It never ceased to amaze Charley Floyd how only a swig of moonshine whiskey—clear as a newborn baby’s piss—could loosen the tongue of any storyteller. Just a touch of corn liquor did the trick. It generally improved the telling of an outlaw tale, an Indian myth, or the high times of a fox hunt.
A good dose of home-brewed whiskey made the story—whether it was an escape by Jesse James or the flight of a white-tailed deer—much richer. Invariably, the stolen loot hidden in a cave doubled, the hanged man at the end of the rope twitched longer, and the painted whores of Fort Smith and Tulsa were prettier. A few more sips and the fighting cock that killed all the other roosters turned meaner; the catfish that managed to slip off the hook grew larger. And, upon reflection, the last batch of whiskey cooked up in the woods was the smoothest by a country mile.
Making corn whiskey was one of Walter Floyd’s favorite pursuits. Drinking it was another. Like his neighbors and friends with ties to the Old South, Walter knew how to turn out decent sipping liquor. So did his brothers and their father before them and both of their grandfathers and their uncles and cousins. So did Walter’s sons. He taught them about distilling whiskey just as he showed them how to shoot and fish, read signs in the woods, and track game. It was part of their way of life.
Whiskey resulted from the distillation of fermented grain mash. It originated in twelfth-century Ireland, where it was considered the “water of life.” The early Floyds back in Wales discovered not a small amount of pleasure in a dram of whiskey aged in wooden barrels. No doubt they brought the distiller’s art with them when they sailed to America. It was in Britain where King Charles II was the first to impose a tax on distilled spirits back in the 1600s. That action eventually resulted in the word moonshiner entering the language as a term for those who smuggled liquor past the tax collectors under the cover of darkness. In time, the whiskey smugglers became known as bootleggers, since they literally tucked small bottles of whiskey in their boot tops. Moonshining was then understood to be the act of distilling illicit whiskey.
Many early Scotch-Irish immigrants who came to America and settled in the southern Appalachian Mountains spent hours perfecting the practice of making whiskey. Various grains, including rye, wheat, and barley, could be used to produce whiskey, but in the mountains of Georgia and throughout most of southern Appalachia and the Ozarks, corn was the preferred ingredient. To avoid paying an excise tax on the whiskey, distillers operated on the sly. The timeless secrets for making Georgia Moon—also known as “white lightning,” “panther’s breath,” “old bust head,” “tiger’s sweat,” “wood whiskey,” “rotgut,” “mountain dew,” “blue ruin,” “ruckus juice,” and “stump likker”—were passed down from father to son. Boys learned the three basic whiskey-making steps—mashing, fermentation, and distillation—just as the girls were taught how to make lye soap or apple butter.
There were significant differences between moonshine and quality bourbon, a type of whiskey perfected by a Baptist minister in eighteenth-century Bourbon County, Kentucky. Fancy bourbon came from a mash containing less corn, and it also had to be aged for two years in charred oak barrels. Most moonshine was, in fact, corn whiskey made from a mash that contained at least 80 percent corn. It had a sharp taste, but because there was little or no aging, there was no taste or color from a barrel. Moonshine was yellowish or white. Most of the Southern moonshiners, including Georgians and their descendants mixing mash in the woods of Oklahoma, made nothing but gallon after gallon of potent corn whiskey. They left the bourbon making to their Kentucky cousins.
In the days before Oklahoma’s statehood, a Whiskey Trail was created in Indian Territory complete with hideouts and grazing fields used by bandits and whiskey runners alike to pasture their horses. Whiskey stills were scattered throughout the Cookson Hills of eastern Oklahoma. There were plenty of streams and creeks, and the bluffs and deep hollows were ideal for those who chose to “farm in the woods.” Along with statehood in 1907, however, prohibition was one of the so-called reforms that was adopted. Oklahoma—the forty-sixth state—entered the Union as dry as a bone. The law forbade the manufacture, transportation, and possession of intoxicants. Despite the ban on liquor and the strength of such powerful pressure groups as the Oklahoma Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the dry state of Oklahoma remained moist, and even sopping wet in some quarters, thanks to the diligent efforts of moonshiners and bootleggers.
Making whiskey was not merely illegal as far as the government was concerned; it was a moral crime, as well. The venerable practice of producing and selling corn liquor continued despite protestations from those with temperance on their minds, who claimed strong drink would prove to be the country’s downfall. They scowled and thrust accusatory fingers at those who made the prohibited whiskey and beer or patronized the bootleggers. They pitied the wives and prayed for the children who noticed that their father’s personality was slightly altered after he paid a visit to the outhouse and stopped along the way to nip at the jar of homemade liquor stashed in the barn. They considered strong drink to be the telltale sign of a malignant society. They suggested that as long as bootleg whiskey was readily available, and those who drank it went to dances, school, and church, there would be trouble. Nothing was better than a whiff of whiskey to get tongues clucking. To the righteous and the zealous, all strong drink—including blackberry brandy, grape wine, and homemade beer—were the devil’s brew. Along with dancing and card playing, alcohol was to blame for the corruption of their sons and daughters. It was the very manifestation of evil.
Despite such harsh sentiments, even some of the strictest of Baptists and Methodists found a way to justify the distilling and consumption of spirits. Some of them pointed out that strong drink was mentioned throughout the Bible. Noah carried wine aboard the ark, and according to the Good Book, one of his first acts after the floodwaters subsided was to plant a vineyard, make some wine, and get good and pickled. Psalm 104:15 spoke of essentials such as oil for light, bread for strength, and “wine that maketh glad the heart of man.” A little nip now and then never hurt anybody. After all, some reasoned, had not St. Paul prodded Timothy to “drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine own infirmities”? Jesus himself turned cold water into wine at a wedding party and he also served it at his last meal the evening before he was crucified. A few wet proponents even ventured that the Lord might have offered his disciples some moonshine had the divine beverage been in existence in those days.
Whiskey surely served as a balm that helped restore a working man’s spirit after a crop failed or a child died. It was a salve for troubled souls. It was also a hair shirt for the penitent. Getting drunk on Saturday night provided the wayward with a cathartic experience for the Sabbath. Standing there before God and his neighbors in a hot church with the windows raised, a man with a pounding head and a soul riddled with guilt could let the lyrics of the hymn written by a reformed eighteenth-century slave trader wash his sins away.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
was blind but now I see.
It was a song with no guile, and became the basis for all Southern folk music. It was a song that was at once joyful and melancholy. It was a song that brought smiles and tears. At least twenty minutes were required to get through the entire hymn. By the time all five verses had been sung, the burden of sin and sorrow was lifted from the shoulders of even the most profane.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
Afterward, the repentant sinner, with wet eyes and the renewed love of Jesus in his heart, could look forward to the Wednesday-evening prayer meeting as well as the Saturday card game, or an evening coon hunt, when he would once again tumble off the wagon.
All religious implications and powers of reconciliation aside, whiskey acted as an economic commodity for many country people. It had a definite practical value. Those farmers who bootlegged and sold or traded corn liquor by the gallon considered their whiskey production to be another cash crop. Selling jars of moonshine helped keep oil in the lamps and food in the pantry. Many rural citizens thought of moonshining and bootlegging as respectable businesses.
A clay jug, or at least a quart-size fruit jar or two brimming with fresh whiskey, was standard fare at many social events such as weddings, political rallies, hog butcherings, or even funerals. For dances held at homes back in the hills, fiddlers in clean overalls, arriving on horseback and with the promise of a free supper on their minds, knew they would also get a few snorts of corn liquor out in the dark. A drink or two enabled them to rasp out one tune after another that kept folks dancing until the wee hours. Whiskey was also doled out as medicine to break fevers. Mixed with honey, hot water, and tea to make a toddy, whiskey brought relief from pesty chest colds. Mothers rubbed it on the gums of teething babies to ease their pain. A dash of the stuff settled nerves, fought off chills, brought relief to aching bones, and allowed a good night’s rest for the elderly.
Most of all, whiskey was an essential ingredient at all fall and winter hunts. Corn whiskey was as important as the pack of dogs, as necessary as the guns and the bright hunter’s moon lighting the night sky. Moonshine was as comforting as the bonfire the hunters stoked with squaw wood and half-truths while their hounds chased coons and opossums to the tops of sycamores and oaks. When the wild geese passed high in the heavens and the air was cold enough for a hunter to see his own breath, a spot of strong drink went a long way.
Folks said that whiskey “helps to kill the poison in the night air.” Some geezers out cutting timbers for railroad ties took drinks from a freshly made batch and explained that the whiskey protected them from snakebites. They would wink and take another long tug, even though they knew that if they were ever bitten by a cottonmouth moccasin or a rattlesnake, the alcohol would cause the venom to surge through their system faster than ever.
There were probably more recipes and techniques for cooking whiskey than there were for making peach pie or cream gravy. Although the basic steps were always the same, each moonshiner had his own special and mostly secret method for producing corn whiskey. No two men distilled white liquor in quite the same way. Each one was proud of his own particular formula. Whenever an especially mellow batch was distilled, even the most discriminating drinkers would not turn up their noses at a jigger of ’shine. “If it’s older than a year, the mellowness will make you breathe deep and happily” is how one master moonshiner explained it. “If it’s stilled less than a month, there’s a zip that curls around your neck when you sniff it.”
When he was still a boy, Charley Floyd became familiar with the smell of cooking mash on the breeze. He knew that only a novice at whiskey sniffing would place his nose closer than two inches from the mouth of a jug or jar when trying to determine the age and quality of some moonshine. Walter taught him to select the best corn and to cull out the rotten and discolored grains. He learned how to turn out the corn malt that came from changing the starch of the corn into sugar and he found out about hurrying the process by burying sacks of unground corn in the manure pile, where it was always good and warm. Once the corn sprouted, it was dried and ground into a coarse meal called corn grits, or “chop.” Water and sugar were added, and the mixture was made into a mush called sweet mash. The mash was allowed to stand in a barrel in a warm place for several days and ferment, and then it was thinned out with more water. Again the concoction was covered and ripened some more until the sweet mash soured as the sugar changed to alcohol. Now the time was right to distill.
Out in the Oklahoma hills, it was said that an experienced moonshiner actually listened to the mash. He knew it was ripe and time to cook in the still when it sounded like side pork in a pan. Farmers had no way actually to test the strength or the proof of their whiskey, and so in order to measure the alcoholic content, they relied on their own judgment, years of experience, and a simple procedure. When a moonshiner shook a jar of fresh whiskey and the foam, or the “bead,” rose in small bubbles about the size of number-five bird shot, the proof was just right. “This stuff holds a purty good bead,” a moonshiner would tell his friends. If instead the bead would not stand up and remained full of big, loose bubbles that looked like bulging frog eyes, the moonshiner knew he had whiskey that was unworthy of putting in a clean fruit jar. “I don’t believe this here beads so good,” a moonshiner would then say.
While the old Georgia-bred moonshiners religiously went through the time-tested steps for making corn whiskey, some of the younger bucks thought that process was slow and too much trouble. This younger generation born with the new century looked for a shortcut. Some did not even use corn, and few, if any, corn chops. Instead, they made powerful alcohol that had the kick of a mule by using only water, yeast cakes, and plenty of sugar and bran. They could turn out a fresh batch every few days. A handful of oak chips thrown in provided a little odor and gave the liquor an aged look. Some of the country folks called this one-hundred-proof whiskey, made with only a small amount of corn to start fermentation, “sugar liquor” or “sugar jack.” It may not have tasted quite like Georgia Moon, but the end result after consumption was the same. The fiddle music whined just as sweetly, the girls appeared just as comely, and the headache was every bit as mean. And, the morning after a jar of that stepped-up moonshine was drained, the poetry of “Amazing Grace” would still make a band of angels weep.
After the first batch of bran or corn whiskey was run off, any respectable moonshiner knew that the “singlings,” a cloudy liquid corrupted with pollutants, had to be purified and the still pot thoroughly cleaned before a second run could be made. Spent mash, or the slop, was thrown out in the barnyard and emptied into feed troughs. It often made roosters that imbibed fall down dead drunk. Likewise, it soothed cattle that managed to get a snootful. Once the slop was pitched, the pot was washed out with some of the unstrained sour beer, or the “choc,” that was left in the mash barrel. A good many folks were satisfied by just drinking the murky choc. It was considered a neighborly gesture to put some in a jar and offer it to thirsty friends who came calling.
The word choc no doubt came from Choctaw beer, originally a synthetic drink made of barley, hops, tobacco, fishberries, and a small amount of alcohol, which had been schemed up in the old days of the Choctaw Nation. For many years, the law had made it illegal to sell or manufacture choc beer, but the prohibition statutes were often ignored. Wives from the mining communities that dotted Oklahoma supplemented their husbands’ wages by selling the beer. It seemed miners especially enjoyed sipping choc. They swore by the renegade brew and insisted it was an essential tonic for their good health. In the oil-field camps—frequented by bootleggers, gamblers, and two-bit whores—a basic 120-proof alcoholic drink that was colored with tobacco juice or creosote was a favorite. Choc beer and “Jamaican” gin—nothing but raw alcohol flavored with gingerroot or bitters—were also much sought-after intoxicants. Those who invested their paychecks at the saloons and barrel-houses or with the local bootlegger often were stricken with “jake leg,” a paralysis caused by the consumption of too much strong liquor. Men with muscles as hard as walnuts shrugged it off as an occupational hazard.
When Charley visited his mother’s kinfolk in the mining district around McCurtain, Oklahoma, he watched the men guzzle choc beer after they had scrubbed the coal dust from their hands and faces. They claimed the brew was better for them than the drinking water available in the area. Sometimes they gave the growing boy sips from their jars. Back home in Sequoyah County, out among the post oaks and brush, Charley developed a taste for this cloudy ferment that was found in the bottom of the mash barrel. He dipped out cups of choc and slurped it down every chance he got.
One afternoon when Charley and his big brother, Bradley, were tending their father’s still, they noticed that a stud horse was having a difficult time breeding with a young mare in a nearby pasture. Charley watched for a few minutes and came up with a clever solution. He reached into the bottom of the choc barrel, whistled the mare to him, and slapped a handful of the mash on the skittish horse’s rear end. In an instant, the frustrated stallion mounted the ripe mare and, with the help of the lubricant, drove it home as smooth as satin. The sight of the big stallion snorting over the filly made Charley grin, and Bradley saw to it that the story of his brother helping the horses get together spread faster than heat lightning.
Charley Floyd’s taste for wild beer, along with his ingenuity at playing Cupid with a pair of amorous horses, created a nickname for the farm boy that some people, mostly his running buddies, called him from his early teens until his death.
Choc Floyd is what they would say when they saw him riding lickety-split on a hell-bent horse down a dirt farm road with the wind at his back: “Here comes Choc Floyd.”