Tar Heel Lightnin'

From the late nineteenth century well into the 1960s, North Carolina boasted some of the nations most restrictive laws on alcohol production and sale. For much of this era, it was also the nations leading producer of bootleg liquor. Over the years, written accounts, popular songs, and Hollywood movies have turned the states moonshiners, fast cars, and frustrated Feds into legends. But in Tar Heel Lightnin', Daniel S. Pierce tells the real history of moonshine in North Carolina as never before. This well-illustrated, entertaining book introduces a surprisingly varied cast of characters who operated secret stills and ran liquor from the swamps of the Tidewater to Piedmont forests and mountain coves. From the states earliest days through Prohibition to the present, Pierce shows that moonshine crossed race and economic lines, linking men and women, the rebellious and the respectable, the oppressed and the merely opportunistic. As Pierce recounts, even churchgoing types might run shipments of that good ol' mountain dew when hard times came and there was no social safety net to break the fall.Folklore, popular culture, and changing laws have helped fuel a renaissance in making and drinking commercial moonshine, and Pierce shows how todays producers understand their ties to the past. Above all, this book reveals that moonshines long, colorful history features surprises that can change how we understand a state and a region.