Author Topic: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine  (Read 3314 times)

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Offline Cecil

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #30 on: January 02, 2009, 05:15:11 AM »
I watched a program on the History channel it stated George Washington put in the alcohol tax to pay for the war of Independence because the country was broke afterword, funny they went to war because of the tea tax
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Offline Sourdough

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #31 on: January 02, 2009, 05:22:24 AM »
My Grand Father had made shine most of his life.  His father had been a horse trader, and constantly moved around middle Tennessee, southern Kentucky, and northern Alabama, trading horses.  As he moved he often bought shins from locals, transported it along with his gear, and sold it dry towns.  As my Grand Father grew older he thought why buy it from a distiller then sell it, when we can make and sell it, cutting out the middle man.  So he built his own still.  He put it in a cave near the house.  The entrance was concealed behind a stone wall.  There had been a natural vent way back up the hill, therefore he did not have to run a smoke stack out the entrance.  The smell and smoke came out of a sink hole up the hill and across the road from the house.  My Grandpa kept the area cleared around the sinkhole of brush and trees.  He piled the brush into the sink hole and that would disperse the smoke.  That way if any one came around following the smell, he could see them long before they got close enough to tell where the smell was coming from.  He'd simply go kill the fire and stop the smoke and smell.  Plus there was a lot of Copperhead snakes near that sink hole.  No one wanted to get too close anyway.  The lot across the road was renown in the area for it's high numbers of Copperheads.

He claimed to have quite after being caught hauling and having his mules confiscated during the War (1943).  My Grand Mother was a temperance woman and thought she had him on the straight and narrow.  Then one summer when I was about 14 an Air Force jet plane came up the hollow and created a sonic boom.  The house shook, and I heard crashing from the dinning room.  Then for the only time in my life I heard my Grandma cussing and swearing.  I ran into the dinning room and saw a clear liquid running out from under the wall, and my Grandma heading for the barn.  She grabbed a tobacco stick and beat the old man about the head and shoulders all the way to the house and then demanded to see his stash.  I think back and it was a funny sight seeing this little old woman (4'10") running behind a big man (6' 300 lbs) beating him over the head with a tobacco stick.  The old man throwing his arms up to ward off the blows, half laughing and half serious because some of those blows were making it through and hurting when they hit his head.  She kept threating to go get her gun and shoot him, (she had an old double action Colt .45 and she could shoot it well) calling him a Moonshining old SOB.  My Grandpa had built a hidden compartment behind the dinning room wall.  That is where he had kept his stash for years.  The house being shaken from the sonic boom a couple of jugs had fell off the shelves and broken when they hit the floor.

From that point on anytime my Grandma got mad at my Grandpa she would bring that up, and want to know if he was back to moonshining.  When I was 18 the old man took me to the cave and showed me his set-up.  He said he had been running that still there since the 1930s.  He said one of the main reasons he never got caught was that he kept his operation small.  He only wanted to make enough to keep the family well fed and clothed.  If he made too much he would never be able to get the extra money by the old temperance woman anyway.  I do remember my Grandma questioning him about how many bushels of corn he was getting from his corn fields, and the old man blowing up because she questioned him.  That started an argument that I'll never forget, my mother joined in siding with my Grandma on that one.  Both women threatened the old man if they found out he was Bootlegging or making Moonshine again.     
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Offline GRIMJIM

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #32 on: January 02, 2009, 05:45:12 AM »
That's a good story to pass on to the younguns.
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Offline MGMorden

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #33 on: January 02, 2009, 01:05:54 PM »
Pretty sad to see this too.  There was a push to repeal the existing "moonshine" laws (for personal use) a few years back but it didn't go anywhere.

Truth be told, most of the horror stories about the horrors of moonshine came from unscrpulous producers selling it to people.  IE, some would add alcoholic cleaning agents and such to the batch to strengthen it, which naturally is going to be bad for one's health.  If you're doing it for yourself at home though, and doing it right, then it's not really all the dangerous.  I'll admit that both my grandfathers were involved with it at one time or another.  My dad's father, long since a reformed Christian, never would show me how to build a still though :).

But yeah, under current laws any homemade DISTILLED beverage (spirits) is illegal.  Homemade beer and wine are fine.

Offline WILDCATT

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #34 on: January 04, 2009, 07:39:51 AM »
actually the BATF does not care if they win the case,its the numbers of cases they bring in that counts.
a still can be made from refrigeration unit.one side goes to the mix and the other goes for cooling.place a vacume on the setup and the alcohol will distill at 100 degree.put your hand on the coil on back of frig some time.this system will be odor free.and if you use suger there wont be any evidence left over.

Offline Badnews Bob

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #35 on: January 04, 2009, 10:09:52 AM »
You can legally make it in Ky as long as you don't sell it. you are allowed so many gallons per adult of legal drinking age on hand at any one time same for beer and wine I don't know the numbers as I don't drink. Its little known but it wasn't illegal to make during proabition, Just illegal to sell, My grandmother made alot of beer back then and my great uncle was a shiner.
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Offline MGMorden

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #36 on: January 04, 2009, 11:52:08 AM »
You can legally make it in Ky as long as you don't sell it. you are allowed so many gallons per adult of legal drinking age on hand at any one time same for beer and wine I don't know the numbers as I don't drink. Its little known but it wasn't illegal to make during proabition, Just illegal to sell, My grandmother made alot of beer back then and my great uncle was a shiner.

You're probably confusing it with beer/wine (which are legal to make for personal use almost everywhere.  I've done homemade wine myself but haven't tried my hand at beer as of yet).  Distillation of any spirits for consumption without the proper permits/paperwork is a federal offense.  The individual states don't have the authority to override those laws:

http://www.atf.gov/alcohol/info/faq/genalcohol.htm

I don't agree with it, but that's the way the law currently stands.

Offline williamlayton

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #37 on: January 05, 2009, 12:59:20 AM »
Before we go getting all mad at the BATF let's ask some questions.
Did the folks respond too a complaint?
Are they required too respond?
What are they susposed too do if they find the complaint was correct?
Can an agent compromise his job by looking the other way?
Was there a reason the complainer made the complaint in the first place?
Why are their rules for distilling?
Can it be for other good reasons than taxes?
Can a bad distilled product kill and maime?

NOW, I have no reason to complain because a man/woman makes her own shine. They do it all the time in E Texas, and have for years.
I would not drink anything that I didn't know about it origin. Trust me, it's OK, just doesn't cut it.
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Offline 45-70.gov

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #38 on: January 07, 2009, 04:24:25 PM »
enforce the law equally or abolish the law

you are all  under  the false  impression that  you live in  a free  country

swat teams  regularly attack U S citzens for using drugs safer  than legal alcohol

alcohol  is a dangerous drug for  some people [about 10%] and  killed many

i  don't condone abusing  any drug including  alcohol

but  freedom  isn't   free....sometimes freedom kills

but  so do swat teams  and  their victims fighting for freedom

law enforcement  cost freedom and tax dollars

dead dopers and alcoholics are  free
when drugs are outlawed only out laws will have drugs
DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES TO STOP A DEMOCRAT
OBAMACARE....the biggest tax hike in the  history of mankind
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Offline williamlayton

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #39 on: January 08, 2009, 01:18:39 AM »
YUP!
You can't outlaw death and dying.
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Offline beerbelly

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #40 on: January 08, 2009, 02:11:48 AM »
You can't outlaw death and dying.

No, but I am sure they will find a way to tax it. Hell, they already have, the inheritance tax.
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Offline JBlk

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #41 on: January 08, 2009, 10:16:18 AM »
You would think that a fellow that old would be allowed to engage in a hobby. but of course the laws the law.What surprises me is the number of laws our different agencies don't enforce for one reason or another.They use the term selective enforcement as their reason for not enforcing all laws.That's one of the reasons that so many departments choose to enforce seat belt laws, its called a gimme, and it makes the stats look good.But after Waco, what do you expect?

Offline Casull

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #42 on: January 08, 2009, 11:42:04 AM »
Quote
Powderman,

My great g-pa was from around the Land Between the Lakes area.  There were some good tales about the things he did to stay alive in his day


Sam, that is flat lander country.  Everbody knows the best shiners come from the hills (Eastern KentuckY).   ;)
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Offline MGMorden

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #43 on: January 09, 2009, 03:23:59 AM »
You would think that a fellow that old would be allowed to engage in a hobby. but of course the laws the law.What surprises me is the number of laws our different agencies don't enforce for one reason or another.They use the term selective enforcement as their reason for not enforcing all laws.That's one of the reasons that so many departments choose to enforce seat belt laws, its called a gimme, and it makes the stats look good.But after Waco, what do you expect?

Not just a "gimme", but selective enforcement is a very dangerous thing to a citizenship.  Say they make it illegal to do some common activity that almost everyone does.  We'll call this made up activity "boodiving".  Doesn't matter what it is (jaywalking, seatbelts, copying music on the internet are all real work examples).  Now, the trick is, they don't enforce this new "boodiving" law hardly at all.  People calm down and learn to live with it after a while because it doesn't affect them.

The trick is, the next time you do something the government doesn't agree with, like protesting, blogging against an official, or generally railing against any unpopular stance: they whip out their old "boodiving" law.  Sure you were exercising your right to free speech, and that's all fine and legal, but see, you were committing this other crime (that everyone does and they usually don't care about), so now you're under arrest.

Having several of these types of things to cover all the different bases ensures that there's usually SOMETHING they can charge you with if you're doing something that's legal but annoying.  It's a very dangerous state of affairs for a government to have that power.

As mentioned, laws need to be ENFORCED, or removed.  Even the stupid, unfair laws need to be enforced.  That way people really see how stupid and unfair they are, and might actually work to get them tossed out (and maybe the politicians who passed them will get tossed out too).

Offline Oldtimer

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #44 on: January 09, 2009, 03:57:56 AM »
I like this boodiving idea.  When I was a teen, one of the local drive-ins would have musical acts while we waited for it to get dark in the summertime.  They brought in some name groups, ones that had recorded songs we had heard on the radio.  As I recall, they went pretty heavily for the beach music groups, which was all right, since most of the folks in the area went to Myrtle Beach, SC for vacation.  It was said if you wanted to find someone in Danville, Virginia in the first week of August, you had to go to Myrtle Beach to look.  Anyway, somebody complained about it and they found an ordinance written in the late 1800's requiring a license to have a public dance.  Unfortunately, there was no enacting legislation that defined the license, the issuing authority, or the procedure.  The drive-in was charged with violating the ordinance, so that killed the performances.  Of course, dances at the country clubs and the service clubs continued unabated.  Now I have a word that I can use in decent company to describe that kind of law.  Thanks.

Offline SHOOTALL

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #45 on: January 09, 2009, 04:02:33 AM »
Franklin County Virginia is the Moonshine Capital of the World .
How much are people saying it cost in your area ? some say $ 125.00 a gal. here .
If ya can see it ya can hit it !

Offline Casull

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #46 on: January 09, 2009, 06:43:43 AM »
Quote
Franklin County Virginia is the Moonshine Capital of the World .

Real moonshine only comes from Kentucky.  Same for bourbon. 
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Offline williamlayton

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #47 on: January 09, 2009, 06:52:39 AM »
Well, now here we go, arguing about who makes the most and the best illegal rotgut. :-*
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Offline Casull

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #48 on: January 09, 2009, 10:31:42 AM »
Quote
Well, now here we go, arguing about who makes the most and the best illegal rotgut.

Yep.  Except that when you talk about Kentucky shine, it's not rotgut, but fine sippin whiskey.   ;)
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Offline victorcharlie

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #49 on: January 09, 2009, 03:03:40 PM »
Quote
Franklin County Virginia is the Moonshine Capital of the World .

Real moonshine only comes from Kentucky.  Same for bourbon. 

Not really, IMO the best shine comes from Tennessee....
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Offline Casull

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #50 on: January 09, 2009, 03:18:07 PM »
Quote
Quote
Franklin County Virginia is the Moonshine Capital of the World .

Real moonshine only comes from Kentucky.  Same for bourbon. 


Not really, IMO the best shine comes from Tennessee....

That's blasphemy.  Must have been drinking some of that bad rotgut Tennessee shine.   ;D
Aim small, miss small!!!

Offline 45-70.gov

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #51 on: January 09, 2009, 03:19:44 PM »
in  high school  i  took biology  and physics my last year

the  mash  was my biology project..Krebs cycle i think..live without oxygen in a bushel of bad apples

the still was  my mothers pressure cooker to demonstrate fractional distillation

the  end result was  delicious  and would burn
meaning  it  exceeded  140 proof.....i  think

don't recall my grades  but they were  good


i  hope the statute of limitations  has run  out
when drugs are outlawed only out laws will have drugs
DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES TO STOP A DEMOCRAT
OBAMACARE....the biggest tax hike in the  history of mankind
free choice and equality  can't co-exist
AFTER THE LIBYAN COVER-UP... remind any  democrat voters ''they sat and  watched them die''...they  told help to ''stand down''

many statements made here are fiction and are for entertainment purposes only and are in no way to be construed as a description of actual events.
no one is encouraged to do anything dangerous or break any laws.

Offline Oldtimer

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #52 on: January 09, 2009, 03:46:44 PM »
Shootall, I can see the Franklin County line from my mailbox.  As for paying for moonshine, I never paid for any.  I will tell you that the men who make real drinking whiskey could hardly charge what it is worth.  If you want an idea of the cost, look for some small pot single malt scotch, and it will give you a rough idea. If these guys actually could do it legally, most of the good makers could probably qualify for food stamps.   Selling whiskey, on the other hand, is just as bad as anything that the others on this site have told about.  The best of it might come up to 45-70's high school science project in quality, but then it is sold for people to get drunk on.  I have seen stills that would have made an outhouse look like an operating theater. 

On the other hand, real sipping whiskey (from the Gaelic for water of life), a good companion or two, and a long evening to yarn away are some of the things that make life worth living.

Offline MGMorden

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #53 on: January 09, 2009, 05:41:37 PM »
Quote
Well, now here we go, arguing about who makes the most and the best illegal rotgut.

Yep.  Except that when you talk about Kentucky shine, it's not rotgut, but fine sippin whiskey.   ;)

Eh, in my opinion nothing that hasn't been aged a few years in a charred oak barrel ain't go no business calling itself whiskey ;).

BTW .45-70, you're actually legal if you did it just for a project.  It's the distillation for the purpose of consumption that's illegal.  You can actually buy small stills online but you have to buy them with the intention to distill for some other use (like fuel) than consumption in order for it to be legal.  Yeah, it's weird.  Kinda like the C&R license thing where you can legally buy guns with it, and you can legally sell them, but buying a gun with the intention of selling it is against the law.  Legislation is just odd on some things.

And speaking of Myrtle Beach - I actually live about an hour or so south of there.  Kinda between Charleston and Myrtle Beach in the national forest.  My grandfather used to keep his still back an in area in the woods that we call "Deep Branch".

Offline SHOOTALL

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #54 on: January 12, 2009, 02:16:35 AM »
FRANKLIN CO. VA. # 1 PERIOD !
sipping , apple jack, peach brandy , or anyother fruit for that matter .
In the Va. hills making corn in a jar has become an art not just a job .
If ya can see it ya can hit it !

Offline Cornbelt

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Re: 80 year old man arrested for moonshine
« Reply #55 on: January 14, 2009, 12:27:59 AM »
Singleshotsman, I bet your g'pa knew the Golden Pond  "wiskey artists". Had a cousin from there 'tween the rivers before imminent domain forced them to move.