her other siblings, along with a housefull of third and fourth generation heirloom antiques....that we grandkids were supposed to pass on to our grandkids.(That pisses me off more than the cars.)

His uncle and protege was Fiddlin John Carson. I am named William after him.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-892&hl=y

We go back to the spawn of Kit Carson and a cherokee girl from the Knight/Wolf clan.

[clearcarbon]

[Fresh Wind]

[Safetgiver]

I’ve had a lot in my lifetime and the radiator run throughs were pretty poor. The best I’ve had never tasted of anything but would take your breath away and make you pissed face drunk with a relatively small portion. Plus it burned. Back then we drank for effect, not taste.