Page 6 - Robeson Living Winter 2020
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The Ins and Outs of
Robeson County Moonshine
By Blake Tyner
Left to right Deputy Marvin Barker, Deputy Mel Ivey, Sherriff Pat Korneagy, and Solicitor Frank Ertel Carlyle
pose at the courthouse with the results of a still bust. Carlyle went on the serve in the United State Congress from
1949 until 1957.
One art that has been around in Robeson County since it was a moonshiner is the person making the liquor. Moonshine has
part of Bladen County is the art of making whiskey or moon- gone by many names such as: corn liquor, white lightning, sug-
shine. The term moonshine actually has its origins in England ar whiskey, skull cracker, pop skull, bush whiskey, stumphole,
and refers to “occupational pursuits which necessitated night ruckus juice, rotgut, catdaddy, mule kick, hillbilly pop, sweet
work, or work by the light of the moon.” The term “bootleg- spirits of cats a-fighting, alley bourbon, city gin, see seven
ging” finds its beginnings in colonial America, where colonists stars, and wild cat.
would conceal bottles of liquor in the tops of their boots to sell
to the Native Americans. The taste of moonshine is an acquired taste. One reporter in the
1920’s described drinking moonshine this way: “The instant
The bootlegger is the person who sells the illegal liquor while you swallowed the stuff you feel like you are sunburned all
Page 6 Robeson Living ~ Winter 2020
