Moonshine Heritage

North Georgia and corn whiskey go back a long way. The hollows around Helen and the Nacoochee Valley sit in the middle of a story that runs from farmers selling a few jugs to a full-blown underground economy, and eventually to the fast cars that helped start stock car racing. The history is fascinating, and plenty of it is still told as legend, so it helps to know which parts are documented.

The facts below come mainly from the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Where a story is folklore, we say so.

Dates and the 1876 and 1940 Ford details are from the New Georgia Encyclopedia's moonshine article; the 1862 tax is the federal Revenue Act that created the Internal Revenue system.

Many of the settlers who filled the southern Appalachians were Scots-Irish, and distilling came with them. The usual explanation is practical: in rough mountain country, where roads were poor, it was easier to carry corn to market as whiskey than as a wagonload of grain. For a lot of farm families, the still was a cash crop, not a crime, until the tax collector arrived.

After the Civil War, federal agents known as revenuers spent much of their time chasing liquor in the mountains; by 1876, four-fifths of federal law enforcement in the Georgia mountains involved illegal liquor. Georgia went dry on its own in 1907, and national Prohibition followed in 1920. During the Prohibition years and the decades after, Dawson County moonshiners ran millions of gallons of whiskey into Atlanta.

That business needed fast cars. Drivers in Dawson and Union counties souped up 1940 Fords to outrun the law, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia credits those cars and chases with the beginnings of stock car racing. Dawson County's seat, Dawsonville, is about an hour from Helen.

Every mountain county has its own moonshine characters, and the stories tend to grow with the telling. Treat any colorful story you hear on a tour as folklore unless a source backs the detail. The Foxfire books and museum in Rabun County are the best-known effort to collect mountain life first-hand.

Grandaddy Mimm's Distilling Co. makes moonshine in several flavors (blackberry and peach cobbler among them), vodka, barrel-aged whiskey and sorghum rum, and runs tastings and tours at two locations. Call 706-781-1829 to confirm tour times. Go as a designated-driver group or plan a taxi; the tasting rooms are about an hour from Helen.

Hours from the distillery's website. Tours are recommended, so call ahead.