Toy Still
Commercial Whiskey Containers
Until Prohibition forced them to close, legal bars and distilleries in the Blue Ridge had thriving businesses. At the retail level the whiskey was sold in jugs, in bottles, or by the glass. Small flasks were called “ticklers.” As technology changed, so too did the moonshiner’s choice of whiskey containers. Bootleggers historically kept their best whiskey for themselves in small wooden “teedum barrels” and ceramic jugs. In the early 1900’s five-gallon metal cans replaced barrels for transporting alcohol. During World War II the cans gave way to glass jars.
Mountain Dew Whiskey
Moonshine Metal Can
Proofing Gauge
Whiskey
Jug
Distiller to Moonshiner
The difference between a legal distiller and a moonshiner is that the moonshiner chooses not to license or pay taxes on his whiskey. The united States collected an excise tax on alcohol from 1791 - 1802 and then again from 1813 to 1817. Alcohol went untaxed for the next 45 years, but in the midst of the Civil War, Congress again passed a whiskey tax. By 1865 the tax was two dollars per gallon, up to 12 times the actual cost of making a gallon of liquor. In the Virginia Blue Ridge the illegal distiller was referred to as a “moonshiner” or a “bootlegger”.
Some chose to avoid taxes by running illegal stills, but many operated under state licenses by the 1880’s.
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