Modern Living: Southern Discomfort

The runaway price of staples, a source of anguish to housewives and politicians, has spelled disaster to a considerably less vocal segment of U.S. society: the Southern moonshiner. All the essential ingredients of corn likker have skyrocketed: sugar (up 300% in a year), grain and yeast, as well as the copper used for piping and kettles and the plastic jugs in which illicit hooch is transported and sold. A gallon of moonshine that used to sell for $1 now goes for $6 or more. As a result, the tide of "white whisky" that used to flow from Appalachian hills and hollers...

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