Moonshine express

 As a young boy, I was allowed to go exploring in the woods that surrounded our house. And in no way was I to go down the steep inclines where many a moonshiner crashed and left his car or truck to rust for all eternity.I followed the rules until I turned 16 and decided I was old enough to venture down the hillside, reaching the first car that seemed to be the remains of a 1932 Ford three-window coupe. The trunk was gone, but dozens of glass jars were left behind, some amazingly still intact, wrapped in heavy tarps that could have prevented them from breaking. I dared myself to open a jar and taste the moonshine that some say could fuel a car, as it was just that strong, but I wasn't sure if the shine was worth a potential bout of vomiting or worse. So I took one jar and put it in my backpack and continued on down the revine to find more treasure.

The next thing I came across was a police car that seemed to be from the same era as the Ford coupe. It was lying on its side with faded words I could barely make out, but my guess was that it said police, and that's it. I looked under the hood and found a rusty siren. I added to the jar, telling myself I'd get it working again and put it on my bicycle to scare everybody around me. I found an old wooden Billy club and wondered how many moonshiners felt its wrath after being stopped as the cops smashed their shine and carried them off to the county jail.

The day was wearing down when I abruptly stopped smelling burning wood and a sickening odor of corn mash, and god knows what else. I heard men's voices laughing and took shelter a few yards away, where I could see what was going on. I saw a copper vat with lines running through it. A gruffy-looking man stirred the concoction, tasted it, then jumped up and down as the shine burned its way down his throat. Yes, sir, I believe it's another good batch," he said. Let's get to bottling it and get it to town.

I'd always heard a good moonshiner would come up with secret ways to transport the shine, like taking out the floorboards of a truck and filling the truck with hay or straw or filling a false gas tank with shine. But let's face it, everything depended on the driver. Someone who started driving about ten years old, learning the curves and slopes of the mountain roads that he would eventually master, driving at speeds that would be deadly if he crashed. I watched from afar as they loaded the truck and the teenage boy sped off to make the deadline in town, where a buyer waited to receive his cases of shine.

It was now 1989, and most counties had lifted the dry county label long ago, allowing hard liquor to be sold but not shine. That had to be snuck in with souped-up cars and drivers with some extra-large balls. Unlike the 1930s, when shine cost two dollars a jar, the going price today for a single jar is twenty-five dollars a good reason to keep on shining.And to this day, bar owners keep a supply of shine behind the counter for those country boys to prove their manhood or a city slicker trying to win a bet with his buddies, which usually ended with projectile vomiting. Shine is not for everybody, but for many, it's etched into their heritage, with memories of rusted old cars and trucks scattered along the mountain roads and a ten-year-old behind the wheel.

Mike 2026