Moonshine

Well, it seems we're on a kind of binge here at the old Post. All those drinking songs yesterday. And today it's moonshine. But we are sober today. Definitely sober.

White lightning, mountain dew, hooch, Tennessee white whiskey.

Whatever it's called, I've never actually tasted the stuff myself. It's a good guess that the "moonshine" moniker came from the fact that makers of illegal whiskey frequently brewed their liquor at night, by the light of the moon. Wiki has lots of info, including this:
Moonshine is any distilled spirit made in an unlicensed still. As with all distilled spirits, yeast ferments a sugar source to produce alcohol; the alcohol is then extracted through the process of distillation....Because of its illegal nature, moonshine is rarely aged in barrels like proper whiskey, and it sometimes contains impurities and off flavors....The pot still is made of copper or stainless steel, and a water filled barrel with a copper tubing coil for a condenser, is the traditional type of still, being popular with early moonshine producers due to its simplicity and ease of construction.

There are many songs in country music that speak of moonshine, stills, etc. One I enjoy a lot is Flatt and Scruggs' "Drinkin' That Mash and Talkin' That Trash." The copper tubing coil mentioned above by Wiki is what's referred to as the "worm" near the end of this old talking blues tune. Note: the phrase that's kinda hard to hear is that the shotgun made "kraut out of Pa."

I've heard the following song several times on my car's Sirius Bluegrass station, although not by this artist. Stonewall Jackson recorded "Bluefield" back in the '60s I believe. It's a story song that's interesting because (a) there's a twist near the end when the owner of the still is revealed, (b) it doesn't have a chorus, and (c) the name of the town "Bluefield" is repeated nine times in the song.

The video of the song is interesting too because it begins with a shot of a confederate flag which might seem inappropriate historically since West Virginia was created by the union out of confederate Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War. But the eastern Appalachian region of West Virginia was much more sympathetic to the confederate cause than the strongly unionist northwestern part of the state. What's that got to do with the price of eggs? Those mountains were where moonshine would be made later in the state's history.

Stonewall Jackson: "Bluefield"

Two more moonshine songs follow. The first one is the Stanley Brothers with the famous "Mountain Dew" tune. Tie yourself down because there's some super fast flat pickin' in this one. When you brew your next batch of hooch, just remember, "if your liquor's too red it'll swell up your head."

And, since I'm writing this in Tennessee, I'd be breakin' a state law if I didn't include this famous song, "Rocky Top," which is one of Tennessee's seven state songs. Don't ask me what the others are. I only know one of them. If you really want to know look rightchere. 

Why do I see orange every time I hear this.

The Osborne Brothers: "Rocky Top" with some super high mountain tenor