Moonshine goes mainstream

Like most moonshiners, Trey and Bryan Boggs have colorful stories about copper stills, mountain hideaways and “the recipe.” The only difference is they’re able to tell them.

They were the first in South Carolina to get a permit to make legal moonshine in early 2011, although it would take them nearly 18 months to produce their first batch. The two brothers started the business as more of a hobby, but since opening their Palmetto Distillery in Anderson, they’ve been racing to keep up with a demand that far exceeded their expectations. Since then, they’ve opened a store in Myrtle Beach, added moonshine flavors, created pantry items and just introduced their newest product: Palmetto Whiskey.

“It’s been really exciting,” Bryan Boggs said. “It’s been honestly much more than we ever thought.”

Their moonshine career began almost as a fluke. The Boggs boys grew up in Anderson in a family of homebuilders and had been branching out into commercial building. Then, late one night, Trey Boggs read something in the newspaper about a local moonshine bust.

“I started wondering why does the government hate moonshine so much?” he recalled. “And it hit me: taxes. Then I thought, what if we paid the taxes?”

He began scouring the S.C. Department of Revenue’s website and noticed they’d recently changed the law making it easier to open micro-distilleries. He could barely wait for their office to open the next morning.

“I called and said, ‘Ma’am, I want to put in an application for making moonshine,” Trey Boggs said.

The woman laughed and told him he couldn’t do that.

“I said, ‘Well, if you go to section so-and-so-and-so right here, it says I can.’ She said, ‘I’ll be darn, I didn’t know they changed it.’”

That’s when the real work began. Making moonshine requires a still, and to get the actual permit, they had to prove they could produce distilled liquor. So, the Boggs found a fifth generation bootlegger in the Blue Ridge Mountains who made what he called “yard art” in the form of small copper stills and they headed up to talk to him.

Trey Boggs recalled the conversation when he approached him that first time.

“I said, ‘Sir what are the chances you could make me a large piece of yard art?’ He looked at me and asked, ‘Son, are you a revenuer?’ And I said, I’ve got a permit to make legal moonshine.’”

It took some convincing, but the guy agreed to do it. They had to pay him first, go back home, and wait for almost a month before he called and told them it was ready. The brothers then prepared to show the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division they were a legitimate operation. Trey Boggs remembers the SLED officer pulling up outside the old Greyhound station that houses their distillery in downtown Anderson.

“He opens the door, goes in and says, ‘I’ll be damned. There it is. All those 27 years of my career I’ve been chasing these things down and y’all got one right behind the courthouse.’”

As soon as the officer signed off on the permit, the brothers realized they’d need a bigger still.

They went right back up into the mountains.

That original still now sits in the Myrtle Beach store as a piece of Palmetto Moonshine history.

Business has grown so quickly the Boggs have since moved on to bigger copper stills to keep up with production. Their moonshine is now available in 25 states and Canada, with deals in the works for the United Kingdom and other countries. They’ve been strategic in expanding to make sure they can maintain quality control. They’re determined that every bottle of Palmetto Moonshine be made in Anderson.

Over the past few years the legal moonshine business has skyrocketed in South Carolina and elsewhere. While there were just a handful of micro-distilleries just a few years ago, the number has nearly doubled. The South Carolina Department of Revenue lists 27 distilleries throughout the state, but doesn’t break them down by which ones make moonshine. Still, there are a growing number of different brands like Firefly, Dark Corner, and others.

Firefly Distillery’s Scott Newitt and his partner Jim Irvin were the first to lobby South Carolina to change the laws to make it less expensive to open a micro-distillery. They began producing their popular Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka on Wadmalaw Island in 2008, adding moonshine four years later. They are now one of the top moonshine producers in the country. Newitt says the high-proof spirit’s popularity has a lot to do with the “craft” trend.

“I think a lot of things have changed in the last eight to 10 years,” he said. “You know the whole craft spirit, craft distilleries, the craft brewery movement has picked up. And moonshine is America’s original spirit.”

Newitt added that the Moonshiners TV show on the Discovery Channel has also done quite a bit to boost the popularity of “white lightning.”

“I can tell you when the show’s on, I see a spike in my sales.”

Moonshine, usually made with corn, water, sugar and yeast, has a definite “southern appeal” with deep roots in the Appalachian area and across the south.

“I love the history of it, the rebel spirit of it, the mystique of it, just like our customers do.” Bryan Boggs said. “It says a lot about what the south is and I think it’s important to remember where you came from and how you got here.”

He notes that for many, making moonshine was simply a way to make ends meet.

“You know it wasn’t all about outlaws or Al Capone, it was a lot of the way families put food on the table,” Bryan Boggs said.

Coastal Carolina University’s Eldred Prince Jr., an expert in southern history, agrees that families found a way to make corn, so prevalent in this part of the country, more valuable when turned into moonshine.

“A bushel or two or a hundred pounds or whatever, a certain amount of corn could be distilled into whiskey and it would add considerable value,” he said.

For many today, moonshine’s appeal has a lot to do with some of the legendary stories that surround it.

“Some of the early NASCAR drivers such as Junior Johnson and others would modify their cars to run very fast and they would put a barrel or several cases in the trunk of the car from the still and try to drive it into the city to sell it,” Prince said. “And a lot of people in the community didn’t look upon them as criminals. It was more of a Robin Hood kind of thing.”

To stay true to the heritage they honor, the Boggs use an authentic “moonshine” recipe.

“It’s from a bootlegger,” Trey Boggs said. “Obviously we can’t tell you where, but it came from a bootlegger.”

“It really is a simple bootlegger’s recipe,” Bryan Boggs added. “There’s obviously things we do that created the flavor profile we have in our product.”

That flavor profile has proven valuable not only in their moonshine, but in a long list of other products. Trey Boggs says they knew their moonshine would appeal to a younger crowd, but were surprised by the large number of older customers, who don’t drink, but visit the distillery for nostalgic reasons.

“Numerous times we’ve heard, ‘My grandfather used to haul a sack of corn out bird hunting and I never understood why.’ Or, ‘My uncle used to take me down by the river, making moonshine, and this takes me down memory lane.”

For those visitors, Palmetto Moonshine created a wide range of pantry items like jams, jellies, and cornmeal.

To make moonshine more attractive, the Boggs and other distillers offer a wide range of flavors including apple pie, blackberry, peach and others. And more and more, moonshine is being used in cocktails.

This summer, the Boggs added Palmetto Whiskey to the product line. Aged in French oak barrels for two years, the whiskey is part of their continuing effort to promote products that tie-in with southern tradition. They patterned the bottle and flavor profile after that of the South Carolina Dispensary, the state run liquor monopoly that operated from 1893 to 1907.

Their store in Myrtle Beach has become popular with tourists – many who take the South Carolina product home and introduce it to people who normally might not be aware of it. It’s been an added bonus to the Boggs brothers who are proud of what they’ve done to market their state.

“Our whole company’s built on South Carolina products,” Trey Boggs said. “We love South Carolina.”

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 2:35 AM with the headline "Moonshine goes mainstream."