The Red Flannel Rag

They used the empty sugar bags to cover the barrels to keep leaves and dirt out of

the mash, packed the insulation around the barrels in cold weather, and went home to

wait for the mixture to ferment.

One of the daily chores was to check the mash barrels. Dad described the trips he

made to check the mash. He said, “The morning after the barrels were set, the mash

would be bubblin’. A lot of the grain would come to the top of the water. B y the second

or third day, the mash would be boilin’. On the fourth day, all the grain would be on top

of the liquid. I just put my fingers in the grain and moved it around. If the grain stayed

apart, the mash would be ready to run the next day. When the mash was fermented just

right, the grain settled to the bottom of the barrel, and all the movement was gone out of

the liquid. If we left it for a little while longer, it would get a light skim over the top.

Then we knowed we had some good mash.”

The length of time needed for fermentation varied according to the amount of

grain in the mash. Uncle Shirley told me, “After I got older and started makin’ whiskey

on my own, with my wife’s brother, we set our mash right up here in Ground Squirrel

Bridge hol lar. We had three barrels settin’ up there that we made every other day, but

that was because we had about three times as much grain than what was needed. We

still put the same amount of sugar in it. As a rule, it takes three to five days for a barrel

o f mash to ferment.”

As I listened to Uncle Shirley and Dad describe the hard work and cost of

ingredients, my mind wandered back to my younger days when my brothers, Cousin

Herman, and I used to play along the creeks and hollows in search of mash barrels.

When we found them, we filled them with river rocks so the mash would run out and

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