Aa a young boy Charlie was growing up in Mississippi and one of the things he learned at a very early age was that he lived in a "dry" state. No drink with alcohol in it could be bought in the state - legally.
Of course this brought about an abundance of illegal stills to supply the desired "White Lightning" and "Shinney Whiskey".
Shinney Whiskey was nothing more than white lightning that was aged for a short time in a charcoal lined barrel to make it brown. Shinney was usually served for guests since it looked like bonded bourbon. However, beer was too cheap to make and sell so no one "bootlegged" it.
Now, Charlie's grandfather was not against taking a drink occasionally but beer was his favorite drink. When Charlie was about ten years old a traveling salesman came through Pontotoc, Mississippi, peddling "Malt" that could be used in making homemade beer and giving out the instructions to anyone buying his goods. All it took was water, malt, sugar and yeast in the correct amounts.
And like I said Charlie's grandfather liked his beer.
It took a little time to work and his grandfather had it down pat before long. Charlie's grandmother would loan him her ten gallon churn to make it in.
Very quickly he realized it needed to be bottled or would go "flat" in no time.
One of the uncle's was a traveling salesman in Alabama so he went to "Smokey’s Tavern" in Mobile, bought four cases of empty "Jax" beer bottles and brought them to Charlie's grandfather along with a capper and a big bag of caps. Later they found out caps were available through the Sears catalog.
His grandfather quickly became adept at making his "home brew". When the time was exactly right he would call the family together and set up an assembly line to siphon the brew from the churn into the bottles. He would suck the beer up to the top of the hose and then stick it in the bottle and let it fill up. However, some preliminary actions were required.
His grandmother would wash the bottles ahead of time so they would be dry but each bottle had to have a half teaspoon of sugar put in it so the beer would have a little more kick to it. After bottling, they would carry the beer to the old smokehouse for storage.
Once Charlie's grandfather decided that if half a teaspoon was good then a whole teaspoon would be better. Soon after they left the bottles, they began to explode due to extra sugar. For about a week afterward it sounded like a war zone in the smokehouse and everyone was afraid to go check on it. They just counted that as a lost batch and made some more as soon as the uncle brought some more bottles.
Then one day his grandfather managed to get an old Fridgidare refrigerator and they plugged it in on the back porch. As long as Charlie could remember that old box had some of the best tasting, Ice cold, home made beer in it.
As the cousins and Charlie grew older, summertime was always greeted with great expectations as they knew Granddaddy would have some ice cold "home brew" for them when they went to visit.
They wasted very little back then. Charlie's grandmother would take the dregs left in the churn and somehow make a great tasting wine from it. It wasn’t much but he said it sure was good.
This has been another intersting story from Charlie's memories of his childhood. I hope you have enjoyed it and will return to read more of his adventures. I know he will have more stories to tell us.
