For decades, most people had never even seen a jar of moonshine, let alone tasted it. These days, you can find it at stores and restaurants around the country thanks to loosened liquor laws and changing consumer preferences. Even the industry’s biggest distilleries are experimenting with moonshine. Moonshine has been distilled in backwoods Appalachia since the 1800s. By its most traditional definition, the term means “illegal spirit,” and many families in that historically independent-minded, libertarian-leaning area of the U.S. made a living off making it — partly because the liquor could be produced and sold quickly, as it didn’t require years of aging in barrels. (That, by the way, is also what gives the hooch its oftentimes harsh character.) Today, moonshine is generally used as a catchall term for unaged white whiskeys, many of which are made in Tennessee and North Carolina. (MORE: JetBlue Proves There’s a Reasonable Way to Hit Us With Fees) Another difference with modern-day moonshine is that the people distilling it aren’t operating outside the law. Making moonshine is now legal in Tennessee and is quickly gaining popularity around the country. When the recession hit in 2008 and 2009, a number of states looked for ways to generate employment and keep tax revenue rolling in. One way to accomplish both goals was to loosen laws regulating distilleries. For years, the production of distilled spirits was legal only in a handful of Tennessee counties. But in 2009, the state legislature opened dozens of other counties to the business, including several in eastern Tennessee that had been home to unlawful moonshine production for decades. One of the biggest operations is Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery, which opened in 2010 in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Roughly 250,000 to 280,000 cases of moonshine were sold in 2012, a jump from 50,000 in 2010 and 80,000 in 2011, according to food-and-beverage-analysis firm Technomic. (A case holds 12 750-ml jars.) Ole Smoky accounted for 100,000 of the cases sold in 2012. Ole Smoky founder Joe Baker expects the company to sell 250,000 cases (3 million jars) this year. Baker attributes Ole Smoky’s … Continue reading Moonshine Is Growing in the U.S., and Big Whiskey Wants a Taste