National Moonshine Day

Whenever I think of Moonshine, a Looney Tunes Yosemite Sam type figure comes into mind for some reason. But moonshine isn’t just the stuff you see in cartoons… moonshine was extremely popular during prohibition, where bootleggers had to come up with many creative ideas to get their product to paying customers.

Did you know that some bootleggers would add hoof-like contraptions to their shoes to deter the authorities when moving alcohol through the woods? It covered their tracks by making it look like a cow was running through instead of a human. Here are a few more fun facts about this fiery booze!

• Bootlegging was an equal opportunity job. In an era when women were underestimated and dismissed, it was easy for them to make money bootlegging since authorities wouldn’t suspect them, and often weren’t even permitted by law to search them!
• Moonshine is often depicted with XXX on the side, which means that it’s the good stuff. Before modern distillery techniques, moonshine had to be run through the still three times, and they marked each run with an X. So you know if it had XXX, it’s pure alcohol!
• The term “moonshine” comes from the fact that most of the alcohol was made in the home at night so that they were less likely to get arrested.
• Did you know that NASCAR was started thanks to Moonshine? Bootleggers started inventing souped-up cars to outrun the authorities during prohibition. In Georgia, they started racing them, and this eventually led to NASCAR!

So to celebrate today, share some of these fun trivia facts with your friends over a bottle of booze, and maybe you’ll even learn some other interesting information. Cheers!