MANNERS & MORALS: Legal Lightning

MANNERS & MORALS

Since 1791, when the U.S. imposed the first tax on whisky, moonshiners have plied their intermittent trade in Dixie's piney woods. They still make a lively dew. At times they garnish their mash with manure to speed fermentation; occasionally a rat, hog or snake crawls into the vat, gobbles its fill dies, and floats there until the batch of moonshine is ready for the still. Sometimes the fermenting corn is tinctured with Clorox or lye to beef up its punch (moonshine is rarely more than 75 proof).

Because they evade taxes and otherwise violate state and federal laws, moonshiners are...

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