Madison Show this week end
General
This article was in today's Charlotte paper:
A newer, legal kind of 'shine
N.C. man leverages 'the juice's' outlaw history and its link to NASCAR
By Anne Blythe anne.blythe@newsobserver.com
MADISON, N.C. Native New Yorker Joe Michalek has spent the past six years trying to make a name for himself as a modern moonshiner, stilling his "boutique 'shines" out in the open, instead of down some dusty road in a moss-draped backwoods hideaway. Nevertheless, the 43-year-old entrepreneur readily admits his smooth, trendy spirits are all the more attractive because they're so steeped in their furtive bootleg beginnings. But Michalek's legal batches of booze, cooked up at Piedmont Distillers, are a far cry from the hooch that bubbled from hidden stills and car radiators - jars and jugs of rotgut that should have come with labels warning of their potential to blind or kill. "People have an infatuation with Prohibition and running liquor and the bootleggers," Michalek said. "And people know it's tied to the history of NASCAR." Michalek, raised mostly in the Bronx, got into the moonshine business after a bit of wheel spinning and sharp turns that led him to Madison, N.C., a town of about 2,500 northwest of Greensboro. There, he became part of a wave of craft distillers making moonshine and other specialty spirits across the country, and one of a handful in North Carolina - including Broadslab Distillery in Benson, which plans to make whiskey, and Troy & Sons, with plans to produce rum and a white corn liquor in Buncombe County. Michalek studied business administration and marketing and came to North Carolina in the 1990s to work at R.J. Reynolds as a marketing executive. Through friendships made then, Michalek got his first taste of moonshine. Moonshine is traditionally corn liquor distilled illegally. Its disparaged image emerged in the Prohibition years of the 1920s, when demand for home-produced alcohol was high. Unscrupulous bootleggers would often cut corners, not only using more sugar than corn for their mash, but also distilling their concoctions in car radiators, adding toxic levels of lead and causing untold fatalities. Though the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 meant alcohol was more tightly regulated and taxed, many Southerners continued to cook up secret recipes. Michalek steeled for his first sip, worried about what might hit his tongue. "It had a bite," he recalls. "It had a certain degree of sweetness, but it tasted like real peaches." That first favorable taste led to others and a preoccupation with what would soon become his occupation. In 2002, after years of sampling illegal moonshine, Michalek decided to get into making "the juice," as he says. Legally. Michalek gathered recipes. He read about distilling. He shopped around for a still and got lucky when he came across one he liked in the old train depot in Madison. The owner, who never followed through with plans to make grappa, a brandy, from local muscadine grapes, had already obtained all the permits necessary to get the still running, sparing Michalek a lot of red tape. In 2005, Michalek bought the whole thing. Michalek's first product, Catdaddy, is a white liquor with a bit of a bite, but a bouquet - if moonshine can have such a flowery description - of nutmeg, vanilla and other winter holiday spices. Through his old contacts at RJR, a group tightly linked to NASCAR, Michalek tried to bring driverJunior Johnson on board. Johnson got his start in racing by carving tricky, hilly roads while running bootleg liquor for his daddy. The NASCAR champion rebuffed Michalek several times. But after he got a taste of Piedmont Distillers' Catdaddy - the best from the still in bootlegger slang - Johnson slipped Michalek an envelope with a recipe. That led to a partnership that produced Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon, the more traditional of the distiller's offerings. Last year, Michalek introduced Midnight Moon Apple Pie, a darker 'shine that's a little sweet and spicy. Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/03/2499940/a-newer-legal-kind-of-shine.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1Tyjv7yCv
