Moonshine, Culture and Marvin Sutton
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:37 pm
My family settled in what is now Tennessee in 1682. They were landowners, slave-owners. They donated 2,500 acres to help found what is now The University of the South. My ancestor, a minister and surgeon, led the first scouting party to show the land to the board of regents. They had a tannery down by Old Mill Creek outside of Winchester, which is just about 20 minutes from Lynchburg. I don't have any documented contact between Jack Daniel and any of my family members, they had been there a long time before his people got there. Although there is no specific family lore of distillation, it's a safe assumption, every farm of any size had one, and someone to run it. The truth is that most people didn't just sit around drinking whiskey off of a still. It was an occassional indugence mostly as a curative, and rubbed on wounds, rashes. It was a currency of trade. Far far from what many think it was back then. Said all that to say this, I think I understand a little about the East Tennessee culture, and being the South, that as well. There are still two mansions that exist in Winchester that my family built, one with the 'house slave' quarters still intact. I love to visit, I love the land. It's a blessing and I'm not trying to appear showy, I'm just proud of it.
Now...I'm quite familiar with Popcorn Sutton. I've Seen documentary after documentary about him, moonshine, etc. The most amazing to me is the youtube video shot by some kid where he proceeds to distill over thirty glass one gallon jugs with the still set up inside the house, running on gas, and him sitting there with a filterless Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth putting paste on the head going "That heat'll hit this and it'll git harder'n a minister's pecker." The most recent one was "The Last One," shot about two years before I died. It's very interesting and really shows the whole process. There is also a distillation movie floating around called "Poitin" which showcases the traditional Irish method of making a barley whiskey in a non-commercial setting. I was amazed at the similarity between Popcorn building up his furnace around the pot, the cap, the arm, the worm. It's almost identical to the setup in the Poitin video. It's striking at how well preserved the specifics of the process are.
Popcorn Sutton is an enigma to me as well.
I give Popcorn Sutton credit for carrying that tradition. That's all I give him credit for. I hope no one takes offense at this, but I don't really think he has done any distiller any benefit, and he died the death of a coward. At worst, he was a tehcnicolor realization of all the worthless, stupid, and trivial stereotypes that people elsewhere think about the South, moonshining, and our culture. I think Popcorn Sutton took a big shit right in the middle of the culture I claim. He could have served the 18 months and been back here with us today making money off that new company, and he deserved, more than anybody, to make some money off of that and become a legal distiller. It would have been wonderful, and he would have had all he wanted, not that he seemed to be wanting alot to begin with. It was a shame and a waste. We were deprived of a walking legend rolled into one man, warts and all. So simple to avoid, such a waster. I don't respect that he did that. I'm mad at him for doing that. It was cowardly.
I love the lore, I love the rustic characters. I found little to personally admire about the man, except his bond to that particular process of distillation. But even at that....he used sugar, it was never all grain. Not that that is a bad thing. It just makes me think...."Why go through all that just to make sugar vodka with a a corn?
Finally....I don't really see Popcorn Sutton and what he represented as something that figures into the craft of distillation to any meaningful extent. He was the lore, the myth, the legend, and beyond the familiar process he performed, frozen as a period in time. At worst, he was the comic, the village idiot, Snuffy Smith in the flesh. I personally do not seek an affiliation with any of the moonshine lore or culture. I do respect a great deal of what he did though, without question. He wasn't an idiot by any means, but many people think he was nothing more than that.
We here are engaged in the modern "whiskey rebellion." (read the essay if you get the chance) Rather than revel in this bawdy lore and cultural comedy, we need to be worried about, for instance, legislation that effects our craft. How we will navigate the landscape as it is before us now is far more important than the saggy hat and jugs with x's written on it. Where will distillation be, for example, in 30 years? Completely lost or modern and thriving? We here will figure into how that question is answered. We have a task before us. A very rewarding one.....but a task nonetheless.
This is modern distillation, the people here are modern distillers. We use more sophisticated and refined techniques. To me, what this forum represents is hard headed persistence and smarts to refine this art and craft and make it ever better, to pass on that refinement, but also harbor and preserve that information. If it was easy everyone would do it, and it's not a simple process. Even what Popcorn did is very hard work and anyone that has made a single batch and ran it, you know it is. I'm still paying my dues, it's hard to even get something drinkable. let alone something really good. It will be a while before I get anywhere near where I want to be. I personally am not interested in doing a sugar wash and having something to mix with mountain dew and get a buzz. Nor am I interested in selling anything. I'm interested in learning the specifics of this process, refining it, and getting into a quality of beverage that stands beside anything else in something that someone would want to sip on.
So there you have it gentlemen......my utterly contradictory view of whiskey, culture, and Marvin Sutton. RIP. May your next batch be better than your last.
Now...I'm quite familiar with Popcorn Sutton. I've Seen documentary after documentary about him, moonshine, etc. The most amazing to me is the youtube video shot by some kid where he proceeds to distill over thirty glass one gallon jugs with the still set up inside the house, running on gas, and him sitting there with a filterless Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth putting paste on the head going "That heat'll hit this and it'll git harder'n a minister's pecker." The most recent one was "The Last One," shot about two years before I died. It's very interesting and really shows the whole process. There is also a distillation movie floating around called "Poitin" which showcases the traditional Irish method of making a barley whiskey in a non-commercial setting. I was amazed at the similarity between Popcorn building up his furnace around the pot, the cap, the arm, the worm. It's almost identical to the setup in the Poitin video. It's striking at how well preserved the specifics of the process are.
Popcorn Sutton is an enigma to me as well.
I give Popcorn Sutton credit for carrying that tradition. That's all I give him credit for. I hope no one takes offense at this, but I don't really think he has done any distiller any benefit, and he died the death of a coward. At worst, he was a tehcnicolor realization of all the worthless, stupid, and trivial stereotypes that people elsewhere think about the South, moonshining, and our culture. I think Popcorn Sutton took a big shit right in the middle of the culture I claim. He could have served the 18 months and been back here with us today making money off that new company, and he deserved, more than anybody, to make some money off of that and become a legal distiller. It would have been wonderful, and he would have had all he wanted, not that he seemed to be wanting alot to begin with. It was a shame and a waste. We were deprived of a walking legend rolled into one man, warts and all. So simple to avoid, such a waster. I don't respect that he did that. I'm mad at him for doing that. It was cowardly.
I love the lore, I love the rustic characters. I found little to personally admire about the man, except his bond to that particular process of distillation. But even at that....he used sugar, it was never all grain. Not that that is a bad thing. It just makes me think...."Why go through all that just to make sugar vodka with a a corn?
Finally....I don't really see Popcorn Sutton and what he represented as something that figures into the craft of distillation to any meaningful extent. He was the lore, the myth, the legend, and beyond the familiar process he performed, frozen as a period in time. At worst, he was the comic, the village idiot, Snuffy Smith in the flesh. I personally do not seek an affiliation with any of the moonshine lore or culture. I do respect a great deal of what he did though, without question. He wasn't an idiot by any means, but many people think he was nothing more than that.
We here are engaged in the modern "whiskey rebellion." (read the essay if you get the chance) Rather than revel in this bawdy lore and cultural comedy, we need to be worried about, for instance, legislation that effects our craft. How we will navigate the landscape as it is before us now is far more important than the saggy hat and jugs with x's written on it. Where will distillation be, for example, in 30 years? Completely lost or modern and thriving? We here will figure into how that question is answered. We have a task before us. A very rewarding one.....but a task nonetheless.
This is modern distillation, the people here are modern distillers. We use more sophisticated and refined techniques. To me, what this forum represents is hard headed persistence and smarts to refine this art and craft and make it ever better, to pass on that refinement, but also harbor and preserve that information. If it was easy everyone would do it, and it's not a simple process. Even what Popcorn did is very hard work and anyone that has made a single batch and ran it, you know it is. I'm still paying my dues, it's hard to even get something drinkable. let alone something really good. It will be a while before I get anywhere near where I want to be. I personally am not interested in doing a sugar wash and having something to mix with mountain dew and get a buzz. Nor am I interested in selling anything. I'm interested in learning the specifics of this process, refining it, and getting into a quality of beverage that stands beside anything else in something that someone would want to sip on.
So there you have it gentlemen......my utterly contradictory view of whiskey, culture, and Marvin Sutton. RIP. May your next batch be better than your last.