written by John Kelly

Folks, imagine if you will a pleasant fall morning. The clear, bright October sky is robin egg blue with fluffy white clouds floating like puffs of cotton over the village. You can hear the faint but cheerful sound of playing children in the school grounds at the communitie's most visible landmark on its highest point, Pee Dee Elementary School.

     The four active churches, all within sight of each other would lend one to think this humble community to be a place of morality personified. And, the City and County Police Departments located a mere 300 yards up the next hill would leave one thinking a place safe and secure. Who would believe that just a few modest houses down the hill from the school a criminal act was being committed and had been going on for more than a year?

     Unknown to the local residents an illegal whiskey distillery was operating at full capacity right under their very clean noses. The still was constructed and operated in the attic of one of the houses just below the school yard. The owner of the house had rented it to two men with full knowledge that the still was to be operating. It was strictly a business by way of a "Gentlemen's agreement" - in other words, no paper trail -  all money done under the table.

     Now, all had gone well for the landlord and the two gentlemen for over year. All of them were profiting from this illegal but very lucrative enterprise. Then it all came crashing down that fateful morning when a fire broke out in the attic. The landlord was immediately notified as several residents ran frantically up his steps shouting.

     This put him in a bad situation knowing the illegal still was in the house, so he did the only thing he could do. He stalled until the fire could at least destroy the evidence. So he kept telling them any excuse he could think of in his state of mind. "It's probably someone burning leaves !" No, they said smoke is coming out of the attic to which he said "Oh well, it's probably just the morning frost condensing from the sunshine! " But,  he finally had no choice but call the fire department after a dozen folks had gathered at his front door.

     So, he reluctantly made the call and within ten minutes the Rockingham Chimney Savers were on the scene in full fire fighting apparel along with several local and county law officers. By the time the fire was extinguished, the ceiling had collapsed, exposing all the twisted carbon coated components of the whiskey operation.

     Deputy Clay Wallace immediately assessed the situation knowing immediately that it was the remains of a whiskey still and said so. The landlord was busy writing up a years worth of rental receipts to the renters even before the smoke had cleared away. Deputy Wallace commented that from his experience he was looking at the most sophisticated whiskey still he had seen since the one he blew up belonging to "BOTTLENECK McCLEAN!"

     BottleNeck was a legend among the county's moonshiners, well known for his big-time whiskey operations. He was widely known in both Carolinas from the mountains to the coast!

     Now, before I venture any further I feel I should educate you folks about how this illegal whiskey is made.

First -  you start with corn (thus the name corn whiskey) - some throw in hog feed, which makes it better.

Second -  Mix it with water, let set for 3 days stored in 55 gal. barrels.  By the third day, the mix becomes milky white in color and a foamy head forms on surface like in a glass of beer.

Third - the mixture remains like this until the foamy head descends back down into the mix (now its ready).

Fourth -   Now you dip out the mixture and place it in the cooker.

Fifth -  as the mix cooks, steam forms in the spiral copper line above the cooker (this tube is known as the "Worm").

Sixth -  as the steam travels thru the worm, it cools and condenses back into a liquid, and streams into the holding vat as pure corn whiskey.

     Now the first few bottles to run out are about 120 proof which is strong enough to peel paint, so you save those and mix them equally with the later bottles which makes them all balance out to a desired 90 proof.

     This recipe is used by a majority of moonshiners but variations and special additives like apples are sometimes thrown into the mix. I knew a black guy that even thru in a can of red devil lie -  "there bee's a li'l kick to hit when Ah doo's dat",  as I used to hear him say!

     Now Bottle Neck had his last operation out on Marks Creek near a place called Wolfpitt.  I'm sure some of you folks have heard of it.  It was a first class operation for sure, not many better than his in the southeast. The cooker was heated with bottled gas, water was pumped from the creek with a gasoline operated water pump, flowing to a 30 foot worm, a full 3 inches in diameter. His operation was producing over 90 cases of whiskey a week (1 case contains 6 gallon jugs), so you can do the math - he was making the jack. His still was located to where its only access was by boat - first up the Pee Dee river, then go into Marks Creek from the river. He even had a connection in Spartanburg that furnished brand new, never used gallon jugs loaded to full capacity in a Uhaul truck. All Bottleneck had to do was was go down, get in the truck, bring it home and drop the truck off at the nearest U-haul dealer. And Bottleneck never had to be seen. He had two morons taking all the risks and all the work running the still for minimum monetary pay. No doubt Bottle Neck had himself a good moneymaking enterprise. And it was a fool proof operation right?  WRONG!


     As I am sure most of you have heard, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link". Well, BottleNeck 's chain had two weak links, that being the two morons running his still. The beginning of the end came when his two workers started to test the brew by taste, which was totally unnecessary since they were given a ball test gauge to test it with (kinda like the one you use to test your antifreeze). But these two would rather do it the old fashion way by tasting it. So, as time went by during this run they began to test it much too often with disastrous results. Soon they were both seeing double and loading the boat way beyond its capacity to where the rim was barely above the water. And it would have been far better for both of them if it had sank. Because, unknown to them, the notorious state liquor agent  "SCAR FACE," was up on the river that night looking for illegal whiskey stills.

     Scarface got his name for the scar over his left eye, given to him by a well placed monkey wrench. He would never have even seen them except for their drunken caterwauling singing as they paddled erratically around the bin. He and his agents just hid in the bushes and let the two morons paddle right into his lap. They were immediately handcuffed, jailed, tried and off to Raleigh for a year and a day. He never got BottleNeck though and the funny thing is most of the time when Scarface was dynamiting a still there was usually one guy always standing in the crowd of onlookers, none other than  BOTTLENECK!

     Ok, now back to my original story. No one knows for sure how that fire in the attic got started. But the one always blamed was one of the local winos known respectively as "MULEMAN". He had been seen on occasion climbing up the draft pipe that went up the side of the house and climbing in the attic window. He had obviously been going in frequently to sample the brew.  It was thought by many that he may have accidentaly kicked over the burner.

     Well, after the fire was put out and the still was discovered, rumors spread like wildfire thru the community. The landlord got all the blame for making the whiskey! The volume of whiskey produced became exaggerated with each house discussion as it went thru the village. It was only about a hundred gallon operation but within a day or two it had expanded to over a thousand gallons by word of mouth. On the day of the trial Deputy Clay Wallace was called to testify in the case. When the judge asked, in his opinion, what would he estimate the volume of whiskey to be, the entire courtroom broke into thunderous laughter when he gave the answer

"Your Honor, All I can tell you is I spent that entire morning walking ankle-deep in liquor!"