By Richard Thomas When Iowa’s Templeton Rye declared they were selling whiskey made from a Prohibition era recipe when they were really trucking in stock rye whiskey from Indiana, they so tainted Iowa’s Prohibition history that some cast doubt on the very notion that there had ever been moonshiners and bootleggers in the Hawkeye State. Now another whiskey company has ...

By Richard Thomas In their quest for authenticity most legal moonshiners try to lay claim to some kind of illegal connection, but few come across as authentic as Silver Trail Distillery’s Spencer Balentine. With family roots in Western Kentucky ‘shining, Balentine can talk the talk, so much so that he appeared as “The Legal Guy” in Discovery Channel’s Moonshiners. He walks ...

By Richard Thomas The News Enterprise reports that Boundary Oak Distillery of Elizabethtown, Kentucky has begun producing new make whiskey. The distillery, which reportedly intends to produce bourbon, rye and moonshine, has returned whiskey-making to Hardin County after a twelve decade absence. This follows a well-established pattern with new distilleries, many of which produce unaged whiskey or “legal moonshine” to ...

Gatlinburg, Tennessee’s Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine is now available nationwide. A move into Utah makes 50 states for the independently owned brand out of Gatlinburg, TN, just shy of its fifth anniversary. Two of Ole Smoky’s most popular flavors, Ole Smoky White Lightnin’ and Ole Smoky Moonshine Cherries, will be available in the majority of Utah’s state-owned liquor stores. “Distribution ...

By Richard Thomas In what one pundit called “The Golden Age of Whiskey Books,” moonshine has been getting a disproportionate amount of attention. I imagine this is because illicit liquor-making makes for such good non-fiction storytelling, and just maybe the hipster chic that attached itself to moonshine several years ago helps just a bit too. Yet most books on the ...