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Well Here Goes!
I came from a family that had several different businesses in the Tuscumbia Area. I was born in the 1940's, so I got to see Tuscumbia, and Sheffield in their Hayday.....My Grandfather, who I think was one of the finest men, I have every known ran a small convience store on highway 72 west...He was a honest man, treated everybody fairly regardless of race..like all country stores back then, he carryed a shoebox of credit book accounts....I have a su****ion he probably lost more than he collected on those accounts...Later his daughter married my dad and they started their own business on highway 72 West.
Business was good, and they were able to support and provide for our family...one of the things we sold was malt, sugar and bran. These are the ingredients that are used to make white lighting.Now! back then, white lightening or white whiskey was being made all over hawk pride mountain, Underwood Mountain, Colbert Heights Mountain, Franklin County...heck I can't think of a place where he wasn't being made or sold.
Since we were located out in the County and not the City, we were situated close to the mountains. This was idea for the men who made white whiskey to buy their ingredients from us, as they did not have too far to drive to get to their stills and mash pots...
When you are making whiskey you have to have lots of water...as in order to make a good run or load of white whiskey, you really wanted to run at least 500 gallons to 1000 gallons at a time..for this reason most stills were set up on creeks or all weather springs...Sometimes, they brought in their own water, but in most cases they just filtered and boiled the water.
The men were extremely proud of their product...some would blend it out, some would use charcoal, etc...each had their own brand and technique, and the locals who bought it knew who's hooch is was by the taste..I'm going to stop here to see if I can find an old whiskey receipe and I will post it here...in fact..as I type this, I am sipping some of the local flair still being made by some of the best brewers in the business today...However, today its mainly done for friends, and not sold as it once was..
traderconnections, I have an Uncle that is still alive that spent many years, in the ATF. A real revenuerner [sp] he has so many stories about his days playing cat and mouse with moonshiners he can keep me laughing for hours. Most of his time,however was spent in the eastern part of the state. Sand Mnt. and the area around there. It takes a while to get him really started but when he does, hold onto your funny bone.Yes there was a very big difference in how moonshiners reacted to the local sheriff as to how their relationship was to 'T' men. He has told me many ,many times how much more respect he was given than that of a local yocal. I guess the regular guy understood that if he shot at a federal officer there was going to be hell to pay in the long run. He retired after 30 years, at the end of his career he was some sort of 'big dog' in the Nashville area. He told me when he retired, things had changed so much than when he started. Now, and this was almost 20 years ago, he said gun running and such was now the major thing. He really missed the old days of staying out in the woods for 3or4 days watching not just the the still,They could really care less, but the distribution system that the big guys had in place. They were never after the small time guy that made good safe whiskey. It was the 10,000 gal. stills that gave people lead poisioning,they were really after. More stories to come
Themax
you are totally correct...you have some individuals, and I say that loosely, who in order to get the worm or fermertation going used old discard car batteries...this inturn created lead poisoning which in turn produce blindness and sometimes death,,,
I did not know any of those type men...if they had come into the area and started that type of operation, they would have ended up at the bottom of sink hole somewhere...the men of the mountain were very protective of their reputation and brew...
Continuing The Story When North Alabama Was Dry
As time went on my dad's reputation for having anything a good white whiskey man needed to produce a good run spread...the end result was our retail Sugar, bran, malt, cornmeal, etc business exploded into moving several thousand lbs a week. At times the the pickup trucks, cattle trucks,and cattle trailers were stacked 6 at time being loaded.
Then the Federal Boys had a law passed that said if you sold more than x lbs of sugar to someone, you had to get their name and address. What would happen, was the Federal Boys would go to the Grocery Wholesaler and check his books to see how much sugar was being bought by each retail store...If a location stood out, with a unusual amount of sugar being purchased, they would then come to your retail outlet and check the books as to whom the retailer sold the sugar too... The problem was the retailer that was following the law, definitely was not selling sugar to the whiskey men...
As you can guess, my dad's business stood out like a red rose, for a small country store we were moving more than a lot of large grocery stores..So! we got a visit...They came in and asked to see the sugar log, as they called it..
My dad did not have a problem with that, as he had filled out the sugar log as requested, and provided them with names, addresses, etc...The problem was these names were all taken out of the phone book from different counties...none that I knew of ever bought sugar from my dad...
After a while, they caught on, and told my dad, that in the future, he would have to get the nformation off of the driver license, and license number...My dad refused to do that...and told them, that if they wanted to know so bad who was buying the sugar we were selling, they could set across the street and watch...
They did...but somehow, everytime, they were sitting across the street or down the road a ways, no sugar sales were made...As soon as they left, the pickup trucks, cattle trucks, and trailers showed up. This went on for quite sometime, until one day a car load of men got our of black car, came in flashed gold shields and placed handcuffs on my dad...they confiscated our store records and left with him.. He was taken to Florence, where he appeared before a Federal Magistrate and allowed to make bond...
A few months later, he went to court in Birmingham with charge of violating the sugar act.(can't remember the legal charge). He was found guilty and given 2 years Federal Probabtion...needless to say, this ended our Whiskey Supply Business...but other things were to come...
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
I was just wondering what everyone things about drinking on Sunday. Does simply NOT selling stop the drinking?

I say it doesn't, it only makes those who ARE going to drink double up on Saturday. People are adults, and I don't think that anything they set their minds to doing, providing it is not a violent crime, then they are going to do it.

Does not having a Lottery stop people from not playing in OTHER states Lotteries???? Of course not!!!

Does not having Casino's stop people from gambling? Nope, they just go to Tunica.

Just the few things I have mentioned here means OTHER states are getting richer off of our antique laws.

I play the lottery when I can get tickets. I can because I have the money, I am old enough and I am just can. But WHO benefits? Tennessee of course.

I would like an overall opinion of the Forums on these sort of topics. I think that a lot of this is what makes Big Wheels from other parts of the country NOT locate here, because they are just not used to 'business as usual' on Sunday.

What do you think? I will be back later, got another surgical procedure... UGH!!!

Fun eh??


These same outfits get the churches behind them to help ralley against it too.
from what i hear moonshine is still being made up around franklin county. as far as buying legal liquior i buy 2 or 3 bottles at once in tupelo at a store called la vino. the building used to be a resturant so they got a good amount of space. they sell a lot of different wines but they got just about every kind of liquior you can think of and a fifth of whiskey or whatever runs about the same price and a pint does in florence.
quote:
Originally posted by mustangfan2003:
from what i hear moonshine is still being made up around franklin county. as far as buying legal liquior i buy 2 or 3 bottles at once in tupelo at a store called la vino. the building used to be a resturant so they got a good amount of space. they sell a lot of different wines but they got just about every kind of liquior you can think of and a fifth of whiskey or whatever runs about the same price and a pint does in florence.

well hi mustangfan! happytchr/kontan here. gotta love la vino!!!
quote:
Originally posted by mustangfan2003:
la vino is great. as much as i shop there i wished they would remember i'm 21.

Get over it mustang...Smiler

I haven't been carded in over a year now. Of course the only place we go is Vanelli's so I will pretend it is b/c they know me now.

Frowner I remember a time when I too suffered from irritation every time someone insisted I break out the ID. *sigh*
one woman that works in la vino though will always tell me that me and her dad share the same birthday. maybe if go there more when she is working this problem might go away. but anyways i go to tupelo about twice a month and i like going to la vino even if i already got a lot of stuff back at home. right now i have a fifth of everclear, a pint of southern comfort, and a pint of captian morgans and if i was in tupelo tomorrow i would have another bottle in the collection.
quote:
Originally posted by mustangfan2003:
from what i hear moonshine is still being made up around franklin county. as far as buying legal liquior i buy 2 or 3 bottles at once in tupelo at a store called la vino. the building used to be a resturant so they got a good amount of space. they sell a lot of different wines but they got just about every kind of liquior you can think of and a fifth of whiskey or whatever runs about the same price and a pint does in florence.


Do you buy it there on Sunday??? Or are they closed to selling alcohol like stores here are?
Of course it doesn't... Only an absolute moron would think that no Sunday sales curbs drinking on Sundays... There are bootleggers, Tennesse isn't but about 15 minutes away, and the infamous Saturday double-ups... I don't believe issues like this should even be up for a vote. It should be legal and if you and yours don't want to go to a store and buys alcohol on Sundays, then sit your happy asses at home and shut up... Or go to church and complain about it... If everyone would just shup up and let people do as they wish(as long as they don't harm other people) Things would go a lot more smoothly and maybe we would actually have commerce somewhere on Sundays besides Wal-Mart and the mall... But our area doesn't need extra commerce, does it? We are so well off aren't we?
quote:
Originally posted by mackisfor420:
Of course it doesn't... Only an absolute moron would think that no Sunday sales curbs drinking on Sundays... There are bootleggers, Tennesse isn't but about 15 minutes away, and the infamous Saturday double-ups... I don't believe issues like this should even be up for a vote. It should be legal and if you and yours don't want to go to a store and buys alcohol on Sundays, then sit your happy asses at home and shut up... Or go to church and complain about it... If everyone would just shup up and let people do as they wish(as long as they don't harm other people) Things would go a lot more smoothly and maybe we would actually have commerce somewhere on Sundays besides Wal-Mart and the mall... But our area doesn't need extra commerce, does it? We are so well off aren't we?


LOL Mack... I agree!

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