Last weekend I finally got my hands on the blessed liquid of Southern legend: homespun Moonshine. I tipped the elegant glass jug full of clear corn liquor into a glass with ice and cracked my knuckles before digging in. The verdict? Strange, delicious, nostalgic in a weird way. I'm a Scotch girl and I like to feel the fire as it flows down. Moonshine is a
little different; there's a mystery surrounding it that makes it that much better. Hints of honeysuckle, rubbing alcohol, and warm summer grass, spin into one lovely concoction that leaves you wondering how something so deeply rooted into Southern culture can be so scorned upon.
When I was up in Maine two summers ago, I heard a funny story from a bear hunter about Moonshine. After telling my friends and I that he could skin a full-grown bear with a knife the size of my Swiss Army knife in under three hours and that he could hike to the top of the mountains (just a few miles away from rugged Monson) and back down to town in two hours, he pushed on to tell about his hunting buddies and their rituals.
Hunters hire this guy, I'll call him Bear, and Bear goes with a group of men as a hired hand. The way he told the story, I looked at Bear as a sort of Vigo Mortensen character from Eastern Promises...driver by day, torturer by night...anyway, Bear would serve as a bodyguard for the less experienced hunters as well as the knife-slinger. Inevitably though, on every trip he goes on, this eighty year old guy finds a way to get invited on the expedition and whips up the strongest Moonshine in Maine, Canada, and arguably the universe.
The old fart totes this jug along and then parks himself in front of the SUV, refusing to budge until all of the men have had a slug of the liquor.
"We all see ourselves as big drinkers," proclaimed Bear, "but a tiny sip of this stuff will knock you on your butt." Bear is usually stuck as driver. The old man forces him to take two slugs of Moonshine before he allows himself to be driven over the perilous terrain ahead.
I wouldn't know where to begin to buy my own Moonshine, I probably wouldn't try it given the prohibition against it. And I don't know how one would begin to learn how to make their own. All I know is that I want to know more. How it came about, who still makes it, if there are families devoted to crafting it, what types of flavoring there are, why it isn't legalized, and where its future is headed.
When I learn more, I'll let you ladies know. For now, I'll stick to my Scotch.