ct or not, he invariably tilts the
bottle and levels it again, before tasting; if the bead rises and is
persistent, well and good; if not, he is prepared to condemn the liquor
at once.

It is possible to make an inferior whiskey at one distillation, by
running the singlings through a steam-chest, commonly known as a
"thumpin'-chist." The advantage claimed is that "Hit allows you to make
your whiskey afore the revenue gits it; that's all."

The final process is to run the liquor through a rude charcoal filter,
to rid it of most of its fusel oil. This having been done, we have
moonshine whiskey, uncolored, limpid as water, and ready for _immediate
consumption_.

I fancy that some gentlemen will stare at the words here italicised; but
I am stating facts.

It is quite impracticable for a blockader to age his whiskey. In the
first place, he is too poor to wait; in the second place, his product is
very small, and the local demand is urgent; in the third place, he has
enough trouble to conceal, or run away with, a mere copper still, to say
nothing of barrels of stored whiskey. Cheerfully he might "waive the
quantum o' the sin," but he is quite alive to "the hazard o'
concealin'." So, while the stuff is yet warm from the still, it is taken
by confederates and quickly disposed of. There is no exaggeration in the
answer a moonshiner once made to me when I asked him how old the best
blockade liquor ever got to be: "If it 'd git to be a month old, it 'd
fool me!"

[Illustration: Photo by F. B. Laney

Cornmill and Blacksmith Forge]

They tell a story on a whilom neighbor of mine, the redoubtable Quill
Rose, which, to those who know him, sounds like one of his own: "A
slick-faced dude from Knoxville," said Quill, "told me once that all
good red-liquor was aged, and that if I'd age my blockade it would bring
a fancy price. Well, sir, I tried it; I kept some for three months--and,
by godlings, _it aint so_."

As for purity, all of the moonshine whiskey used to be pure, and much of
it still is; but every blockader knows how to adulterate, and when one
of them does stoop to such tricks he will stop at no halfway measures.
Some add washing lye, both to increase the yield and to give the liquor
an artificial bead, then prime this abominable fluid with pepper,
ginger, tobacco, or anything else that will make it sting. Even
buckeyes, which are poisonous themselves, are sometimes used to give the
drink a soapy bead. Such decoct