Moonshine historically referred to "clear, unaged whiskey" Moonshine was originally a slang term for high-proof distilled spirits that were usually produced illicitly. Moonshine is known by many nicknames in English, including white liquor, white lightning, mountain dew, choop, hooch, homebrew, shiney, white whiskey, and mash liquor.
Moonshine distillation was done at night to avoid discovery. While moonshiners were present in urban and rural areas around the United States after the civil war, moonshine production concentrated in Appalachia because the limited road network made it easy to evade revenue officers and because it was difficult and expensive to transport corn crops. As a study of farmers in Cocke County, Tennessee, observes: "One could transport much more value in corn if it was first converted to whiskey.
Moonshine only became meaningful in the United States after a tax passed during the Civil War outlawing non-registered stills.
Illegal distilling accelerated during the Prohibition era (1920-1933) which mandated a total ban on alcohol production under the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Since the amendment's repeal in 1933, laws focus on evasion of taxation on any type of spirits or intoxicating liquors. Applicable laws were historically enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of the US Department of Justice, but are now usually handled by state agencies. Enforcement agents were once known colloquially as "revenuers".
Moonshiners are the people who actually make the alcohol. Bootleggers are the smugglers who transport it and sell it. In colonial times, these distributors would conceal their product inside their tall riding boots, which is how they got their name. More recently, bootleggers in the 1930s, '40s and '50s took to racing cars packed with moonshine through the night to avoid local police. Their mechanical skills developed as they learned to drastically increase the horsepower of their vehicles to outrun the authorities. This created a culture of car lovers in the southern United States that eventually grew into the popular NASCAR racing series. In fact, the winner of the first ever NASCAR race had used the same car to make a bootleg run just a week earlier.
The Still
A still is an apparatus used to distill liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor. The simplest standard distillation apparatus is commonly known as a pot still, consisting of a single heated chamber and a vessel to collect purified alcohol. A pot still incorporates only one condensation.
Prohibition
One of the most famous periods of rum-running began in the United States when Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. This period lasted until the amendment was repealed with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933.
National prohibition in the United States did not begin until 1920, though many states had statewide prohibition before that.
Rum-running and Bootlegging
Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting (smuggling) alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling usually takes place to circumvent taxation or prohibition laws within a particular jurisdiction. The term rum-running is more commonly applied to smuggling over water; bootlegging is applied to smuggling over land.
Bill McCoy
With the start of prohibition, Captain Bill McCoy began bringing rum from Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas into south Florida. This was the start of the Bimini–Bahamas rum trade and the introduction of Bill McCoy. The Coast Guard soon caught up with him, so he began to bring the illegal goods to just outside U.S. territorial waters and let smaller boats and other captains, such as Habana Joe, take the risk of bringing it to shore.
McCoy is credited with the idea of bringing large boats just to the edge of the three-mile (4.8 km) limit of U.S. jurisdiction and selling his wares there to "contact boats", local fishermen, and small boat captains. The small, quick boats could more easily outrun Coast Guard ships and could dock in any small river or eddy and transfer their cargo to a waiting truck.
In the days of rum running, it was common for captains to add water to the bottles to stretch their profits or to re-label it as better goods. Any cheap sparkling wine became French champagne or Italian Spumante; unbranded liquor became top-of-the-line name brands. McCoy became famous for never water in his booze and selling only top brands. Although the phrase appears in print in 1882, this is one of several folk etymologies for the origin of the term "The real McCoy".