NC White Lightnin........UUMMM Good !!!

[Unclebuck257]

scott vt,

In 1965, I had orders to go to that tropical paradise Uncle called Viet Nam. Before going over however, I had to go learn the electrical systems on fighters as opposed to the cargo planes I had been working on for the past two years. There were 3 of us on those orders, myself and two guys from New York City, and we were sent to Seymore Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC to learn the fighter systems. One of the two NYC boys was my close buddy and was Italian. His family was big into homemade Vino. He also owned a VERY HOT 58 Chevy Super Sport with a big engine, trip carbs, and a hurst floor shifter. It was custom painted med metallic blue, and was one sweet machine!! We drove it down there together.

Anyhow, my buddy and I get to Goldsboro NC, and our first weekend night around the locals, two things happened real quick. One, we found out they liked his homemade Vino REAL WELL, and the second, THEY thought they had the fastest cars in the country!! After we wiped out everything they had in races with his Chevy, we gained a lot of respect. Some were PO"d too of course!!

When we left, after school was over, we had to sell his Chevy SS since we couldn't take it with us, and there was literally a line of local boys wanting to buy it to use for a "blocker car" in running shine. Those shine running boys got, and were, real serious about having the fastest cars, and took great pride in having the best blocker car in the county!!

I'll never forget that as long as I live. I had no idea they used "blocker cars" or anything about it before going to Goldsboro in 65. I enjoyed that experience very much!! A bunch of good folks!!

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Unclebuck,
Great story and thanks for tellin it!!! Your makin me think of Thunder Road

 

[dmccarty]

Scott,

I got a couple for ya....

People still are making shine down here. It still big money. A few years ago a mayor of a small town, I think it was in Johnston county, was arrested for shine. He had two oil tanks on the side of his house. One was full of oil the other was full of shine.

I was walking the land we live on know when it first went on the market. There is an old logging road that goes into the property. Now of course there is a road. This road runs along side what is now a wet area. If the road was not built I think the wet area would be a creek most of the year. Right along the creek I found a bunch of rocks stacked up to hold a pot along with channels dug from a spring and down to the creek proper. I also found the top of a clay jug that looks like the ones the Darling's had when the came to Mayberry. There also was an old galvanized kerosene can. This spot is about a mile from the road to the north, another mile to the road to the west and a mile to the road to the south. Its down in a low spot as well. The logging road gave them good access and they could easily run in three directions to other roads if the revenuers came it after them.

My wifes family is from down east and had/have a large farm. From the stories I have heard the grandpa generation was known to partake of a bit of shine. One day I went for a walk on the farm and ended up near a creek with very clean clear water. The creek is a good 6 feet below grade. I found a long length of galvinzed pipe near the creek. When I got back to the house I asked my wife's granddad about the pipe and he said he did not know what was talking about but there was a twinkle in his eye.

I have heard there are still shot houses in NC. You pay a dollar for a shot of shine. That is a lot of money in a gallon of shine.

A few years ago I was in a auto parts store in town to get some windshield wipers. The store is run by a bunch of guys who have to be in their 60's. There is one man who might be in his 50's. The guy helping me wanted to see the truck wipers for some reason so we walked outside. Just then a Chevy S10 pulled in with two men, one young and one in his sixties. We could see into the back of the truck and the bed was filled with old one gallon plastic milk jugs. The jugs where filled with a clear fluid that I'm sure was not water....

There was NO covering on the jugs whatsoever. We went back into the store and the old man from the truck came in. The guy I was with started asking some pointed questions. "Who are you driving with?" "What is in the jugs?" "Where did you get the shine?" The whole time the guy from the truck was quiet. Not a word did he utter. He was walking out the door and the guy helping asked one more question. The guy from the shine truck stoped. Turned around and said, "Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies."

I found out later the guy in the store was a retired deputy from the county. I'm sure he knew the guy driving the truck and vice versa.

There is a documentary on the History/Discovery channels about shine that is very good. While there are small operators makiing it for family and friends but there are also large operations making six figures in a month or two.

I have forgotten the slang but there are songs from 50+ years ago talking about going blind and getting the staggers from shine.

I remember talking with some older men who where working on our house. Many decades ago the sheriff was involved in makng shine. He had a man who we will call Joe who made shine for him. When the sheriff got a tip on where a still was running and he had to act, sometimes it was HIS still. So he would drive up near the still, get out and start yelling, "Joe! I'm here to getcha!" At which point Joe would run off in the other direction and not get caught....

Wow, I did not realize how many shine stories I had.

Later,
Dan

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Dan,
Thanks good stories !!! I think my buddy paid about $12 or $12.50 for a mason jar of shine but it is quality stuff IMHO !

I used to love the old movies where these guys are runnin this stuff around the countyside

 

[MarkV]

Shine was a big thing in our area for many years, Northwest Georgia hills. There is a part of the county that made most of its money cooking shine and if you were not part of that community you just didn’t go there. Well that same area is still active but the activities have evolved from shine to pot and now meth. Unless you are from the area you still don’t drive through there. There are some very interesting family genetics in that area also.

Anyway, my father-in-law had a multi state contracting company and at times would do favors for local government agencies when their budget didn’t allow them to rent/hire the equipment they needed. He did something for the city one time and the Sheriff dropped by with a mason jar of shine as a thank-you, this was around 1980. The thing was my FIL didn’t drink so the jar went into the extra frig in the tool room where it sat until a year ago when it moved to my house.

Well with a 25+ year old jar of shine and a group of friends over, we had to give it a try. I felt pretty good about its history feeling that the Sheriff wouldn’t poison one of the city’s major benefactors. The four of use made it through about half the jar and had had enough. It really was pretty good and smooth I thought and I am a beer drinker almost exclusively. I think it could strip paint pretty well also.

If there are those who have an interest in moonshine and other Appalachian Mountain folklore there is a wonderful series of books called The Foxfire Books. www.foxfire.org (go to the gift shop link) It was started as a teaching project to have student’s document stories of mountain life and skills as told by their grandparents and elders of the community. It evolved into a series of books containing short stories of mountain folklore and how-to articles. In the first of the series there is a very comprehensive article on “Moonshining as a Fine Art”.

MarkV

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Mark,
Interesting story I will definitely check out those books, I have always been one to be interested in local folklore !!!

I noticed you said that you guys only got through half the mason jar guess that pretty much says it all

 

[PitbullMidwest]

To my knowledge, these are the only guys making grain alcohol in my area:

big still

not sure what it tastes like though

 

[dmccarty]

Mark is right on about the FoxFire books. They are really good ready for folklore information and how people used to live. The funny thing is that the books/stories where written in the late 60s early 70s which ain't that far in the past. And people where still living the way people had for centuries. I remember the storie about how to slaughter hogs and make soap. The soap used the fat from the pigs as well as lye created by running water through the ash from the fireplace.

They also had a story about "painters" aka panthers aka Mountain Lions. One of the stories was along a trail that follows a certain creek. I was hiking out of a camp ground at Standing Indian mountain and that creek and trail goes from the camp ground up to a gap on the AT. I kept looking over my shoulder looking for a "painter."

Never saw a mountian lion but we did scare up a big deer, a bigger Momma bear and one of her young'ns....

FoxFire has some good stories.

The school was still there when I was last up that way 10 years ago.

Later,
Dan

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Of course I was a city cop in Dallas, but I never personally knew of any being made in this area. In fact, the only shine I guess I've seen was from Kentucky.

Oh SURE Bird, Throw us hillbillies under the bus....

 

[Bird]

Oh SURE Bird, Throw us hillbillies under the bus....

Well naturally, you have to find a hillbilly to make the stuff. City folks were too lazy to make it. Not to mention the shortage of space to hide stills.

You know I grew up in Oklahoma; only moved to Texas a couple of months before I turned 17. Oklahoma was dry, but everyone knew where the bootleggers were. I never knew of my dad to ever buy from a bootlegger, but I knew where the bootleggers were from the time I was about 10 years old. And if a stranger wanted to find some booze, all he had to do was ask the first police officer or deputy sheriff he saw and they'd tell him.