The public’s understanding of moonshine is more myth than fact, and few people
grasp the scope of the Blue Ridge moonshining industry over the last 150 years.
An Exhibition Produced by the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum
of Ferrum College is on display in Richmond, VA.
Those of you that are able, this is a great excuse to get your ride out and take a tour. For those of you that cannot, here is a brief preview from the tour we at Still Runnin took of the exhibit.
Numerous Blue Ridge distilleries, such as Patrick Country’s F. Dehart Distillery, operated under legal licenses in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Whiskey labels often emphasized the purity of the product.
(The information SR has published has been taken from our tour and available information from the Richmond Exhibit)
Photography by Lea Ellen Dunham
The Blue Ridge moonshining trade has changed significantly in that last century. Far fewer people are involved in it now, though today’s bootlegger is able to distill more alcohol with less work than his counterpart of the early 1900’s.
Modern moonshine is made with vast quantities of sugar and relatively little grain. Contemporary bootleggers have little or no experience with the apple or peach brandy so common in the late 1800’s. Stills are now often hidden under roof rather than in mountain hollows. Today’s buyer is far more likely to live in a large eastern city than in the small southern mill towns and coal camps of the past. Even so, the mystique of the Blue Ridge moonshiner prevails.
