WORDS Caroline Rosen PHOTOS Thomas Lucas
Stills Crossroads, located at the corner of Highway 7 and Highway 8 on the Bullock County - Pike County Line, looks like any other minor 4-way in any other part of rural Alabama. Cars pass infrequently and leisurely, the woods run right up to the roadway, signs for church events, tree services and political candidates advertise like miniature billboards in one area the otherwise sparse population concentrates. A small convenience store provides necessaries to the locals who don't want to drive 30 minutes to Troy or Union Springs for bread and toothpaste. Cars honk lightly in recognition at the old men congregated under the overhang on the convenience store's front porch, the men partially hidden by advertisements for cigarettes and soft drinks tacked to the overhang's pillars.
If you just drove by on your way to somewhere else, giving Stills Crossroads only a passing glance, you'd never notice what distinguishes this particular rural 4-way from any other. You'd fail to see the Styrofoam cups in those old men's hands, those cups filled with local moonshine. You'd never know that 50 pound bags of sugar fill store shelves on Friday, but by Sunday, they're sold out. You'd fail to hear the gossip about families with "moonshine in their blood," families that took care of people and built this part of Bullock County on moonshine after World War II; families that still show up in arrest records for moonshining today. You would have no reason to know that the area surrounding Stills Crossroads is the moonshiningest place in Alabama.
Moonshine culture is the culture in Bullock County. At the Macedonia Baptist Church Baseball Diamond, moonshiners sell their liquor on game days in the woods beyond the right-field line. Just down the street from the ball field sits the now-shuttered Almeria Club, site of early performances by Hank Williams, a raucous club where moonshine-fueled good times remain the stuff of legend. If you step off of the road in between, you literally cannot walk through the woods without tripping over a dormant (or working) moonshine still.
The indoctrination into moonshine culture starts early. The moonshine business exists in the shadows of illegality; nothing prevents youths from apprenticing under an old master long before they turn 21. The old masters hire the young people to carry heavy bags of grain and sugar out to the stills in the woods. Once there, the old master mixes the sugar, the grain, and the water, then pitches the yeast into the vat. For the next few weeks, the young apprentice keeps watch. After distillation, when the moonshine is complete, the youngster again does the heavy lifting, moving the moonshine out of the woods by the gallon jug. When the old master sells the moonshine, both locally and to places as far flung as Detroit, he shares the profits with the young apprentice. Soon, the apprentice grows into a master moonshiner himself (it is almost always a "him"), a continuous cycle unbroken since before the Civil War.
Employment in Bullock County remains pretty much the same as it was before the Civil War too. The county's largest employers are agricultural concerns and the Department of Corrections. Not many are employed, and a good amount of those who are don't make much. What Bullock County, and other counties like it across the Eastern black-belt have, is moonshine. Moonshine is classic "dollar out of 15 cents" hustling, a way to separate yourself and your family from poverty. Moonshine subsidizes the low wages paid in Bullock County and employs hundreds in the shadow economy. Moonshiners invest their profits in gas stations, in farm land, and in timber. Moonshiners give to the church, make sure little leaguers have uniforms, and loan money to their neighbors in need. Moonshine culture, although illegal, keeps Bullock County from falling into the ever-widening economic gap between rural and urban America. But today, illegal moonshiners are under unprecedented attack.
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Week after week, the headlines keep coming. April 18, 2014: "200 gallons of hooch seized in one of the largest moonshine operations in Lowndes County history." May 5, 2014: "24 gallons of moonshine seized, 8-barrel still destroyed in Bullock County raid." May 14, 2014: "Alabama's war on moonshine continues: ABC agents destroy 18-barrel still in Barbour County." May 28, 2014: "24-barrel moonshine still destroyed in rural Bullock County; 20th smashed since October." As I write, members of the ABC Board "Moonshine Task Force" are camped out in the woods around Bullock County, watching vapor drift from working stills, waiting for the owner's return, ready to make another headline bust.
The Taskforce's success comes from knowledge of the community, knowledge that allows the task force to avoid mistakes made in the past. For example, a few years ago some agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms went out into the woods intending to bust moonshiners. Those agents made one simple mistake: they stopped at a convenience store in Bullock County for canned fish and crackers before entering the forest. As soon as the door to that convenience store closed -- the sound of the cashier saying "y'all come back now" still ringing in the air -- the cashier picked up the phone. Within minutes, like a snow-day phone chain, every moonshiner in Bullock County and the surrounding area was aware of the agents' presence. The agents found some empty stills, but no moonshiners were present for the agents to arrest.
The work of today's Moonshine Taskforce is far less sloppy. Although less than a year old, the Taskforce has successfully forced Alabama's moonshiners into a war of attrition the moonshiners cannot win. Day after day, moonshine barrels are put to the axe, equipment is broken, and moonshine is confiscated by the gallon. The State's resources in this area are essentially limitless -- agents will get their paychecks from the ABC Board as long as Alabama remains in the liquor regulation business. The moonshiners, although operating in vast forestland with the home-field advantage, don’t have the resources to compete. At the current pace with which equipment is destroyed, moonshiners are arrested, and profits are lost, it won't be long before the price of moonshine dramatically increases.
The Taskforce will win the war on moonshine once moonshine ceases to be a low cost alternative to legal alcohol. The higher the cost of moonshine, the more likely a buyer will go to the local ABC store instead of a trailer at the end of a gravel-lined road. But what happens next? What will happen to the churches, the little leaguers and the neighbors in need? How will those currently subsidizing their income with moonshine get by? What will replace illegal moonshine in places like Bullock County?
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At this point, it’s necessary to mention that not all moonshine in Bullock County is illegal. Jamie Ray owns and operates High Ridge Spirits in Bullock County, the first legal alcohol distillery in Alabama. Ray's current bestselling product is Stills Crossroads 'Shine, a legal moonshine that has been in Alabama's ABC stores since late last year. In early June, Ray toured me around his company's namesake, High Ridge in Bullock County, pointing out all of the locations that figure in Bullock County's moonshine lore.
Ray came to moonshining later in life. He grew up out West, and first came to the South as a renowned beer maker. He served as brewmaster across Florida and Alabama at breweries like Back Forty Brewing Company, the Brewpub in Montgomery, Hammerhead Brewing in Key West and a stint as the in-house beer maker at the Clevelander in Miami. He came to Bullock County not for liquor, but for horses. Ray and his wife purchased property outside of Union Springs to use as a horse farm, but when the economy collapsed in 2008, so did the market for $15,000 quarter horses.
When the horse business cratered, Ray needed to find a way to generate income from his Bullock County property. Ray knew the area's reputation for moonshining and knew the area had plenty of fresh spring water (it's called "Union Springs" for a reason), so Ray decided to take the lemons life had given him and make liquor. He contacted the ABC Board and started what would become months of negotiations. At the end, Ray and the ABC Board had collaborated in re-crafting Alabama's liquors laws, culminating in Ray being granted the first liquor distilling license in Alabama since the ABC was instituted in 1937.
Ray estimates it cost him $75,000 in time and money to gain his license and set up the distillery. All of his equipment is top-of-the-line, with a custom-built copper still, stainless steel fermentation vats, and a bottling machine that fills bottles so efficiently he only uses half of its capacity in order to make it worthwhile for someone working an hourly wage to operate it. Ray's distillery is not limited to moonshine, and he will soon roll out a rum, a gin, and a vodka to go along with the 'Shine. He keeps a barrel full of exotic spices and extracts for use in his distilled spirits, and is currently experimenting with aging his 'Shine in oak barrels in an effort to eventually go beyond moonshine and into the world of craft whiskey.
I asked Ray if he thought the illegal moonshiners viewed him as competition, or if he'd had any problems with the locals since setting up shop in Bullock County. Ray said he had not. An illegal moonshiner charges $30 for a gallon of moonshine. Stills Crossroads 'Shine costs about $30 a bottle, making 'Shine very much a premium product in comparison. Instead of viewing him as competition, the moonshiners view Ray as a novelty, and also as a possible source of work. Ray told me that almost every day someone claiming to have moonshining experience will drop by his farm -- on foot, in a truck, or even once on a tractor -- to inquire about a job at High Ridge Spirits.
Currently, business at High Ridge Sprits is booming, and when Ray does well, so does the State of Alabama. For every bottle of 'Shine sold in the ABC store for $28.99, Alabama receives $14.77 in liquor taxes and profit. With that profit margin, it's easy to see why the ABC Board has cracked down on illegal moonshining. The ABC Board's efforts force moonshiners to make a choice: go straight and split their profits with the State, or go directly to jail.
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And now a for a tale of two cities. The first city has a population of 5,740, with median household income of $36,591 and approximately 10% of the population below the poverty line. The second city has a population of 3,670, with median household income of $18,520 and approximately 40.1% of the population below the poverty line. The first city is Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniels Distillery. The second city is Union Springs, the county seat of Bullock County and a place in desperate need of an economic jumpstart. If Union Springs looked more like Lynchburg, people would have no reason to rely on illegal moonshine for supplemental income.
According to Jamie Ray, legal moonshine in Bullock County could easily be as big as Jack Daniels Whiskey is for Lynchburg. Legal moonshine, like that produced by High Ridge Spirits, could serve as the vehicle bringing moonshine out of the shady woods and into the bright world of economic development. Ray explained his end goal with High Ridge Spirits is the construction of a massive distillery complex featuring tours, a restaurant, an RV Park, and all the other amenities offered at the large whiskey and bourbon distilleries of Tennessee and Kentucky. The job creation and revenue a project like this could bring -- including tourist dollars, sales tax revenue, and direct investment in hotels, restaurants and shops -- is massive. A comparison of the economic situations of Union Springs and Lynchburg amply demonstrates legal distilling's potential.
Legal moonshine, and the celebration of Bullock County's heritage as the moonshine capital of Alabama, has near limitless economic development potential. Downtown Union Springs once featured a museum celebrating the history of illegal moonshine, but that museum closed due to lack of funding. While it may be painful for some to admit, a museum is where illegal moonshining belongs. If legal moonshine achieves its economic potential, bringing money, jobs, and investment to Bullock County, the reopening of the moonshine museum in downtown Union Springs would be a symbolic way to connect Bullock County's past with Bullock County's future.
