The Red Flannel Rag

chestnut trees by mail order as people bought chestnut trees from nurseries. The

chestnut had been the most important and abundant tree in eastern forests. It was used

to build log cabins and rail fences. The blight fungus reduced it to insignificance except

for firing up the moonshine stills.

I remember seeing hundreds of trees laying along the roads when Dad took us on

Sunday drives deep in the Allegheny Mountains. The trees had fallen and piled on top

of each other in all directions, stripped of their bark they lay there smooth and shiny.

Dad told us they had been killed by the blight as he looked at them longingly. “I wish I

had a truck,” he said. “I would haul me a bunch of this wood for fence posts. It gets

harder the older it gets. It makes the hottest fires of any wood I know of and don’t give

off much smoke.”

Moonshiners had a lot of knowledge about different types of wood, about the

workings of a steam system, and the “flour” or gluten content of various grains. But they

sometimes disagreed about the finer points of their craft.

According to Dad, “Corn yielded less whiskey than rye, and was also less popular

in my family. Rye whiskey didn’t leave the consumer with painful hangovers. The rye

could also be used again to ferment mor e batches of mash.”

Uncle Shirley, on the other hand, had the opposite opinion. “Now everybody has

their taste. Drinkin’ is about like food, one likes one thing and the other likes somethin’

else. I liked corn whiskey for my own drinkin’ and manufacturin’. The reason I like to

make corn whiskey is because the corn didn’t have as much “flour” in it and when you

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