When people think of the state of West Virginia, they think Rednecks, mullets, people who marry their siblings and bad teeth. Growing up in Pennsylvania in the 70's, people associate W.Va., with drinking because the state was the last of the 50 to raise the drinking age to 21. Consistently, WVU is ranked in the Top 10 party school’s (#1 in 1997 & 2007!). Aside from beautiful mountains, there is not much to do in Morgantown but drink. And the mountain people of West “by god” Virginia are known for guzzling moonshine.
While I’ve been known to dabble in a little moonshine (in a mystery bottle), I’ve never really known what it was. According to Wikipedia, “moonshine is a common term for home-distilled alcohol.”
I found a recipe for Moonshine on some random site called ibibilo.org. The basic ingredients include corn meal, sugar, water, yeast and malt.
Moonshine is made in an unlicensed stills, brewed in small batches and is rarely ever aged.
The name comes from the fact that moonshine producers and smugglers would often work by the light of the moon – of course since they were producing illegal alcohol. People in the moonshining biz typically call it “white lightning” because it is not aged and is generally sold at high alcohol proof.
If all this sounds like Moonshine tastes like piss, it’s because it does. Moonshine is similar to the mouth-watering Everclear.
The point of the posting is this. If you meet someone from West Virginia (or Appalachia) and they have a mystery bottle of liquor, just try it. Or pretend like you try it. You will forever have a new friend, drinking buddy and someone to bail you out of jail when you get arrested for public drunkenness.
People assume that residents of West Virginia like country music, so I close this post with the following video that totally kicks butt in a lot of ways….
(Sources: YouTube.com, Wikipedia.com, ibibilo.org, iehow.com)
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