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Wednesday, April 24,2019
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 7A
Still shining: Dawsonville moonshiner
talks alcohol on hoth sides of the law
Jessica Taylor Dawson County News
Former Dawson County moonshiner Dwight Bearden talks to the Dawson County Historical and Genealogical
Society on April 16 at the Dawson County library about his career as an illegal and legal distiller.
By Jessica Taylor
jtaylor@dawsonnews.com
Times have certainly
changed since Dwight
Bearden first made moon
shine in his old family
home.
He remembers helping
his father around the still
when he was a young boy,
washing out empty Coca-
Cola jugs they’d get from
the fountain drinks in
Gainesville to be used to
bottle gallons of homemade
moonshine.
Now a distinguished dis
tiller on the right side of the
law, Bearden spoke to the
Dawson County Historical
and Genealogical Society at
their April 16 meeting about
his experience in the illicit
business that made Dawson
County famous.
Bearden, a fourth-genera
tion moonshiner, said he’s
seen a lot of change since
his first job washing soda
jugs to working with a 400
gallon still at the Old
Tennessee Distilling
Company.
But in those early days,
Bearden said, making
moonshine “was just a part
of living.”
Moonshine, an illegal
high-proof distilled spirit
typically made with corn
mash as its main ingredient,
was a way to make ends
meet when times were
tough in north Georgia.
“This was the way of
them trying to get a little
money to feed the family,”
Bearden said.
According to Judy Harris,
the current president of the
Dawson County Historical
and Genealogical Society,
making a living in Dawson
County was tough during
the Prohibition era and into
the 1940s and 1950s when
moonshine production hit
its stride.
“I know I grew up very
poor, but you know what I
didn’t even know I was
poor,” Harris said. “That
was our way of life around
here then. Everybody was
poor and you didn’t think
nothing about it. But moon
shine was the glue that sort
of held this whole area
together, because without it
there’d be a lot of people
that would have really been
starving.”
In 1946, the average
income was $2,500 and the
average cost for a new car
was $1,125 and a new
home, $5,600.
“It might make a lot of
people understand why that
moonshine was such an
important thing to this coun
ty,” Harris said. “There was
no industry here. There was
nothing to make a living
here.”
While there were some
stores in the county that pro
vided jobs, the stores sold
the sugar and jars to the
local moonshiners and were
connected to the illicit trade.
“It was all connected. It
all had to come together for
everybody to make, and
really it was a poor living,
even with what they had,”
Harris said.
During Bearden’s early
days in the moonshine busi
ness, the standard was cop
per stills that often needed
to be patched up with new
sheets of copper so that
moonshiners could keep
making their product.
Bearden said he recently
acquired an old copper still
found in the western side of
Dawson County that had
been patched multiple
times. He couldn’t bear to
see the historic still be taken
to the dump.
“I was just amazed with
this old still because you
don’t keep patching some
thing that many times
unless you needed it,”
Bearden said.
And making moonshine
wasn’t something a moon
shiner wanted to mess up
because every batch that
wasn’t right meant money
wasted.
“Back in the day you
done it by trial and error,”
Bearden said. “When it got
to getting into your pocket
book you learned how to
make it pretty quick
because you didn’t have
enough money to keep
messing up.”
It was tough enough
making illegal alcohol in
secrecy, but it became hard
er under the cover of dark
ness as Bearden recalled
using two pound yeast cans
filled with burlap and kero
sene to create just enough
light to work to keep the
production going at night.
“It would make just a dim
light to where you could
have enough light to see
how to work around the
still, but the law couldn’t see
it from very far off,”
Bearden said.
Luckily for Bearden, he
was never caught by the law
- at least for making or
moving moonshine.
As a teenager, Bearden
left his parents’ home one
night in his 1964 Ford, a trip
car he used to carry moon
shine, and picked up a
friend. While headed into
Dawsonville, he was
stopped by three federal
agents.
“One word led to another
and ended up me and them
agents in an all-out brawl
right there in the middle of
Dawsonville,” Bearden said.
Though there was no
moonshine in the car,
Bearden was charged with
three counts of assault on a
federal officer and was
detained for four hours.
As if hiding from the law,
or “the Revenuers,” wasn’t
enough of a danger for
moonshiners, operational
mishaps at the still were
always a possibility.
Bearden remembers help
ing his father in the still one
day. It was the first time
they were using LP gas and
Bearden was asked to turn
on the gas while his father
went to light the boiler. The
room filled up with gas.
“When he struck that
match that boiler goes ‘ka-
boom!’ Goes up, hits the
top of the hole, comes back
down and knocks him back
wards, singes his mustache
off, his eyebrows off, and he
was laying there with the
boiler between his legs ...
just a cussin,”’ Bearden
said, chuckling.
Bearden continued mak
ing moonshine throughout
his life and became a legal
distiller once moonshine
became legal to produce
and sell in the United Stales
in 2010.
With the rich history of
moonshine production and
transportation in north
Georgia, interest in the
famous beverage was
renewed in the 21st century
after its legalization.
Distilleries selling the
once prohibited spirit began
sprouting up in the south
east, including the
Dawsonville Moonshine
Distillery which Bearden
helped establish.
He worked as a distiller in
Dawsonville for about three
years before moving to the
Old Tennessee Distilling
Company where he is today.
No longer part of a back-
woods operation, Bearden
helps produce 40 different
products, including about
25 flavored moonshines and
three different kinds of
whiskey at his distillery.
Bearden said the biggest
difference between moon
shine making in his younger
years and today is the regu
lations and technology.
“There are so many rules
and regulations. You
wouldn’t believe the stuff
you have to go through,”
Bearden said. “They tell
you what kind of bottles
you can use. You have to get
your bottles approved. You
have to get your labels
approved. You have to get
proof approved.”
Gone are the days of
using patched up copper
stills and guessing the proof.
Now Bearden uses stainless
steel stills and a $20,000
hydrometer to proof the
alcohol to make sure each
batch meets the federal reg
ulations.
Records are also logged,
first in notebooks and now
on computers.
“When we first started up
there, we were putting our
records in notebooks and
the federal agent, he comes
in there, checks us and he
said ‘your record keeping’s
really good,’ but he said ‘I
want everything on comput
er,”’ Bearden said. “I don’t
know nothing about a com
puter, don’t want to know
nothing about a computer.”
Bearden admits that the
strict regulations take a little
of the fun out of it, especial
ly when distilleries need to
be prepared for agents to
come any time and pull any
jar off the shelf. If a batch is
off by more than half a
proof, it needs to be pulled
from the shelves and
remade.
“It’s come a long ways,
and I’ve been fortunate
enough to see the old ways.
Them little copper stills
right there will work you to
death,” Bearden said. “I’ve
had some times, had some
really, really good times and
was fortunate enough to
make a dollar or two along
to keep me from missing
meals, and you can tell I
ain’t miss many meals.”
Having been on both
sides of the moonshine
industry, Bearden is often
asked which is better: illegal
or legal.
“I said, ‘well I can make
more money illegal’ but I
said ‘I’m getting too old to
be trotting up and down the
hill and hollering, and I’m
too pretty to go to jail,’ so I
say ‘I better stay legal,”’
Bearden said, laughing.
“We done some hard work
back in the day, and we sur
vived anyway. Sometimes
we wondered about it but
we did survive.”
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