The vidette. (Iuka, Tishomingo County, Miss.) 1912-1967, 1922-06-22
How Your Hootch is Made.

les will find it Of interest.
The most inveterate hootch hound
I'm Mississippi, if he could but see
how the stuff he drinks il made,
would swear off forever.
Hardly a drop of the moonshine
whiskey being sold in Jackson came
from a place that bore any resemb-
lance to sanitary surroundings.
On the contrary, tbee average
moonshine still is a place OF inde-
scribable dirt, filth and squalor.
Ii you could but behold one of
these places, and examine the con-
tainers from which your beloved
white lightning IS drawn, it
would make you vomit up your toe
nails.
The Daily News has, with the
permission of Prohibition Director
M. Fl. Daily, examined some or the
written reports submitted to the
Federal government by prohibition
enforcement officers describing the
stills they have raided during the
past few weeks.
At one place not far distant from
Jackson the officers found dead
blacksnake, about six feet long,
badly decomposed, in a barrel Of
mash from which the liquid had been
drawn.
At another still where the barrel
of sour mash was buried in tie
ground a decayed bullfrog was found,
floating on top.
Barrels of mash have been found
in open water closets, devoid OF
sewerage, that were filthy and filled
with flies.
At still Of large capacity the
cap Of the still was SO filthy that it
had been fy-blown and infested
with maggots. The plant was in
operation, and the white light
ing" was being filtered through
the maggots.
1t should be borne in mind that
practically all the stills raided by
prohibition officials are found in the
open, generally in some low, dirty
swamp, where all kinds of insects
and flies have easy access.
The average moonshiner has no
time to think of sanitation. He is
chiefly concerned with getting his
miserable brew made and marketed
as soon as possible.
The scene around the average
still would turn the stomach of
dead mule. The ground is nasty
and sloppy, covered with old peach
stones, potash, concentrated lye
cans, regurgitated chewing tobacco,
dirty TASKS, carboys, fruit jars, old
barrels--anything and everything
that viii hold liquor, regardless OF
how it may have been originally
used, and never even given casual
washing before the hastily manu-
tured liquor is placed therein.
Every bit of it is made amid foul
ness inconceivable and the concoc.
tions that are brewed are such as
only copper-lined stomach could
stand.
Up in Director Daily's office you
will see scores of liquor samples
taken from stills which showed, on
chemical analysis, that concentrated
l
lye was used in the clarifying pro-
cess.
You would no more put concen-
trated lye in your stomach, if you
knew it, than you would deliberately
swallow a dose of prussie acid, yet
the use OF concentrated lye in the
making Of moonshine liquor is a
common practice.
You will also see concoctions of
brownish hue. others a dirty yellow
red, Opaque and viscid, Of every de.
gree of rankness in smell and taste.
These liquors are manufactured
by men who are ignorant Of the first
element Of the laws Of fermentation
or the rules of sanitation. Taey
concoct the deadly stuff by m lain
strength and awkwardness, 60 to
speak, the sole and only aim being
to evolve something with power
tul kick in it, and they give never a
Thought to how dangerous or pois.
onous it may be.
The picture is not overdrawn.
Go down to the Federal courtroom
at any term time and look at the
moonshiners lined up for sentence