Moonshiners characters

The one that plays the hillbilly and wears his coveralls with no shirt and his goofy hat makes moonshine for a living.

Seriously. He opened up a legit distillery and is paying his taxes and everything.

Wikipedia claims the dumb drunk one's a carpenter.

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Wikipedia claims the dumb drunk one's a carpenter.

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Carpenters everywhere.

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. I doubt people are actually buying it.

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This was my other question. Why the hell would there be any demand for this shite they make?

They are getting paid well by the show.
Tim runs a legal distillery, and one of Mark and Digger has a funeral home owned and operated by his family.

Earning a living aside, I've long suspected that if you were to look closely at any of their backwoods stills, you would see a small soldered on plate with a serial number on it, meaning that every one of those stills is registered with the federal government.
Given that every local jurisdiction that they film in still had to sign off on the permits to film, that would mean all involved would ultimately be party the criminal activity. There's a reason why the law enforcement side of the show only lasted for a season or, maybe, two.

I have bought several quarts for someone very very very familiar with the show and I can tell you it’s pretty darn good. More like a novelty but the flavored is very good.

Not really on the subject but I do know one of the characters. Bill from SC from a few seasons back is from my hometown (Spartanburg) and used to be a door man at a metal/punk music venue back in the mid 90s. I remember him having a mohawk and piercings. It was crazing turning on the tube 15-20 years later and he was a hillbilly making moonshine. Maybe the punk years was him rebelling?

All great points. Here's another. Nothing illegal about having pure water in those jars, jugs, etc. Or buying a jug or legally produced spirits and pouring it up into a mason jar to drink.

The so-called shine they are running is just water.

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No, they just don't do anything illegal. There is nothing illegal about boiling grains to make mash. It's legal to put the yeast in and produce wort to make beer, up to 100 gallons per person. So, they either don't make 100 gallons or just never pitch active yeast, so it's nothing more than boiled grains with some powder you saw them put in. If boiling grains and adding powder was a federal crime, cooking rice would get you time in Leavenworth.

There is nothing illegal about owning a still. There is nothing illegal about running a still because it can be used to distill all manner of liquids. However, when you use a still to produce untaxed alcoholic spirits, THAT'S illegal. So, they just don't ever put mash in their still and turn it on. They will show them loading the mash (or something that looks reasonably close). That's not illegal. They will also show you the still in operation. That's not illegal because they've unloaded the mash (or whatever it is they called mash when they put it in the still) and then reloaded the still with water or some liquid that contains no ethanol and is perfectly legal to distill for those shots.

They're not really committing federal felonies on TV and there's nothing they're doing that requires any sort of registration because it's all faked.

Do you believe that everything you see on TV is real?!

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Most of that is accurate, sound information, but FYI, you don't "boil" anything, you distill it.

I've never seen the show because I don't watch much TV, let alone "reality" shows, but I'm sure it's great; so I can't speak to the narrative of what goes on in the actual show.

And to the folks who ask, "Who would want that shite!?" I can see what they mean if we're talking about large scale black market sellers going for quantity more so than quality, but let me set any of the skeptics straight: Distilling fine spirits is a hard. arse. job with huge rewards in the quality of the finished result if done correctly from start to finish.

So I'm told.

Pappy 15 year ain't got shite on a batch of artisan brewed beer-turned artisan distilled small batch bourbon whiskey that has been aged over charred oak to the likings of the maker for whatever time is necessary for him to achieve his desired results.

Artisan home distillers don't just make good beer and wine, they distill it afterwards into a fine spirit. Y'all think people are out there trying their hand at home whikkey making just so they can have some garbage arse sugar liquor?

Think again.

If you think working all day to smoke some meat on the smoker pays off and satisfies your soul when you sink your teeth into all that hard work, then imagine what it's like taking that first sip of small batch sour mash whiskey that you sour mashed for 6 straight months, and where with each successive sour mash the results just got better and better and gained an increasingly unique character due to the micro-climate where it was mashed and because of it's ingredients, and then aging the final heart cuts for several months (a gallon of whiskey will age in a fraction of the time as a barrel) to achieve perfection- think about that satisfaction.

You ever had fresh garden tomato brandy? It's damned delicious. Ever had immaculately made rye whiskey with every ounce of attention paid to the details and no stone left unturned regarding the quality of ingredients and finished cuts?

99.9% of you have not.

Not that I'd know, but I'm just saying: home brewers aren't the only ones working their asses off to make super fine, super small batch artisan alcoholic beverages, but they are the ones who don't have to act like they're a bunch of goddamned cocaine pushers because dumbass old uncle Sam decided that the minute a fellow pours a little beer or wine (you know, the part where the actual ALCOHOL is made) into a still, then he's worthy of a federal crime because the "morals" of it all means he wants a bigger tax share for the spirits.

The problem Sam had with spirits never was about the morals, it was about the taxes. God how I hate the ignorance of bureaucrats & politicians.

Get your minds right before you think all distilled products outside of Bardstown, KY are sugar whiskey like you see on TV and from government propaganda and the opinions of your friendly local sheriff giving an interview on the 6 o clock news after performing a bust on some guy making sugar whiskey by the barrel full: After 12 months of crafting whiskey at home with the right equipment and with plenty of self-education, a fellow's spirits could easily whip the arse of any distillery in the country with the stuff he could make for his friends and family to enjoy with each other.

He'd just better not get caught by Barney Fife though, less he wind up in Parchman with the rest of the murderers, rapists and other criminals like himself.

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No offense but you are wrong. Tim's legal stuff is in the liquor stores. A lot of folks don't want to buy taxed liquor

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So his stuff in the stores is not taxed?