Cosmopolitan Atlanta
Nov. 24th, 2004 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msmidgePolice blow up moonshine still
By MARK DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 11/23/04
RABUN COUNTY — State and local authorities stumbled across a small piece of private enterprise Monday as they poked about in the ridges above Lake Rabun. So they did what any cop would do.
They blew it to the moon.
GBI Agent Christopher Bish surveys the remains of a moonshine still, hidden in hardwoods about three miles west of Lake Rabun on Vandiver Mountain, after police blew it up Tuesday.
That's "moon" as in moonshine still, and that's what Rabun County and state officials detonated Tuesday afternoon: a well-made little manufacturing plant capable of producing about 300 gallons of white lightning every week.
Standing at the bottom of a ridge waterlogged by two days of intermittent rain, a handful of men stood back and blinked as the handiwork of some unknown craftsman got blasted into the sky.
BOOM!
Pieces of aluminum hurtled skyward, tumbling in the air like flipped coins. Bags of sugar blew apart, their tatters settling like old rags on the branches of gum trees ringing the site. Leaves blown off trees scattered like pigeons.
The noise, said police, was what happens when someone goes into the business of manufacturing whiskey without bothering to alert the government.
They found the still Monday afternoon, hidden in a stand of hardwoods about three miles west of Lake Rabun on Vandiver Mountain and 110 miles north of Atlanta.
Whoever made the still didn't want it found. Shoved into a slice of earth roughly the dimensions of a one-car garage, the still was covered with green galvanized roofing. Its mash box was spray-painted in a camouflage pattern. Ditto for the condenser, which contained 144 copper coils capable of rendering alcohol that could explode if left too close to fire.
With its production capabilities reaching 300 gallons a week, the still was probably a going enterprise, police said. Prime stuff fetches anywhere from $35 to $50 per gallon, meaning potential sales of $10,500 to $15,000 each week it operates.
"When you see somebody putting that much effort into it [a still], they're not doing it for a hobby," said Bart Graham, the commissioner of the state Department of Revenue, who witnessed the explosion.
The cops, who had made no arrests late Tuesday, destroyed it almost reluctantly. Even guys who blow up stills for a living recognize a good one when they see it.
"Still makers are like bomb makers," said David Dyal, a state revenue agent who spent Monday night squatting in the leaves, sodden and cold, in a fruitless wait for the still's builder to return to the scene of his crimes. "Each one is different."
This still was tooled to exacting standards, tucked in mountain mud the color of peanut butter.
A stream, somewhere over the ridge, fed water into the still's mash box, a rectangular structure roughly the size of a Mazda Miata. A propane flame kept the water, sugar and feed grain bubbling, which created a mash that was fed into the "thumper," an oaken barrel that separated the mash residue from the pure stuff. Rendered into steam, it traveled through the condenser, a shotgun-length box containing copper tubing, where it emerged as liquor, aged three days.
A black plastic pipe, stretching a tenth of a mile down the ridge, delivered the booze to a livestock watering trough. From there, the moonshiner could fill plastic jugs, jars or whatever, "just like you were at a filling station," said Jason Brown, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent stationed in Rabun County.
Was it rough stuff? Probably. Could you get legal stuff more cheaply? Certainly, but that's not the point. "It's all about heritage," Brown said. "It's a link to the past."
A link, perhaps, to some of those newcomers in the mansions down on Lake Rabun, too. "They can buy it in a store," Brown said, "but it's not the same as saying they have moonshine made in the mountains."
By MARK DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 11/23/04
RABUN COUNTY — State and local authorities stumbled across a small piece of private enterprise Monday as they poked about in the ridges above Lake Rabun. So they did what any cop would do.
They blew it to the moon.
GBI Agent Christopher Bish surveys the remains of a moonshine still, hidden in hardwoods about three miles west of Lake Rabun on Vandiver Mountain, after police blew it up Tuesday.
That's "moon" as in moonshine still, and that's what Rabun County and state officials detonated Tuesday afternoon: a well-made little manufacturing plant capable of producing about 300 gallons of white lightning every week.
Standing at the bottom of a ridge waterlogged by two days of intermittent rain, a handful of men stood back and blinked as the handiwork of some unknown craftsman got blasted into the sky.
BOOM!
Pieces of aluminum hurtled skyward, tumbling in the air like flipped coins. Bags of sugar blew apart, their tatters settling like old rags on the branches of gum trees ringing the site. Leaves blown off trees scattered like pigeons.
The noise, said police, was what happens when someone goes into the business of manufacturing whiskey without bothering to alert the government.
They found the still Monday afternoon, hidden in a stand of hardwoods about three miles west of Lake Rabun on Vandiver Mountain and 110 miles north of Atlanta.
Whoever made the still didn't want it found. Shoved into a slice of earth roughly the dimensions of a one-car garage, the still was covered with green galvanized roofing. Its mash box was spray-painted in a camouflage pattern. Ditto for the condenser, which contained 144 copper coils capable of rendering alcohol that could explode if left too close to fire.
With its production capabilities reaching 300 gallons a week, the still was probably a going enterprise, police said. Prime stuff fetches anywhere from $35 to $50 per gallon, meaning potential sales of $10,500 to $15,000 each week it operates.
"When you see somebody putting that much effort into it [a still], they're not doing it for a hobby," said Bart Graham, the commissioner of the state Department of Revenue, who witnessed the explosion.
The cops, who had made no arrests late Tuesday, destroyed it almost reluctantly. Even guys who blow up stills for a living recognize a good one when they see it.
"Still makers are like bomb makers," said David Dyal, a state revenue agent who spent Monday night squatting in the leaves, sodden and cold, in a fruitless wait for the still's builder to return to the scene of his crimes. "Each one is different."
This still was tooled to exacting standards, tucked in mountain mud the color of peanut butter.
A stream, somewhere over the ridge, fed water into the still's mash box, a rectangular structure roughly the size of a Mazda Miata. A propane flame kept the water, sugar and feed grain bubbling, which created a mash that was fed into the "thumper," an oaken barrel that separated the mash residue from the pure stuff. Rendered into steam, it traveled through the condenser, a shotgun-length box containing copper tubing, where it emerged as liquor, aged three days.
A black plastic pipe, stretching a tenth of a mile down the ridge, delivered the booze to a livestock watering trough. From there, the moonshiner could fill plastic jugs, jars or whatever, "just like you were at a filling station," said Jason Brown, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent stationed in Rabun County.
Was it rough stuff? Probably. Could you get legal stuff more cheaply? Certainly, but that's not the point. "It's all about heritage," Brown said. "It's a link to the past."
A link, perhaps, to some of those newcomers in the mansions down on Lake Rabun, too. "They can buy it in a store," Brown said, "but it's not the same as saying they have moonshine made in the mountains."
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Date: 2004-11-24 07:52 am (UTC)Um...not that I've seen a small one, of course (*wink-wink*), or anything...or even knew anyone who might--um, not--own a still. ;-)
But, just in case I'd ever known anyone who owned a small still, I would have to claim that Meadshine is nice--powerfully strong (around 180 proof) but nice.
I see their point about the claim of trying real Mountain Moonshine. I've certainly never done that....