Tar Heel Lightnin' : How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pierce, Daniel S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

NASCAR (Association)--History.

NASCAR (Association).

Distilling, Illicit--North Carolina--History.

Alcohol trafficking--North Carolina--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Tar Heel Lightnin'

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

Summary:

"From the late nineteenth century well into the 1960s, North Carolina boasted some of the nation's most restrictive laws on alcohol production and sale. For much of this era, it was also the nation's leading producer of bootleg liquor. Over the years, written accounts, popular songs, and Hollywood movies have turned the state's 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 state's 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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction. White lightnin'

Whiskey's 'golden era' in North Carolina

From distiller to blockader to moonshiner

Normalizing the moonshiner

A 'dry' state

Modern moonshine

North Carolinians 'hard at work making that stuff that splits the heads of many'

Chasing the moon

National prohibition in North Carolina

Moonshine kingpins and moonshine capitals

Prohibition, moonshine, and North Carolina culture

1941 to 1970: the heyday of the moonshine syndicate

The road to thunder road

North Carolina moonshine, NASCAR, and the 'bootlegger tracks'

The end of an era

Moonshine revival.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9798890848710

9781469653563

1469653567

OCLC:

1121483405