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Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine Hardcover – February 16, 2010

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Max Watman (Author)
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58 customer reviews
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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 (58 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Looking into an American Illegality
By Rob Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on March 3, 2010
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.Read more ›
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
A pleasure to read
By Amazon Customer VINE VOICE on March 24, 2010
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( 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.Read more ›
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Interesting Subject, but Haphazard, Full of Filler, and Short on Facts.
By mirasreviews HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on June 26, 2010
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.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

Perfect

Published 4 months ago by Charlotte Wimmer
A wonderful historical guide to a romanticized American "activity"...

Considering the subject (Mr. Watman's personal search for the how, why, and where of nontaxed, illegally made whiskey), Mr. Read more

Published 9 months ago by johnjorg
Five Stars

Excellent service - will use again!

Published 9 months ago by Robert Raddu
excellent read. well written and compelling story

excellent read. well written and compelling story. if you want the perspective of an outsider looking in on an illegal operation and the ramifications they face you will find this... Read more

Published 16 months ago by mmaffitt
meh...

Just a silly "history" and telling of what could have been a great book. I do not recommend this book.

Published 18 months ago by BgKv77
Excellent reading!

When you read this book it will fill your mind up with plenty of history. It will take you from the late 1700's on up through the 1900's. Read more

Published on June 10, 2013 by Albert Snelling
book

i have read this book and finished it.it was one of the best book i have ever read.it told me alot of things i did not know.

Published on March 26, 2013 by mike79146
good read

Fast ship n good conditonl.
Good reading n very entertaining...Author is very well informed on what he writes. would buy again..

Published on February 3, 2013 by Kent N. Huffman Sr.
Perfect Mans Gift

For the hard to buy for man who likes a drink or two, the appeal of moonshine is interesting and fun. This is the book to add to his package or stocking on 'shine'.

Published on January 28, 2013 by Marsha Koller
Interesting romp through the distilling world

With the recent popularity of legal moonshines, this book offers an entertaining romp into the world that birthed the coveted drink. Read more

Published on January 24, 2013 by Kevin Fontenot

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