The Red Flannel Rag

When the demand increased for whiskey made by the small-scale moonshiner, he

just expanded his operation. Uncle Shirley explained, “Me and my partner set up still

sites at three different locations so that if the revenue men would find one of the sites,

they wouldn’t completely put us out of business.” He bragged, “We’d make at one p lace

today, use our sugar and grain and set our mash back at that location. The next day, we

would move to the next still site, and we would make the cycle. We did all the work

ourselves.”

The large-scale moonshiners never involved themselves in the production

process. Instead they hired young men in the community to do the work.

Several circumstances contributed to the abundance of potential laborers for

large- scale moonshiners, according to Uncle Shirley. “There were no jobs available in

the community and transportation was such that we couldn’t get out where there was

jobs. In those early days, we rode horses or walked where we had to go.”

He added, “Folks often died young in those days and left young children who

were on their own for survival. My mother died when I was ten, then my father died

when I was thirteen. I had to live, so I stayed with my brother. Me and my cousin

worked together for hourly wages. I got paid seven and a half cents an hour and my

room and board. My cousin had a place t o stay, so he got paid fifteen cents an hour.”

Uncle Shirley described his job as a laborer, “Me and my cousin worked together

six days a week for three years, and we made an average of twenty to twenty-two gallons

a day of moonshine a day. That’s the average finished product you’d get from two

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