Moonshine Stills and still sights in the woods.

Ok ,I will start this by saying I don't really drink. Not against it or anything I juse don't really enjoy it. I will say that good shine or flavored shine is not bad...I don't consume hardly any though.

I love the show moonshiners and am fastnate with the culture and history of it all. In grads cool I had the opportunity to pour up some mash into a still to run it off but didn't stay around for that part.

So post up pics of old abandoned stills or your current ones. I will start...ready go!

Edit: Bear with me, technical difficulties with the site are not allowing me to post a pic?

 

I am really glad you didnt say "bare" with me. Pallet Pete

Anyway, I see you pic surrounded by black. Like it was scanned but not cropped.

 

Yea I think it was too big. So I screen captured it and posted that since that would be smaller in size

 

I had a federal permit a number of years ago to make alcohol as fuel. We used cracked corn in 275 totes with enzymes to help break down the corn and industrial yeast for high alcohol production. We used a 250 gallon oil drum on top of two barrels connected long ways with a barrel stove kit to boil off the mash, and the steam went through a 7 foot tall 3" copper still, producing 192 proof alcohol. But ... you didn't want to drink it.

I wish I had photos of our set up. We abandoned it when we realized the ethanol industry only made a "profit" based on government subsidies - with our tax dollars. It was just too expensive to justify but it was a lot of fun.

 

When I was in grade school I once asked my grandmother if her brother, my great uncle, had served in the military. She said yes, for two years.

I subsequently asked my mom what branch of the military my great uncle had served in. She asked me what in the world I was talking about. I told her granny said he served two years.

She just rolled her eyes. My great uncle owned two bars and did serve two years, for running prohibition. My grandmother would never admit it.

 

Upon immigrating to America as a young man from Germany, my grandpa ran booze during prohibition for the mobs in Chicago all the way up to the northwoods of Wisconsin. You know, where the big shootout was in the movie " public enemies".

He never said who he ran booze for, but he admitted he did it. Many secrets lie buried with my grandpa about that time.

 

I got another, looks like a modified submarine pot. But my Internet is running so slow I'm not going to bother trying to post it till tomorrow when I get good cell signal.

 

My grandpa is from from Hazard, Kentucky (where the Dukes of Hazzard took their name from). When Dad was around 10 or so Grandpa drove down there with him and started asking around trying to find his cousin to get some shine from. Dad remembers folks walking around with six-shooters on their hips and giving them the hairy eyeball until they realized Gramps and Dad were "kin" to whoever they were trying to find. This would have been in the mid 60's.

I "may or may not" know a guy that made a still out of an old beer keg. He filters it through activated carbon charcoal when he's finished and it's the best tasting un-flavored shine I've ever had!

 

The first season of the Dukes was filmed in Georgia, there is also a Hazzard county georgia....??? Then they moved it to California, and made the south look suspiciously like the California hillside. Haha

 

Different state and different spelling, but what I've always heard is that location and name was based of Hazard city in KY but it was changed to a fictional county in Georgia. It makes sense, eastern KY and W. Virginia were more involved in the shining business than Georgia.

 

I have been to Hazzard KY, TOTALLY different terrain than was in the show. You may be correct though. But Hazzard GA is right outside ATL, we'll close enough to run to it fast. So I assumed it was still this area, plenty of booze was run into ATL I am sure in prohibittion.

 

Here is that second pot I was talking about. It has tunes running through it to help heat that giant pot. Have to go look again to see how I think it sat on the furnace. The part facing up had wood for sides. So I am not sure if it sat on the furnace and had those for chimneys up though the middle, but I assume the wood was just the top and somehow a cap was fitted? The bricks are still there , that depression. To the left of it is where it sat at the forks of the creek. Bricks are still there.

 

And that is the problem in a nut shell with ethanol and Epa/Gov. meddling/ kickbacks-

 

Horkin- funny, my Grandfather did the same thing. In the 50's he was running Oleo - remember it wasn't legal here in Wisconsin back then ( we were still a top Dairy state at that time - lot of power in that faction politically) if it was colored like butter, 50# blocks with a big dab of dye sitting in the middle of it. Somewhere along the line the name changed to margarine now sold everywhere. Depending on what you read they are starting to link a lot of health issues to that stuff, and it has no nutritional value.

 

Really? I never would have thought margerine was so popular.
Tastes like crap

 

Most of my mom's recipes call for oleo.

Stuff shouldn't be legal anywhere.

 

So why the heck in the 50s were people running fake butter illegally??? If it was a big dairy state seems like butter would be cheap, pleantiful, taste better and legal. No one was as big on fat back then so that can't be it?

 

And am I the only one with pics of old still sights? I will try to take some more here soon in my travels.