History Main / HillbillyMoonshiner

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* In ''Literature/AlasBabylon'', Randy Bragg enlists the help of the town's resident MrFixit and GadgeteerGenius to build a still to render down the proceeds of a particularly bountiful corn harvest. Malachi, despite being a {{teetotaler}}, even comes up with a method of charcoal filtration. The resultant hooch is of GargleBlaster potency, and turns out to be extremely valuable as fuel, surgical disinfectant, and trade commodity. It also makes a very good post-nuclear Screwdriver when mixed with local orange juice, which a pair of military officers comment upon in the novel's last chapter.

* In ''Literature/TheLittleGoldenCalf'', Ostap Bender reveals his experience as a moonshiner when he teaches visiting American bootleggers some Soviet moonshine recipes.
** It is heavily hinted that he makes it up as he goes to scam some money out of gullible foreigners.

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* These showed up repeatedly on ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''.
* Granny Moses in ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'' is not a moonshiner; she just happens makes her "medicine" in a giant copper still and it is only mildly explosive.

---> "Absolute rotgut. More, please?"

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* ''Theatre/AnnieGetYourGun'' references this trope in the song "Moonshine Lullaby."

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* The Big Bopper's "White Lightning" is all about moonshining done by the singer's father, who produces the eponymous brew.

* Music/GeorgeJones' "White Lighting" is about one of these and his brew, told from the viewpoint of his son.

* ''[[VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2 Red Dead Online]]'' features the Moonshiner Role, allowing the player to work with and indeed fill the shoes of a moonshiner themselves, with all the outlaw activity that entails; from sabotaging the operations of business rivals to evading or destroying the roadblocks set up by Revanue men. Curiously though, the man in your operation doing the actual brewing is ''French'', but no less enthusiastic for it.

* ''ComicBook/{{Moonshine}}'' by Creator/BrianAzzarello is set in 1920's West Virginia, and features several prominent characters who are Moonshiners.

[[folder* In ''Literature/AlasBabylon'', Randy Bragg enlists the help of the town's resident MrFixit and GadgeteerGenius to build a still to render down the proceeds of a particularly bountiful corn harvest. Malachi, despite being a {{teetotaler}}, even comes up with a method of charcoal filtration. The resultant hooch is of GargleBlaster potency, and turns out to be extremely valuable as fuel, surgical disinfectant, and trade commodity. It also makes a very good post-nuclear Screwdriver when mixed with local orange juice, which a pair of military officers comment upon in the novel's last chapter.: Literature ]]

* ''Moonshine [=McJugs=]'' by FrankThorne, which originally ran in ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''. The strip deals with the erotic misadventures of Moonshine, a buxom female member of a clan of hillbilly moonshiners in Pork Holler, Tennessee.

* ''Moonshine'' by Brian Azzarello is set in 1920's West Virginia, and features several prominent characters who are Moonshiners.

* The Soviet short film ''Moonshiners'' (Samogonschiki) by Leonid Gaidai. The titular moonshiners are played by the popular Soviet comedy trio Nikulin, Vitsin & Morgunov.

* In ''The Kettles in the Ozarks'', bootleggers rent Sedge Kettle's barn as a base for their moonshine operation and HilarityEnsues.
* Lt. Aldo Raine from ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' is said to have been a moonshiner before joining the US Army.
* ''Film/CoalMinersDaughter'': The hillbilly moonshiner from Music/LorettaLynn's home town says that making moonshine is only one of three things to do in coal country, the second being working as a coal miner, and the third being getting out.
* The 1975 film ''Moonrunners'', later [[SpiritualAdaptation spiritually adapted]] as the TV series ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' (see below), centers on a family of these.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* In ''Frank Merriwell Down South'', one of the book's stories has Frank and a friend mistaken for revenue agents by Appalachian moonshiners. They're saved because the mysterious masked rider the moonshiners all respect [[SweetPollyOliver is a girl they helped out and befriended earlier in the story]].

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''[='s=] Nanny Ogg only escapes the appellation of being a moonshiner by King Verence refusing to enforce the laws about liquor distillation in Lancre on a witch so long as she's discreet about it (i.e. hiding the still so that he doesn't officially ''know'' that she has one. Despite this, most of Lancre knows roughly where it is, though they pretend not to know if they need to find her while she's brewing a new batch for the show of it). This does mean she has cornered the local market with her product, known affectionately as "Old Suicider." It's made from apples--[[RunningGag well, mainly apples]].
* In ''Literature/TheGoblinReservation'', one of the characters, a Neanderthal named Alley Oop (intelligent, but still not quite adapted to modern society) makes moonshine at his hut. There is no indication it's illegal (it's the 26th century or so), but the quality is ghastly.
* In ''Literature/FirstBlood'', the fugitive Rambo comes across a father and son duo in the woods, and guesses correctly that they have a still hidden in the area. He convinces them give him clothes and a rifle so that he'll move on and lead his pursuers away from them.
* In ''Literature/AlasBabylon'', Randy Bragg enlists the help of the town's resident MrFixit and GadgeteerGenius to build a still to render down the proceeds of a particularly bountiful corn harvest. Malachi, despite being a {{teetotaler}}, even comes up with a method of charcoal filtration. The resultant hooch is of GargleBlaster potency, and turns out to be extremely valuable as fuel, surgical disinfectant, and trade commodity. It also makes a very good post-nuclear Screwdriver when mixed with local orange juice, which a pair of military officers comment upon in the novel's last chapter.

* In the {{Backstory}} of ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' Uncle Jesse & Boss Hogg were both moonshiners. The Duke boys are permanently "on probation" for running Jesse's moonshine.

* ''Moonshiners'', a RealityShow on the Creator/DiscoveryChannel, follows a group of hillbilly moonshiners. Despite the cameras and publicity, moonshine is still just as illegal as you'd think it to be, except in one case where the show follows a licensed distillery that brews with moonshiner recipes and techniques. (We should note that, like many reality shows, the series is staged: police and sheriff's departments in the areas where the series is filmed have said that if anything illegal was ''actually'' going on, they would have shut it down.)
* Granny Moses in ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'' is not a moonshiner; she just happens makes her "medicine" in a giant copper still and it is only mildly explosive.
* An episode of ''Series/FantasyIsland'' dealt with two rival moonshining families who both wanted "White Lightning", the best moonshine ever made.

* An episode of ''Series/TheGlades'' dealt with two FeudingFamilies of moonshiners who went legit and now sold legally produced moonshine. However, Jim discovers that old habits die hard and someone is still producing and selling moonshine off-the-books.
* Creator/TheHistoryChannel RealityShow, ''Hatfields & [=McCoys=]: White Lightning'', revolves around the RealLife FeudingFamilies of the Hatfields and [=McCoys=] trying to come together to run a legitimate moonshine business.
* These showed up repeatedly on ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''.
* ''Series/CSIMiami'': A pair of moonshiners become suspects when the body of a hunter turns up dead near their illegal still in the Everglades in "Slow Burn".
* ''Series/{{Justified}}'': The infamous Bennett family used to be moonshiners during the days of Prohibition. Family matriarch Mags still brews up the occasional batch, but they've long since diversified into marijuana, possessing fifty drying sheds scattered across Harlan County, Kentucky.
* PBS historical RealityShow ''Frontier House'' cast three families into the wilderness of Montana to recreate the experience of 1800s pioneers. Partway into the project, the father of the Clune family acquired a still from his coworkers back in the modern world and began selling moonshine on the side to supplement his family's livings. [[ThrowItIn The production team decided this was period-appropriate]] and permitted it.
* ''Series/NCISNewOrleans'': Brody and [=LaSalle=] find themselves held at gunpoint by an unusually erudite hillbilly moonshiner while investigating a body dump in "It Happened Last Night".
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': The British equivalent (yokel moonshiner?) appears in "Night of the Stag", brewing a particularly potent hooch known as 'the Beast'.
* ''Series/TheNewAvengers'': In "Emily", Gambit and Purdey fight a hillbilly moonshiner to acquire several gallons of his hooch in order to fuel a car (ItMakesSenseInContext).

* The Big Bopper's "White Lightning" is all about moonshining done by the singer's father, who produces the titular brew.

* Humphrey the Snoring Hickopotomus from ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'', species also referred to as "Hicko's", mix Lazy Daisy Moonshine...that is if they do not sleep through their opportunity to do so.

* One of the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' Christmas specials has Roger learning how to make moonshine from a hillbilly named Bob Todd after his alcoholism gets so bad that the stuff at the liquor store can't satisfy him. The liquor store clerk told him the guy was a blind four-armed satyr, which he isn't but the hallucinations from his booze make him look like that.

* ''Moonshiners'', a RealityShow on the Creator/DiscoveryChannel, follows a group of hillbilly moonshiners. Despite the cameras and publicity, moonshine is still just as illegal as you'd think it to be (except in one case where the show follows a licensed distillery that brews with moonshiner recipes and techniques).

* Luke from ''Disney/TheRescuers'' is implied to be one. His "swamp juice" is strong enough to give a NitroBoost to a swampmobile!

* The British mixed-fruit juice Moon Shine was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAW9t5tjb_Y advertised]] with a cartoon showing two US hillbilly stoats mixing it up in the backwoods, while pursued by a frog sheriff.

** Cletus Spuckler is occasionally seen moonshining. One episode has Homer becoming a moonshine connoiseur.

* ''Moonshiners'', a RealityShow on the Creator/DiscoveryChannel, follows a group of hillbilly moonshiners. Despite the cameras and publicity, moonshine is still just as illegal as you'd think it to be.

* The 1975 film ''Moonrunners'', later [[SpiritualAdaptation|spiritually adapted]] as the TV series ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' (see below), centers on a family of these.

* You can encounter some in ''VideoGame/Fallout2, via random encounters near Modoc and Redding.

The illegal activity is often carried out at night, which is how "moonshine" got its name. Other names include "mountain tay", "mountain dew" (not to be confused with the soft drink), "poteen," and "white mule." Typically, the distilling process involves a copper still (the most basic version of which is a pipe run through a hollow log) set up in a remote clearing, preferably near a stream of soft water. The result is often a GargleBlaster.