Bootleg to Bonafide: Legal Moonshine in North Carolina

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CHARLOTTE, NC — North Carolina: the first to ban booze, the last to bring it back.  Where the folks didn’t care to run for it.  We’re talking moonshine.

Meet Thomas Thacker.  He owns Southern Grace Distilleries where there’s no hiding the hard stuff.  “We wanted to have something in place that if a moonshiner from a century ago came into our shop, except for the laptops, he would know what to do with everything here,” said Thacker.  They’ve got the copper, the steel, the oak.  Add some corn, suger water and barley, and you’re cooking with gas.

“These that are bubbling away right now, that gas is being put off by the yeast coverting the sugars into alcohol,” explained Thacker.  After 10 days in here, the booze bounces to the still, and then the bottle.

Smooth to the taste but strong, and the comany pays for it.  One of the things that has always made moonshine illegal is taxes.  The government wants a lot of money for a bottle of liquor this strong.  Five dollars, In fact, compared to five cents for a can of beer.  So if you get caught making it without giving Uncle Sam his cut, you could go to jail.

Four years ago, Spartanburg deputies busted an illegal operation, seizing 2,000 gallons of moonshine and arresting three people.  But in Cabarrus County, Sun Dog 130 is finally flowing at restaurants and stores.

NASCAR’s Ernie Irvan jumped to try his first legal taste of the shine.  “NASCAR was created because of all the moonshiners having to outrun the law,” he said.

Junior Johnson is known for taking his moonshine-running skills to the track in the 1950s.  “It’s a North Carolina thing,” he said.  “It’s a Southern thing, and we’re proud of that.”

Now, he says, you don’t have to keep the jar in the back of the cabinet.  Southern Grace has sold nearly 2,000 fifths of moonshine since starting last month.