Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine [Hardcover]

Max Watman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2010

In the summer of 1794, drunk and armed outlaws gathered in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, intent on preventing the collection of the Whiskey Tax. George Washington mustered 13,000 troops to quell the rebellion, but by the time they arrived, the rebels had vanished; America’s first moonshiners had packed up their stills and moved on.

From these moonshine pioneers, to the bathtub gin runners of the 1920s, to today’s booming bootleg businessmen, journalist Max Watman traces the historical roots and contemporary story of white lightning, which has played a surprisingly large role in American history. It touched the election of Thomas Jefferson, the invention of the IRS, and the origins of NASCAR. It is a story of tommy guns, hot rods, and shot houses, and the story is far from over. In this fascinating, centuries-long history of illicit booze, Watman infiltrates every aspect of small-scale distilling in America, taking us from the backwoods of Appalachia to the gritty nip joints of Philadelphia, from a federal courthouse to Pocono Speedway. Along the way, this unrepentant lover of moonshine profiles the colorful characters who make up white whiskey’s lore and hilariously chronicles his own attempts to distill hooch from his initial ill-fated batch to his first successful jar of ’shine.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Watman chronicles America's longstanding love affair with distilled spirits, a love that he shares. As long as people have been making booze, the government has wanted to control it, and Watman colorfully illustrates a conflict that stretches from the Whiskey Rebellion through Prohibition. Watman travels from Colorado to Virginia to cover the current battles between moonshine producers and government agents, a journey that takes him from nip houses to NASCAR events. Watman also details his own complicated, and comical, attempts to manufacture hard liquor at home. He is a capable journalist and has an impressive grasp of the craft of distillation and the science behind it. His historical writing is lively as well, and he profiles fascinating, little-known characters and events like Johnny McDonald and the Whiskey Ring scandal during the Grant administration. Despite Watman's talents, however, his narrative meanders, in large part because Watman doesn't write as well about himself as he does about other people. Yet even though the parts don't add up to a satisfying whole, they remain entertaining enough to keep the pages turning. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Although most of us associate moonshine with Prohibition and the cross-border gin runners of the 1920s, the first moonshiners actually were outlaws who protested the new tax on whiskey; this was in the 1790s, and it was such a serious rebellion that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton sent 13,000 troops into Pennsylvania to quash it. Moonshine is, in parts of the U.S., still a booming business and an important part of the economy of the South. Watman, a journalist and southerner, takes us on an exciting and often-eccentric ride through the history (and present) of the moonshine business, at the same time chronicling his own frequently disastrous efforts to produce home-grown alcohol. Written in a lively, you-are-there style, and featuring some truly out-of-left-field characters, the book is sure to entertain as it informs. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (February 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416571787
• ISBN-13: 978-1416571780
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Max Watman is the author of Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine (Simon & Schuster, February 2010) and Race Day: a Spot on the Rail with Max Watman (Ivan R. Dee, 2005). He was the horse racing correspondent for the New York Sun and has written for various publications on books, music, food, and drink.

He was raised in the Shenandoah Valley and has worked as a cook, farmer, silversmith, tutor, greenskeeper, warehouseman, and web designer.

After many collegial adventures he earned a BA at Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA at Columbia University.

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a literature fellowship in 2008.

He lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and son.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking into an American Illegality March 3, 2010

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

In 1978, under the Carter administration, brewing beer in your own home became legal. You can brew as much as 300 gallons per year for your own use, and many people do so. They find this an appealing hobby. But you cannot distill your brew into liquor. It is illegal to do so, even if you make just a pint, even if you are not going to sell it, even if you are not going to drink it: home distilling is forbidden. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is dedicated to finding you if you distill at home, as it is in finding and punishing any moonshiner. It's no surprise that they haven't been able to wipe out illegal stills, but it might be a surprise what forms those stills take and who runs them. The story of one moonshiner (who says he is no longer practicing this particular outlawry) and a description of modern moonshining is in _Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine_ (Simon and Schuster) by Max Watman. It isn't a how-to guide, though anyone who wants to practice home distilling will find advice, especially on what not to do. It is an amusing account of his own, sometimes successful, attempts at distilling, a history of distilling in America, and a look into the work of the moonshiners and of the new legal micro-distillers who are producing artisanal liquor.

Watman's first attempt at distilling was a patriotic try of recreating the liquor brewed by George Washington himself. The first decades of the nineteenth century were good for booze, with bourbon being perfected and over a hundred patents being given for gadgets of the distillation process. The boom ended with liquor taxes levied to pay for the Civil War, making moonshining without paying the revenue tax illegal.... One of the happier aspects of this account by this self-described "bibliophilic, bespectacled Jewish boy" is that he participates in every aspect of the distilling scene he finds. This means he hangs out with revenuers who are using the latest gadgetry to find moonshiners. They may have an archetype of taking hatchets to stills hidden in the woods, but plenty of moonshiners are running industrial operations with stills holding hundreds of gallons. He sits through the trial of men who ran a large-scale moonshining operation (they are accused of making 1.5 million gallons) to show how difficult it is to prosecute such offenses. He finds a "dusty little shop in upstate New York" where he can buy yeast, rye, barley, and various hardware. The woman at the till assures him she was not entering his purchases into the computer, and says, "You were never here. I don't know you." Because there is a historic NASCAR / moonshining connection, he hangs out with Junior Johnson, a stock-car legend and former bootlegger who invented the 180 degree "bootleg turn" which might have been useless on the track but helped him outrun the feds. Johnson says he had fast cars on the track, but he'd "never run anything as fast as the fastest cars I had on the highway," which could be modified and supercharged with no rules except physics. "Bootlegging," Watman says, "was once upon a time the farm league for race-car driving. White lightning is a link to the straightforward, small-money, Southern roots of the sport." NASCAR is ambivalent about such roots; Johnson says the drivers today are "ice-cream drivers." Johnson, we learn, has joined in a legal, small-batch distillation business for "Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon," about which we may trust Watman's description: "a very good white dog." A step further and he is on the track himself, having been through a quick training course. Watman further checks out the wicked liquor made in "Moonshine Capital USA," Franklin County in southwest Virginia. Tons of pure sugar go into the blackpot-stills, and out comes a mass-produced vile liquid that somehow winds up in "nip joints" in Philadelphia. He tries some; it is "as if you took the stomach acid from acid reflux and strained it through a cheesecloth and blended in a dash of simple syrup to sweeten it... the only liquor I've ever had that made me feel that I was hurting myself." He gets hammered at a conference for home distillers. When he asks a revenuer who had successfully busted a bunch of moonshiners if any of them were still moonshining, he gets the reply, "They're still breathing, ain't they?" Watman has written an introduction to a world most of us didn't know had such a wide extent. His book ranges from self-deprecating stories of bad batches to happy tales of clever duplicity to dark stories of poison and death, all told with a fine good humor perfect for an intoxicating topic. Read more ›

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasure to read March 24, 2010

By Margaret Dybala VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This book is about moonshine: its history and the folks who make it. Who would have thought it would be so interesting? But it is! I had heard about the Whiskey Rebellion that took place in the 1790s, but I really couldn't recall anything other than that the government had tried to impose a tax on liquor. Even though that initial tax was lifted after a few years, eventually a permanent tax was imposed at around the time of the Civil War. Folks have been flouting that law ever since!

In this book, the author very amusingly tells of his own attempts to brew a little of the white lightening himself -- or at least he uses such an attempt as a part of a narrative structure to let us know what is involved in this home brewing. This is highly illegal (as he reports, one person reminds him that it is not the state you are annoying, but the Feds! And they mean business!), whereas a little homebrewed, for personal use, beer or wine is OK. This is all truly fascinating.

The author also includes lots of wonderful vignettes about both moonshine itself (good grief! Who knew about the lead content!), but also the colorful characters that have been associated with it that he has heard about or met. Even though this can be a serious subject, you can't help but enjoy these stories.

Personally, although I believe in following the law, I've always had a soft spot for moonshine folks. It just doesn't seem like it should be against the law. And I can recall, as a small child many many years ago, visiting relatives (and there was no road in to their place -- you had to go up a dry creek bed on foot), and having shots fired in the air. My grandmother would announce that it was us, and then the shooting would stop.... I asked her why the shooting, and she and my father laughed and said they were just making sure we weren't revenue boys checking out their still. And more honest and law abiding folks didn't exist than my grandmother and father....

So, my point is, Americans have always had a strange relationship with both moonshine and with representatives of the federal government. This book is a lovely history of the subject that I think many, many people would enjoy. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Subject, but Haphazard, Full of Filler, and Short on Facts. June 26, 2010

By mirasreviews HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

"Chasing the White Dog" chronicles Max Watman's quest to learn about the people and politics of the modern American trade in bootleg liquor... as well as how to distill a drinkable glass of the stuff at home. That's illegal and has been since Prohibition. Watman points out that it is even technically illegal for cooks to inadvertently distill a bit of spirit while adding wine to a bubbly sauce. It's legal to ferment a certain amount of beer or wine at home, but making liquor is strictly forbidden, even for personal use, without a license. That doesn't stop bootleg liquor, or moonshine, from being big business. One large-scale operation that was shut down in Philadelphia a few years back pulled in $9 million a year.

Watman's quest to understand bootleg booze takes us to Franklin County, VA (self-proclaimed Moonshine Capital USA), to the agents of Virginia's Illegal Whiskey Task Force, former moonshiners, a nip joint in Danville, VA, former moonshine runner and 1960 Daytona 500 champion Junior Johnson, and finally to the trial of Jody "Duck" Johnson, all while we witness Watman's ongoing education in home distilling. He interviews both rural Southern moonshiners (though I wish he had done more) and people who went legit and founded legal microdistilleries, like ex-physicist George Stranahan and ex-firefighter Jess Graber, co-owners of "Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey".

The style is stream of consciousness, and Watman doesn't have an ear for what is interesting versus pure tedium, such as accounts of what goes through his "cinematic imagination". He makes short, superficial forays into the history of whiskey politics in the United States, which are the book's weakest point. The history is scant and seems to always miss the point.... Though Watman forms an opinion of what should be legal and what should not, there is never much basis on which to judge. Sure, home distilling for personal consumption is harmless and a boon to the microdistillery industry. Law enforcement claimed that moonshiners they busted over a 5-year period in Virginia accounted for $20 million in unpaid liquor taxes. But what did their investigations cost? How many large-scale producers are making poison versus palatable stuff? "Chasing the White Dog" is always absent the information that would make it meaningful. Read more ›