The Red Flannel Rag

would boil it, you could boil it faster without the still blowin’ up. In other words, what

would happen if you got too much fire under your still, you would create too much

steam — more steam than can go out through your connecting pipe coil and that would

cause the lid of your still to raise off which was just sealed on there with a dough mixture

of water and flour. You couldn’t clamp that lid on or you would create an explosion that

would tear up some things almost equal to a stick of dynamite or even more. You had to

have this form of release in case of an emergency just the same as a release valve on a

steam system. The corn whiskey didn’t have as much flour content in the mash. You

could get through a little quicker with same amount of whiskey.”

He added, “The reason I liked to drink corn whiskey was because of the effect that

it had on me. When you take a drink of corn whiskey, you can feel it as soon as it hits

your stomach — it warms you up and you can tell you drank something. Now with rye

whiskey you can drink it and walk around for ten to fifteen minutes before you start

feelin’ the effects. Wheat whiskey is nasty for what we call ‘sneakin’ up on ya.’ You take

a drink now and you wait maybe a half hour and feel no effects. You take another drink.

In about fifteen minutes, still no effects, so you just keep takin’ drinks, and all of a

sudden it’s got ya.”

Everybody in the room laughed as Uncle Shirley described the effects of different

grains, then he went on with his description of moon shining. “At certain points after

the mash was boilin’, we tested the strength of the whiskey. The mash could only be

boiled to a certain level in the boiler before it got weak. Now, when we thought we

might have all of the alcohol out of our mash, we caught a little of the moonshine in a

can top or something and threw it in the fire. If it flared up and burned a blue flame,

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