Making moonshine is still illegal without the proper licenses and nod to the revenuers, but scenes like this are certainly more rare than they used to be.
That’s Pharis Macon Conley on the left kneeling behind several gallons of confiscated moonshine with a fellow Cannon County deputy. Conley severed three terms as Sheriff of Cannon County from 1948-1954 and saw his share of moonshine busts.
The corn liquor it produces is not just any moonshine, but the moonshine your grandparents may have drunk. This is because Short Mountain employs three of the best moonshiners this area has to offer: Ricky Estes, Jimmy Simpson and Ronald Lawson. The three of them have given up their days of illegal wildcatting. Judging by the smile on Lawson’s face (who was on the property the day of our visit), it seems to be working out well for them. Along with head distiller Josh Smotherman, they make a quality product that meets all legal requirements. Now that’s a brand new angle; the revenuers like the moonshiners.
Kaufman says, “When we opened, we already had 150 years of distilling experience thanks to these three guys.” Where Smotherman has access to all the technology that he needs for large-batch production, the moonshiners track the progress of the steam through the pipes as the alcohol boils off and then condenses by feeling the temperature of the copper pipes, listening to the hiss of the vortex in the pot still and watching the bubbles in the Carlo Rossi jugs they use to trap their lovely corn likker as it drips out of the outlet of the still.
Sometimes people need a good reminder of how things used to be. We could speed things up with tractors or increase our yield with a few chemicals, but when it comes to making good whiskey, some things just can’t be rushed.
A good team of mules are hard workers. Sometimes they’re slow, sometimes stubborn, but dedicated to getting the job done.
This is the second year we’ve teamed up with the Middle Tennessee Mule Skinners Association to disc our organic corn fields. Twelve teams came out Saturday and helped make farming look easy. The field they disced will become the corn that makes our authentic Tennessee Moonshine.
If you missed this year’s discing, be sure to come to our grand opening Saturday April 21 for free mule wagon rides, tours and Moonshine tasting. You can also catch a performance by the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band. And if the timing is right, we’ll have a few bottles of Shine for you to take home a genuine taste of this unique Tennessee experience.
Video from our Spring Planting 2011 at Short Mountain Distillery.
Saturday morning April 14 starting around 10, bring the family and a couple of lawn chairs out to the distillery to watch us disc our organic corn fields with 12 mule teams from the Middle Tennessee Muleskinner’s Association.
We had so much fun discing the fields last Spring with mules that we decided to do it again this year. It might take a little longer to get done, but every thing about it just feels right to us. See y’all Saturday!
A new chapter began yesterday in the story of Tennessee’s whiskey making heritage when three living legends of moonshine making signed a deal with Short Mountain Distillery.
Jimmy Simpson, Ricky Estes and Ronald Lawson (pictured left to right) all grew up in Cannon County around Short Mountain where some families on hard times relied on illicit moonshine to make ends meet. It’s a story of struggle, honor, and perseverance, and it’s the story of America.
A change in state law created an opportunity for their treasured craft to finally come out in the open. The three men bring with them over 100 years of history and backwoods whiskey making experience to our distillery.
Short Mountain Distillery President and CEO Billy Kaufman addresses the local Woodbury Chamber of Commerce at their annual dinner on the topic of celebrating community values in small business.
Billy talked about how our corporate philosophy, the Golden Rule, guides us to do right by our neighbors by keeping business as local as possible, from the corn we use to our skilled labor and manufacturing equipment. Billy also talked with local business leaders about the opportunity before us to share our community’s values with a world of tourists hungry to reconnect with America.
Sacha and Billy open one of the boxes of Golden Rule coins.
Billy’s great grandfather, Jesse Shwayder, never missed an opportunity to attribute the success of the iconic American brand Samsonite to the Golden Rule. He even went out of his way to communicate this deeply held philosophy in a very special way as mentioned in this TIME magazine article from 1965.
The world’s largest manufacturer of luggage is named after the Bible’s powerful Samson. Its president has a name to match: King David. The firm’s official corporate philosophy is the Bible’s Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”* All company officers and salesmen carry a marble encircled by a gold band on which the Golden Rule is printed, take it out for inspiration when they have a business decision to make.
This philosophical approach — wedded to some pragmatic business practices—has paid off handsomely for Denver’s Samsonite Corp. The firm now accounts for more than a quarter of all U.S. luggage sold, and its sales last year reached a record $55.9 million. Last week, as orders from vacation-bound Americans flooded into Denver, Samsonite raised its 1965 sales estimate from $60 million to $64 million.
Last week, a package arrived with a very special coin inside that will come with every bottle of our authentic Tennessee Moonshine, Short Mountain Shine. They’re Golden Rule coins bearing the moon and the stars, and we hope they shine a little light into your world.
Sacha and Billy open one of the boxes of Golden Rule coins.
Billy’s great grandfather, Jesse Shwayder, never missed an opportunity to attribute the success of the iconic American brand Samsonite to the Golden Rule. He even went out of his way to communicate this deeply held philosophy in a very special way as mentioned in this TIME magazine article from 1965.
The world’s largest manufacturer of luggage is named after the Bible’s powerful Samson. Its president has a name to match: King David. The firm’s official corporate philosophy is the Bible’s Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”* All company officers and salesmen carry a marble encircled by a gold band on which the Golden Rule is printed, take it out for inspiration when they have a business decision to make.
This philosophical approach — wedded to some pragmatic business practices—has paid off handsomely for Denver’s Samsonite Corp. The firm now accounts for more than a quarter of all U.S. luggage sold, and its sales last year reached a record $55.9 million. Last week, as orders from vacation-bound Americans flooded into Denver, Samsonite raised its 1965 sales estimate from $60 million to $64 million.
Last week, a package arrived with a very special coin inside that will come with every bottle of our authentic Tennessee Moonshine, Short Mountain Shine. They’re Golden Rule coins bearing the moon and the stars, and we hope they shine a little light into your world.
The crane operator said this is the baby crane after slapping close to 37,000 pounds of counter weights on it this morning.
It didn’t take much for the baby crane to lift our chiller and boiler over the roof of the still house before the cold front blew through. These huge pieces of machinery are the muscle of our distillery, and like all of our major equipment, they were manufactured right here in the United States.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Over the past year, we’ve shared at least a book’s worth in posts and photos as we built our first still house, but this one really says a lot about how far we’ve come.
Our core team defies all the odds, both private and public. We made deep personal sacrifices. We changed the law. We worked through the necessary compliance and permitting. We put our friends and neighbors back to work and helped bring back something they call manufacturing. And in a matter of months, we’ll export our heritage and our pride to the world.
That still, the still house, the people, the whiskey… none of it would exist like it does if it wasn’t for many of you showing up last year and voting to change the law and make it happen. You trusted us. After a year of hard work, we’re ready to deliver.
Over the next two months, you’ll see us work to fire up the stills and bring into the light the magic of a centuries old craft handed down from generation to generation. You’ll see the old ways come back to life, the ups and the downs, but mostly we hope you’ll see our shared pride.
Y’all know I’m not one to start fights, but what was said in this video clip from the short-lived Moonshiners dramatization about one of Tennessee’s more famous moonshiners, Popcorn Sutton, just ain’t right. But as author Max Watman pointed out on Facebook, there was a lot not right with that hoax of a show.
Let me start by saying I never knew or met Popcorn Sutton, and it’s sad that he took his life given the options he had to elevate the craft of whiskey and moonshine making. That said, someone has clearly told Popcorn’s widow a few white lies.
“We have a distillery set up in Nashville, TN.” Popcorn Sutton’s widow Pam says in the video above. “We can’t legally call it moonshine. We have to call it Tennessee White Whiskey, and also Popcorn’s liquor is the first White Whiskey that the federal government has approved.”
It’s not a big secret that Popcorn Sutton does not have a distillery in Nashville. They are using another company’s federally registered distillery, and there’s nothing wrong with saying that.
Maybe Jamey Grosser knew Popcorn well enough to know he didn’t care what Jamey called it, but it’s perfectly legal to call it what it is: moonshine. Google it. Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine, Original Moonshine, Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine, Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon Moonshine, Georgia Moon Moonshine, and our very own Short Mountain Shine – Tennessee Moonshine.
Despite what Pam was told, Popcorn’s recipe is hardly the first to call itself “White Whiskey,” a term that simply means they ran it through a barrel fast enough to convince the federal government that it’s whiskey. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s be honest. We all have Google.
The corn liquor it produces is not just any moonshine, but the moonshine your grandparents may have drunk. This is because Short Mountain employs three of the best moonshiners this area has to offer: Ricky Estes, Jimmy Simpson and Ronald Lawson. The three of them have given up their days of illegal wildcatting. Judging by the smile on Lawson’s face (who was on the property the day of our visit), it seems to be working out well for them. Along with head distiller Josh Smotherman, they make a quality product that meets all legal requirements. Now that’s a brand new angle; the revenuers like the moonshiners.
Kaufman says, “When we opened, we already had 150 years of distilling experience thanks to these three guys.” Where Smotherman has access to all the technology that he needs for large-batch production, the moonshiners track the progress of the steam through the pipes as the alcohol boils off and then condenses by feeling the temperature of the copper pipes, listening to the hiss of the vortex in the pot still and watching the bubbles in the Carlo Rossi jugs they use to trap their lovely corn likker as it drips out of the outlet of the still.
