Franklin County, VA Franklin County, VA was named the Moonshine Capital of the World after it was estimated that 99 out of every 100 county residents were involved in the moonshine trade.
Where was moonshine the biggest?
Moonshiners & Police: A (Lucrative) Game of Cat & Mouse – The image of a moonshiner in the Blue Ridge Mountains tends to bring to mind an impoverished backwoods farmer, but in reality, some moonshiners would turn an incredible profit, especially during Prohibition.
In Virginia’s mountains, a few bootleggers were quite wealthy, earning tens of thousands of dollars in cash while the Great Depression was in full swing. One such moonshiner in Franklin County bought an airplane so that his son could fly over their land and make sure their stills weren’t visible from above.
As Prohibition ended in 1933, moonshining had become a huge economic force in the mountains of Virginia, and although alcohol was once again legal, the profits from illegal moonshining in the region remained high, encouraging the bootleggers to continue their shady enterprises. 
Who is the owner of moonshine?
A garage project in 2014 to Asia’s & India’s first Meadery in 2018 – this is the journey of Rohan Rehani and Nitin Vishwas and the creation of Moonshine.
Do other countries have moonshine?
History + Highballs: How NC Became the Moonshine Capital of the World
Moonshine is not just an American thing – R Street Institute Growing up in this great country of ours, I got the impression that moonshine was a peculiarly American phenomenon. The Dukes of Hazzard television show (1979-1985) and films like served up a simple story.
Moonshiners lived in America’s mountains and back roads. They are honest country folk who make “likker” from cherished family recipes. Moonshiners, this story goes, are poor people whose days are spent trying to outfox the police so as to carry on the traditions of their forebears and earn a living by selling white lightning to their friends and neighbors, and college students looking for a thrill.
Judging by the many on moonshine that have been written in recent years, this “moonshine as an American thing” notion is pretty widespread. Which is understandable, because there are and have been a lot of overall-wearing, tobacco-spitting moonshiners.
But there is way more to moonshine than mason jars and fiddle music. We got a distressing reminder of that truth this past week, when the U.S. State Department about toxic liquor being peddled in Mexico. One of its victims was a 20-year-old woman from Wisconsin. Moonshine has a global history, one that goes back 600 years, and probably even further.
Most certainly, moonshine is not an American invention. Moonshine is most accurately defined as a “distilled spirit made illegally.” Like any liquor, moonshine is made by first producing a fermented beverage (a beer or wine). Thereafter, the distiller heats the beer or wine, captures the alcoholic vapors, and then condenses them into spirit.
- Moonshine was born the moment that government declared that individuals needed a license to produce it.
- That first happened in the 1400s in Europe, although it is entirely possible the date is earlier.
- Government rules on strong drink date to the reign of Hammurabi, and the process of distillation was known in the days of Aristotle.
Contrary to popular myth, the word “moonshine” is not an American term used because moonshine was made under the light of the moon. The term “moonshine” hails from the British Isles. Initially, that is, starting in the 1400s, moonshine referred to the light of the moon.
Over time, the term evolved to mean illusory or deceptive. By the 1780s, moonshine took on alcoholic content. Lexicographer Francis Grose, who prowled the seedier parts of London in search for slang, heard moonshine used to mean unlicensed booze. His Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) includes for moonshine that captures both its earliest and emergent meaning.
Moonshine is: “a trifle, nothing. The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, are also called moonshine.” And contrary to the often-peddled proposition that moonshine is synonymous with corn liquor, moonshine has been made from just about every foodstuff imaginable, and nearly every nation has its own version of moonshine.
- Enya has Changaa’, made from sorghum and corn.
- Uganda has Waragi, AKA war gin, made from bananas.
- Myanmar has toddy made from palm tree sap, and Mongolia has Arkhi, a horse-milk-based distilled spirit.
- In prisons, moonshine has been made from ketchup packets, fruit juices and other things I shall not mention.
These days, all sorts of folks moonshine. Hobbyists and foodies in search of “authentic drink” and learn how to distill from, Some of these newbies eventually open licit craft distilleries. Some indigenous cultures still produce their own spirits for use in ceremonies.
- All too often, unfortunately, moonshining is a criminal racket that imperils public health.
- Rarely a week goes by without the media abroad on people getting sick, going blind or dying from toxic moonshine.
- Criminals, unsurprisingly, have no reservations about swindling customers and peddling poisonous methyl alcohol (commonly called wood alcohol) and other toxic chemicals.
A century ago, many Western nations enacted prohibition in a religious hissy fit, and criminal gangs rushed in to serve the market. Today, moonshining is rampant in failed states with collapsed currencies and corrupt governments, and in nations where radical Islamic regimes have banned drink or heavily taxed it.
Who are the main leads in moonshine?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Moonshine | |
|---|---|
| Promotional poster | |
| Hangul | 꽃 피면 달 생각하고 |
| Literal meaning | When Flowers Bloom, I Think of the Moon |
| Revised Romanization | Kkot Pimyeon Dal Saenggakago |
| Genre |
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| Created by |
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| Written by | Kim Joo-hee |
| Directed by | Hwang In-hyuk |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Park Se-joon (Music Manager) |
| Country of origin | South Korea |
| Original language | Korean |
| No. of episodes | 16 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Ki Min-soo (KBS) |
| Producers |
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| Running time | 70 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Release | |
| Original network | KBS2 |
| Original release | December 20, 2021 – February 22, 2022 |
Moonshine ( Korean : 꽃 피면 달 생각하고 ) is a South Korean television series starring Yoo Seung-ho, Lee Hye-ri, Byeon Woo-seok, and Kang Mi-na, It tells the story of four young people as they grow up, form friendships and fall in love during the era of strict alcohol prohibition.
Who was the biggest moonshiner in history?
The Legend of Big Six Selling untaxed alcohol is a big no-no, but there still are those who try to get away with it. They’re called moonshiners, and they’ve been around since 1791, when the federal government placed a whiskey tax on any and all alcohol produced in the United States.
Entucky was a hotbed for moonshine activities that became a game of cat and mouse as federal agents came looking for stills to demolish throughout the backwoods of eastern, south-central and western Kentucky. Although these back-road chemists might have operated on the theory of out of sight, out of mind, there was one Fed whose mission was to search and destroy.
His name was William Bernard “Big Six” Henderson, and no one did it better. A few years ago, the History Channel produced a documentary, Rumrunners, Moonshiners and Bootleggers, tracing the history of moonshine. In it, Henderson was featured as the most legendary still buster, thus cementing his notoriety.
- Henderson stood 6 feet, 4 inches tall, weighed more than 250 pounds, and sported a thick shock of white hair.
- I could run like a deer, didn’t drink nor smoke, and nobody outran me,” Henderson once said.
- Throughout his 28 years as a federal agent, he busted 5,000 stills and sent 5,600 moonshiners to jail, according to his personal daily record.
“You can do the math,” he said. We did. Working a normal five-day work week, Henderson would have “busted” 178 stills per year or one every other day of his career as a “revenoower.” He became so famous in some parts that moonshiners often painted “Big Six” on the sides of the barrels they illegally produced, knowing many of them would end up in his hands anyway.
- Thurlow, a moonshiner, named his still Big Six.
- Starting work one morning, Thurlow greeted it like a co-worker.
- Good morning, Big Six,” he said to the still.
- Why don’t we just run ourselves off a little batch, you and I? What do you say to that, Big Six?” ” That you’re caught, Thurlow,” Henderson said, stepping out of the mist.
Many kids in the 1950s and ’60s played games of cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, but in the hills and hollows of Kentucky, a different version—moonshiners and revenuers—was popular. While the young boys were playing their games, girls inserted “Big Six” into their jump-rope chant: “My mother told me to watch the still in case Big Six came over the hill.” The people of eastern and south-central Kentucky didn’t have the still business all to themselves.
In the 1950s, Golden Pond in western Kentucky was known as the “Moonshine Capital of the World,” with as many as 15 stills running a day, although locations in North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia also laid claim to that moniker. Eventually, the Land Between the Lakes project left Golden Pond a ghost town (now free of spirits) between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake as part of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.
Henderson chased moonshiners from one end of Kentucky to the other. His larger-than-life reputation developed from some of his own tales, and part of his legend was the fair treatment he showed to those he apprehended. “I never regarded them as doing something evil,” Henderson said, “just illegal.
I never abused them. Killed a few, but never abused them.” The moonshiners Big Six Henderson tracked down respected him as much as they feared him. “Mr. Six,” one woman said when he arrested her husband for a third time, “we’re proud to have folks know we know you.” Henderson was born in 1903 in Rineyville, a few miles from Elizabethtown in Hardin County.
He died in 1987 at 84 and was buried in St. John’s Cemetery. How did he get the nickname “Big Six?” Many thought it was because of the,44-caliber pistol he was rarely seen without. Others said he threw a baseball much like Hall of Famer Christy “Big Six” Mathewson when he pitched in a semi-pro baseball league to pay for college and law school.
In fact, it became so embedded in Henderson’s name that by the time he became a U.S. marshal, “Big Six” was part of his letterhead and signature on his official correspondence. Louisville resident Dr. Neal Garrison grew up in Bowling Green in the 1950s and ’60s when Henderson was the official timekeeper at Western Kentucky University games.
Garrison’s dad, Dick, was Big Six’s assistant and took over for Henderson when he retired. “He was my godfather,” Garrison said. “He was close to lots of influential people, especially when it came to athletics.” He liked being a man of influence and befriended many athletes.
The crossover between Big Six’s career and love of sports is easy to explain. “It was a game to me—a challenge,” he said. “Big Six was close to Diddle and Rupp and helped them recruit. He was also close to Moose Krause at Notre Dame and one of the reasons Paul Hornung went there,” Garrison said. Henderson was proud of his association with Cliff Hagan, one of Kentucky’s greatest basketball players.
“My first memory of Big Six was in 1949, right after our Owensboro team won the state championship,” Hagan said. “He was the timekeeper. I scored 41 points in our win over Lexington Lafayette, and he came out on the floor and handed me the game ball. He said, ‘I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but I want you to have this ball.’ ” Hagan’s friendship with Big Six grew, and they even traveled together on a college visit to Notre Dame.
Hagan, of course, eventually chose UK, where he put together a legendary college career. Hagan wore No.6 at UK as a tribute to his courtside friend who often told him about his raids. “Big Six was such a character and sometimes would embarrass his wife, Gladys, with all of the stories he told. He even had a hand-printed necktie that showed me shooting a hook shot.
It was sometimes funny when he had it on and was around some people from Western, he’d put his hand over it to cover it up.” Henderson’s connection to WKU was special, too. “It was about 1928 when I first met Coach Diddle,” he recalled in an oral history.
“I played against Western for L&N Pan-American.” For decades, Henderson’s association with the school grew as he became the official timekeeper for Hilltopper basketball games. He thought so much of Diddle that on Jan.6, 1962, in recognition of WKU’s 1,000th game, Henderson personally went out in the Bowling Green community and raised 1,000 silver dollars to present to the coach during the game.
Tom Curley has been part of the Kentucky high school state basketball tournament stat crew for 45 years and operated the clock for the old ABA Kentucky Colonels basketball team. Before that, he manned the clock for several games at Diddle Arena while a student at WKU in the 1960s.
- Curley remembers the first time he met Henderson at the state tournament.
- I was scared to death.
- He was so intimidating,” Curley said.
- He’d show up in a coat and tie, wearing a cowboy hat with that big gun on his side.
- We had three seats—one for Big Six, one for his gun and one for me.” Curley said Henderson liked to engage the crowd, especially those sitting behind him.
“Later in his career, he paid more attention to the crowd than the game. Sometimes, as much as a minute would run off the clock because he was talking and not paying attention.” Henderson was such a storyteller that he once participated in a national storytelling festival in Tennessee.
- Big Six stories took on a life of their own.
- There were a couple, however, that were a little far out, but still believable.
- Well, maybe.
- Dad played poker with Gen.
- George Armstrong Custer,” Henderson was quoted as saying.
- Yes, Custer was stationed in Elizabethtown for two years.
- According to Henderson, Custer tried to persuade his dad to re-enlist in the Army, but he declined, missing the opportunity to die with Custer six months later at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
The time frame may not match the story, but that’s not to say Big Six wasn’t confused—or maybe he lived by the adage that facts should never ruin a good story. In an 1978 interview, he claimed a friendship with Babe Ruth, “I was there when Babe hit his called shot,” which Big Six called his biggest thrill.
It was the third game of the 1932 World Series in Chicago’s Wrigley Field, in which the Yankees swept the Cubs 4-0. “I was sitting up there in the box seats he’d given me,” Big Six said. ” ‘Course, that’s why I was so fond of Babe.” Henderson would have been 29. How Ruth and Henderson became acquainted, no one knows.
Big Six played semi-pro baseball and worked for the L&N. Major League Baseball teams traveled by train then, so there’s a chance they could have met as the Yankees traveled from New York to Chicago. Or they might have crossed paths at one of the Yankees’ barnstorming games in Louisville.
Big Six’s life reached folk hero status, earning him a spot in Esther Keller ‘s book, Moonshine: Its History and Folklore, Between what others said and what he said about himself, stories—embellished or not—have kept his exploits alive 30 years after his death. It was no myth that he could creep through the woods as quiet as smoke and could run like a deer for miles.
Usually, he didn’t have chase his quarry. “Homer, halt,” he shouted at one fleeing ‘shiner. The man froze in his tracks. “I’m halted, Big Six. I’m halted.” Why wouldn’t a distillery name one of its fine bourbon after Big Six to honor his exploits? It would be the perfect mix of fact and fiction, and Big Six Bourbon would be the real deal.
- California-produced Big Six Bourbon Barrel Aged wines are named for Mickey “Big Six” Doyle, said to be Kentucky’s fastest 1920s bootlegger.
- Doyle, not to be confused with a Boardwalk Empire character, drove a lightning-fast 6-cylinder car.
- Unlike Henderson, Doyle may be totally fiction and certainly had no connections to Ruth, Rupp, Diddle or Hagan.
In a 1978 interview saved by the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research, Big Six had “eyes the color of wet turquoise.” If ever a bourbon were named in his honor, he’d have been OK with it. His stories have been packed, unpacked and packed again.
Where is the most alcohol made in the world?
Alcoholic Beverages Production
| # | 152 Countries | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | #1 China | +1.6 % |
| 2 | #2 United States | -0.8 % |
| 3 | #3 Brazil | +0.5 % |
| 4 | #4 Mexico | -0.2 % |