Interviews with: Jesse "Gus" Basnight, Nina Smith Basnight, Julia Jordan Haywood, Iona Basnight Padgett, Wilbur Pinner, Fred Sawyer recall life in Buffalo City in the early twentieth century.

The Moonshine Logs is a wonderfully moving and insightful account covering the author's modest beginnings in ocean racing to his later triumphs in his beloved Moonshine.

North Carolina holds a special place in the history of moonshine. For more than three centuries, the illicit home-brew was a way of life. NASCAR emerged from the illegal moonshine tradeas drivers such as Junior Johnson, accustomed to running from the law, moved to the racetrack. A host of colorful characters populated the state's bootlegging arena, like Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, known as the Paul Bunyan of moonshine, and Alvin Sawyer, considered the moonshine king of the Great Dismal Swamp. Some law enforcement played a constant cat-and-mouse game to shut down illegal stills, while some just looked the other way. Authors Frank Stephenson and Barbara Mulder reveal the gritty history of moonshine in the Tar Heel State.

Nothing but clear, 100-proof American history. Hooch. White lightning. White whiskey. Mountain dew. Moonshine goes by many names. So what is it, really? Technically speaking, “moonshine” refers to untaxed liquor made in an unlicensed still. In the United States, it’s typically corn that’s used to make the clear, unaged beverage, and it’s the mountain people of the American South who are most closely associated with the image of making and selling backwoods booze at night—by the light of the moon—to avoid detection by law enforcement. In Moonshine: A Cultural History of America’s Infamous Liquor, writer Jaime Joyce explores America’s centuries-old relationship with moonshine through fact, folklore, and fiction. From the country’s early adoption of Scottish and Irish home distilling techniques and traditions to the Whiskey Rebellion of the late 1700s to a comparison of the moonshine industry pre- and post-Prohibition, plus a look at modern-day craft distilling, Joyce examines the historical context that gave rise to moonshining in America and explores its continued appeal. But even more fascinating is Joyce’s entertaining and eye-opening analysis of moonshine’s widespread effect on U.S. pop culture: she illuminates the fact that moonshine runners were NASCAR’s first marquee drivers; explores the status of white whiskey as the unspoken star of countless Hollywood film and television productions, including The Dukes of Hazzard, Thunder Road, and Gator; and the numerous songs inspired by making ’shine from such folk and country artists as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Alan Jackson, and Dolly Parton. So while we can’t condone making your own illegal liquor, reading Moonshine will give you a new perspective on the profound implications that underground moonshine-making has had on life in America.