OUR APPLE PIE MOONSHINE IS IN STORES NOW!
Western North Carolina has been one of the central areas for moonshine throughout history since it was settled. The art of making moonshine has been passed down for generations as it was in my family. Many great moonshiner’s come from this area including Lewis Redmond, Popcorn Sutton, and Raymond Fairchild. My family has made moonshine here for generations. My father, uncle, grandfather, great uncle, and great great grandfather all made moonshine in these mountains. The condenser on one of my still’s is from my great great grandfathers still, which had a wooden top and bottom like a wood barrel and had copper for the walls. It was buried a few inches so the bottom would not burn and the rock furnace was not built all the way to the top so the top would not burn. Moonshine was the only way of survival for many families and played a big role in the culture of these mountains.
I want to continue the tradition by making traditional moonshine with family recipes. We use all natural ingredients in every step of the process. The only way to make true moonshine is use fresh and natural ingredients, but it’s not moonshine if its not made in a moonshine still like the one we are using, which was hand crafted not store bought, like everything we make. Our product is classified as a distilled spirit specialty by the federal government because it does not fall under any other class of product. We spend a lot of time and money to make the highest quality moonshine you can find in the woods or the store. We can trace our recipe back over 150 years, when everything was hand made in these mountains with pride. We are as authentic as it gets. We use oak barrels, a real moonshine still, local corn stone ground at a local mill, and we recycle our spent mash by using it as hog feed like moonshiners have done for generations. If you want to know what moonshine really taste like in these mountains 150 years ago then try Howling Moon.
Our straight white moonshine is endorsed by moonshiner and bluegrass star Raymond Fairchild. Raymond has two gold records and is recognized by the International Bluegrass Music Museum as a pioneer of Bluegrass. In a few months we will also offer fruit flavors from my family recipe and in time a variety of moonshine flavors and styles generations old that are rare even in these mountains. We make moonshine the traditional way with old Appalachian recipes and a traditional moonshine still. Our products are available in North Carolina. We plan to grow, but we won’t compromise our quality or our traditional methods, which take longer to produce alcohol, but the quality is better and the moonshine is genuine. We are proud to be a part of the North Carolina micro distillery movement.
Here is what some of the reviews say:
‘Shine On: The Moonshine Renaissance
Bon Appetit
Written By: Melba Newsome
January 2013
Howling Moon Moonshine, the company that Bradford formed with…Chivous Downey… is at the vanguard of the industry.
From still to store: North Carolina-made liquor business booming
“Howling Moon Moonshine: Raymond Fairchild’s Mountain Moonshine had a clean smell with an initial sweet taste and a hint of corn at the end. It is a friendly, not overpowering, moonshine that would be good mixed or straight. The apple-pie version smelled of cinnamon and tasted of apples, but the drinker still knows it is moonshine.”
Howling moonshine tastes like tradition
“Perhaps the most famous Smoky Mountain moonshiners was Quill Rose of Eagle Creek…standing before the judge he was asked if he ever aged his moonshine. Quill responded”, “I kept some for a whole week one time and I could not tell that it was one bit better than when it was fresh and new.”
excerpt from: “Corn from a Jar”; moonshine production in the great smoky mountains. Great Smokey Mountains Colloquy. Published by the University of Tennessee Libraries, spring 2009.
Learn more about Raymond and other Moonshiners in the Appalachian Mountains at these web sites. Also watch videos of us at the distillery.
Major Lewis Redmond-Outlaw and Bootlegger
Moonshine In the Great Smokey Mountains
Memories of a Moonshiners Daughter
Follow us on Facebook under Howling Moon Distillery
Cody Bradford
C.E.O.