That batch sold out very quickly and the second is currently in the distribution phase. Distillers are now working on the third batch of corn whiskey. Cheryl Wood, the distillery’s owner, was working with a phone company only months ago. Her dream, which took months of planning and permits, along with thousands in borrowed money, is turning into a reality. “I decided that I would just go for this full time,” she said. “This is my dream, and I didn’t want to be an old lady laying the bed thinking, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ No. I don’t play ‘what if’ very well. So I just went for it, and I’m super excited that it’s gone over so well and that I have the support that I do.” It makes sense, really. Wood comes from a family of moonshiners. Her granddaddy, Simmie Free, was a famous moonshiner in Tiger.
Wood has also brought Bob Suchke, the “still hand,” and long-time distiller Dwight Bearden, the “backwoods distiller,” on board. The three bring with them generations of experience in the trade. “It helped feed us, my family, as a kid,” said Bearden, who said he is a fourth-generation moonshiner. “It’s part of history. Some people don’t like it because they’ve had a bad experience with it or with a family member or this, that and the other. Regardless, it’s part of the history, especially right here (in Dawsonville).” The group, for now, is using a 250-gallon copper still, along with two 415-gallon and one 1,050-gallon stainless steel mash tanks to produce the liquor. They already have plans to add more equipment and help.
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“We are hoping to expand,” said Bearden. “This is just a small batch distillery and we do stuff the old-timey way. There’s a lot we have to go through to do it that way, but it’s well worth it.” The distillery’s product, actually, is 100 percent made from scratch and does not include using sugar in the mash, like many distillers do. “What sets us apart from the other moonshiners is we’re not using any sugar at all,” said Wood. “This is pure corn whiskey, and it’s a very old-timey recipe, and we make our own corn malt, so everything is handmade and hand-crafted. I kind of compare it to you can get a cake made from cake mix or you can get one made from scratch. So, we’re the real deal.”
2 comments:
My great uncle made his living as a bootlegger. Every year, he would give my dad a couple of jars of it. I have a colorful family history.
When they were first trying to raise the money for the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame (aka "Thunder Road"), people would send in money to buy bricks with their family name to go in front of the Hall. So many of the letters that came with the donations described how the family had only been able to eat during the 20s and 30s because they made moonshine and ran it down to the cities in souped up cars, which eventually led to NASCAR racing. They literally would have starved because the mountains aren't any good for farming and there was no other work up there. Even now, when Dawsonville has the annual Moonshine Festival, you will see people coming out of the hills who don't get out often. It looks like "O Brother Where Art Thou" .
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