MOONSHINE

MOONSHINE, an old English term for smuggled liquor, indicating its customary transportation by night, evolved into "moonshiners" in the nineteenth century to describe illicit distillers in southern Appalachia. Because moonshiners' stills were located among thickets or rocks, their products were known locally as "brush whiskey" and "blockade"; few described the liquor itself as "moon-shine." "Blockaders," as moonshiners were also known, viewed whiskey production as a natural right and as the only way to obtain a fair monetary return on mountain corn crops. Despite intensified campaigns against moon-shining after 1877 involving armed patrols of revenue officers, frequent killings, and pitched battles, the business was never quite eliminated. During Prohibition, the term "moonshine" came to be popularly applied to liquor illicitly made anywhere, even in the home.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dabney, Joseph E. Mountain Spirits: A Chronicle of Corn Whiskey from King James' Ulster Plantation to America's Appalachians and the Moonshine Life. New York: Scribners, 1974.

———. More Mountain Spirits: The Continuing Chronical of Moon-shine Life and Corn Whiskey, Wines, Ciders, and Beers in America's Appalachians. Ashville, N.C.: Bright Mountain Books, 1985.

Alvin F.Harlow/c. w.

See alsoAlcohol, Regulation of ; Bootlegging ; Prohibition .

Moonshine

Moonshine is the common name for illegally produced hard liquor—whiskey, rum, brandy, gin, and vodka. (Another name is white lightning.) The term probably was first used in 1785. In that year a British book on vulgar language described "moonshine" as the clear brandy that was smuggled to the coasts of Kent and Sussex in England. In the New World, moonshine was made in homemade stills (apparatus for distilling liquor), usually from corn. It was especially popular in rural areas in the southern United States before, during, and after Prohibition, and it continues to be made today. The alcohol content of moonshine is usually high, often as much as 80 percent (160 proof). First-run moonshine contains a number of impurities, some of which are toxic, so it is necessary to double and triple distill the liquor to purify it for drinking.

see also Alcohol: History of Drinking; Prohibition of Alcohol.

moon·shine / ˈmoōnˌshīn/ • n. 1. inf. illicitly distilled or smuggled liquor.2. foolish talk or ideas: whatever I said, it was moonshine.3. another term for moonlight.

moonshine from late Middle English, moonshine has been taken as the type of something insubstantial or unreal (originally, in the phrase moonshine in the water). Later, the term was extended to mean foolish, nonsensical, or fanciful talk or ideas.

In North America, from the late 18th century, moonshine has been used to designate illicitly distilled or smuggled liquor.

moonshine American illicit home‐distilled spirit.