History Main / HillbillyMoonshiner

* ''Series/FrontierHouse'': 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.

* PBS historical RealityShow ''Series/FrontierHouse'' 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/MidsomerMurders'': The British equivalent (yokel moonshiner?) appears in "Night of the Stag", brewing a particularly potent hooch known as 'the Beast'.

"Revenuers"--tax and excise officers--and police often feature as {{The Antagonist}}s in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their livelihood. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadassDriver who knows the back roads and shortcuts. In the United States, the [[NitroBoost extensive speed and performance modifications]] made to otherwise ordinary-looking cars made by these drivers during [[RoaringTwenties Prohibition]] eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} racing. In addition to boosting speed, smugglers carved out more storage space inside the vehicles and upgraded the shocks to enable carrying heavy loads. Speedboats used for booze smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats.

* ''Moonshine [=McJugs=]'' by Creator/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.

* ''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]].

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Parodied in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': "Suddenly the cops stepped into the clearing, and the Spamshiners knew they were busted." The scofflaws are caught in the act of forcing a pig down a funnel of their apparatus.
* The irascible ''ComicStrip/SnuffySmith'' has to guard his moonshine still from "infernal revenuers" and some of his hooch-mooching neighbors.
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* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' supplement ''The Asylum and Other Tales'', adventure "The Asylum". The degenerate backwoods Franchise/CthulhuMythos cultists who serve Freygan brew moonshine, which is taken away and sold by gangsters.
* In the ''Kingmaker'' adventure path in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', the players encounter [[http://kingmakercampaign.pbworks.com/f/1324154256/Munguk.png Munguk the Hill Giant]]. Munguk is wandering the countryside looking for berries to make into moonshine.

* You can encounter some in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', via random encounters near Modoc and Redding. You can also talk to someone at the bar in Klamath who's got an operation outside of town. Unfortunately for him, a gecko took a chunk out of his leg and he's recuperating, leaving his still unattended. He'll pay you to go out and stick firewood in it to insure that the current batch doesn't go bad.
* The "Wild Appalachia" update for ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' introduces a variation: fraternity students at Vault Tec University, eager to get invited to the parties of their more respected peers, start brewing a drink called Nukashine. It requires an already-incredibly-radioactive drink, ''more'' nuclear material, and several other ingredients to brew it, and when drunk, it causes [[GargleBlaster temporary hallucinations]] before the player blacks out and wakes up in an entirely different part of the map.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* [[Literature/WhateleyUniverse Shine]] was taught to distill whiskey by his grandfather, a brilliant but BookDumb moonshiner, when his was only nine. Five years later, people started noticing that his whiskey ''isn't'' the sort of rotgut one usually expects, and that he's developed a system to force-age ''any'' distilled liquor until it tastes like it has been cellared for a decade or more. It turns out that he is a {{Mutant}}, with both the Avatar power (he literally inherited his dead grandfather's soul as his spirit guide) and the [[MadScientist Devisor]] powerset. He is essentially rescued from a raging mob by a curious distillery executive, and soon is very wealthy from selling expensive distilling devises only he can build. He decides to go to [[SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy]] to see if he can improve his talents even further.
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** The episode "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" has Homer becoming a moonshiner after alcohol is banned in Springfield.
* Appears in ''WesternAnimation/{{Squidbillies}}'' as would be expected. One episode has a slight subversion as the Sheriff notices what appears to be a still and points out that moonshine is illegal only for Lil to casually state she's not making moonshine.... it's her meth lab.
* On ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'', at least two episodes imply that Lazy Luke is a moonshiner. He displays a jug at the start of "The Great Cold Rush Race", and another episode has him mistaking Dick Dastardly's siren for that of the revenuers.

** In [[{{Recut}} some versions of]] pilot "Children of the Gods" Skaara shares moonshine his town made with Jack's team. After asking Daniel (who stayed behind on Abydos after the movie) what he's "been teaching these kids", Jack tries it and it makes him hoarse.
** When Jack gets trapped offworld in "A Hundred Days" for three months thanks to a meteorite strike burying the gate, Jack is introduced to the local moonshine at the harvest festival. His verdict:

Moonshine liquor was sold by TheSyndicate in [[SecretShop underground speakeasy bars]], some of which had their entrances [[BookcasePassage hidden behind shelves]] in an innocuous-looking front business. High rollers might go to a posh LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub for illicit liquor. It was a profitable enterprise for the Mob during the RoaringTwenties.

* The song "Copperhead Road" by Music/SteveEarle is a {{Deconstruction}}, being about three generations of moonshiners with a grudge against the government. The latest generation is still bitter about the fact that both his dad and his granddaddy died while making moonshine (it's implied that his granddaddy was shot by the "revenue man" and his mooks, while his father died after crashing his souped-up Dodge with a trunkful of illegal booze) while he himself has expanded the operation to growing marijuana in the hollow where his granddaddy used to have his still, and is an angry [[TheVietnamVet Vietnam veteran]] who "learned a thing or two from Charlie".

* The song "Copperhead Road" by Music/SteveEarle is a {{Deconstruction}}, being about three generations of moonshiners with a grudge against the government. The latest generation is still bitter about the fact that both his dad and his grandpappy died while making moonshine (it's implied that his grandpappy was shot by the "revenue man" and his mooks, while his father died after crashing his souped-up Dodge with a trunkful of illegal booze) while he himself has expanded the operation to growing drugs in the hollow where his grandpappy used to have his still, and is an angry Vietnam veteran who "learned a thing or two from Charlie".
* Music/BrianMcNeill's song "The Best o' the Barley" is about his great-uncle James [=McNeill=] making moonshine on the side during prohibition.

Someone who illegally distills whiskey from corn or other farm products in a rural area where alcohol is prohibited or heavily taxed. The moonshiners are typically farmers in poor, rural areas of the Appalachians.

* ''ComicBook/TheGoon'' had a story where the Goon got caught up in a feud with a family of moonshiners.

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[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Film/{{Lawless}}'' is based on the true story of the Bondurant brothers, highly-successful moonshiners from Franklin County, VA. The movie plays up the class and cultural tension between them and the crooked big-city U.S. Marshal trying to take over their business.

* The Literature/McAuslan story "The Gordon Women" focuses on the characters, on leave, dealing with moonshining in the Scottish highlands -- from both sides of the law.

* 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.

* ''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.)

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

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, which was named after the liquor), "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 that can strip paint off a car. The lowest-grade, most amateur moonshine earned the epithet "rotgut" from the presence of poisonous elements from careless distillation or from adding methanol intentionally to boost the apparent potency.

Moonshine liquor was sold by TheSyndicate in [[SecretShop underground speakeasy bars]], some of which had their entrances [[BookcasePassage hidden behind shelves]] in an innocuous-looking front business. It was a profitable enterprise for the Mob during the RoaringTwenties.

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, which was named after the liquor), "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 that can strip paint off a car.

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, which was named after the liquor), "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.

"Revenuers"--tax and excise officers--and police often feature in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their livelihood. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadassDriver who knows the back roads. Fun facts: in the United States, the [[NitroBoost extensive speed and performance modifications]] made to otherwise ordinary-looking cars made by these drivers during [[RoaringTwenties Prohibition]] eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}. In addition to boosting speed, smugglers carved out more storage space inside the vehicles and upgraded the shocks to enable carrying heavy loads. Speedboats used for booze smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats.

Someone who illegally distills whiskey from corn or other farm products in a rural area where alcohol is prohibited or heavily taxed.

For the enlisted counterpart, see MilitaryMoonshiner; obviously, when the hillbilly enlists he will often turn into one. For the 21st century equivalent, illegal meth labs, see ClandestineChemist.

For the enlisted counterpart, see MilitaryMoonshiner; obviously, when the hillbilly enlists he will often turn into one.

"Revenuers" or tax and excise officers and police often feature in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their livelihood. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadassDriver. Fun facts: in the United States, the [[NitroBoost extensive speed and performance modifications]] made to otherwise ordinary-looking cars made by these drivers during [[RoaringTwenties Prohibition]] eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}. In addition to boosting speed, smugglers carved out more storage space inside the vehicles and upgraded the shocks to enable carrying heavy loads. Speedboats used for booze smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats.

"Revenuers" or tax and excise officers and police often feature in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their livelihood. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadassDriver. Fun facts: in the United States, the [[NitroBoost extensive speed and performance modifications]] made to otherwise ordinary-looking cars made by these drivers during [[RoaringTwenties Prohibition]] eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}, while speedboats used for drug smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats.

"Revenuers" or excise men often feature in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their work. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadassDriver (fun facts: in the United States, the extensive speed and performance modifications made to otherwise-ordinary cars made by these drivers during Prohibition eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}, while speedboats used for smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats).

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

* [[Literature/WhateleyUniverse Shine]] was taught to distill whiskey by his grandfather, a brilliant but BookDumb moonshiner, when his was only nine. Five years later, people started noticing that his whiskey ''isn't'' the sort of rotgut one usually expects, and that he's developed a system to force-age ''any'' distilled liquor until it tastes like it has been cellared for a decade or more. It turns out that he is a {{Mutant}}, with both the Avatar power (he literally inherited his dead grandfather's soul as his spirit guide) and the [[MadScientist Devisor]] powerset. He is essentially rescued from a raging mob by a curious distillery executive, and soon is very wealthy from selling expensive distilling devises only he can build. He decides to go to Whateley Academy to see if he can improve his talents even further.

"Revenuers" or excise men often feature in these stories, hunting down the moonshiners, who often are willing to resort to violence to defend their work. Shipping out the finished product while evading them is a job best left to a BadAssDriver (fun facts: in the United States, the extensive speed and performance modifications made to otherwise-ordinary cars made by these drivers during Prohibition eventually led to the establishment of UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}, while speedboats used for smuggling in the Caribbean influenced the design of WWII torpedo boats).

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