Cocke County Moonshine Distillery

Appalachia is characterized by winding narrow coves and hidden hollows separated by high ridges. Many of these hollows contained just enough bottomland to support an economy based on subsistence agriculture, but with each crop, the soil grew poorer and poorer. Thus, to make ends meet, farmers in communities such as Cosby and Del Rio began setting aside some of their corn crop for liquor production. These early distillers found an easy market in the taverns and saloons of Newport, itself located at a point where the Appalachian highlands meet the Tennessee Valley. At the onset of Prohibition in 1920, the demand for illegally distilled liquor skyrocketed, and Cocke County was primed to meet it. Not only did the county have moonshiners with generations of experience, but the remote Appalachian hollows and thick forest provided perfect hiding places for illegal stills. And as young men left the farms of rural Tennessee to seek employment in the textile mills of Knoxville and the large manufacturing hubs of the Midwest in the early 20th century, networks for moving the liquor from the mountain hollows to the large urban areas were already in place. From the 1920s through the 1960s, Cocke County became notorious throughout the Southeast as a moonshine mecca. Cocke County Moonshine Distillery is devoted to producing 100% authentic recipe moonshine that is true to our Appalachian roots.

Author: Caroline Porsiel