The Red Flannel Rag

of the revenue officers. And the feelings of disrespect ran both ways. Most small-scale

moonshiners learned their trade as laborers for large-scale moonshiners.

Uncle Shirley and Uncle Jim struck out on their own as small-scale moonshiners

after they learned the trade as laborers. Although they were criminals according to the

law, they were firmly convinced that the law was unjust and they were only exercising

their natural rights. They, like other small-scale moonshiners, worked with only the

crudest equipment and produced a meager output directly related to the amount of time

they were willing to work and the risks they were willing to take.

The small- scale moonshiner’s major advantage was his physical strength and

endurance and his ability to devise new ways to improve the quality of his production

and work with his customers. It took a strong man, even with another man helping, to

handle fifty-gallon barrels of mash and carry one hundred pound bags of sugar to his

still on his back. His hard work kept him in good physical condition to outrun the

revenuers, too.

These moonshiners kept their overhead low by devising ways to get the most

moonshine out of the products available in the community. Uncle Shirley told me, “At

first we used to change our grain every time we set mash. Later we found that we could

get more moonshine from our sugar if we just left the old grain in the barrel. We could

use the same grain probably four or five times. The grain was hard and you didn’t get

the full benefit the first time.”

Uncle Shirley told me that later, the moonshiners learned that if they put a small

amount of cracked corn with their rye, they got a better turn out from the first run. They

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