The Red Flannel Rag

there was still alcohol there. When it just fizzled out kinda like water, it was ready to

take off.” A barrel of mash would yield anywhere from two and a half to five gallons of

whiskey.

It took at least two men to run a moonshine still. One man kept wood on the fire,

tested the whiskey for alcohol content, and changed kegs or jugs when they were full.

Another man continuously poured cold water in the cooling tub. If the water in the

cooling tub was allowed to get warm, the whiskey came out with a cloudy appearance

and did not yield as much final product. The man responsible for the fire had to keep

the boiling speed consistent throughout the process.

“What we made out of the mash the first time we called singlins’— it was single if

it was only boiled once,” my daddy told me. “After we had boiled all of our mash once,

then we dumped everything out, cleaned up the still. We took it off the rocks and took

charcoal or ashes and cleaned it until it looked like a new penny. Then we poured all the

singlins’ that we made out of the batches before back into the clean boiler. We run that

again which we termed as doublins’. We tested it the same way except we didn’t have

the fire quite as hot. We didn’t let it run quite as low in alcohol before we removed it,

because if you ge t too much of a sour water content it gives the moonshine a bad taste.”

When we started the doublin’, the first that came out was about two -hundred

percent alcohol and that weakened down at the end to about one hundred and fifty

percent,” explained Uncle Shirley. “We took this and used just pure water to weaken it

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