Keep in mind, in Tennessee, moonshine is legal -- and regulated (despite the legalization, as you might expect, there is still a bit of illegal moonshine being cooked in the rural areas). Our resort invited two of the local moonshine retailers to bring their products to the community house so guests could sample them. In fact, the samplings (on separate days, of course) were scheduled on the resort's daily "activities" calendar for the week. Matt, Lea and I signed up for both samplings, although we made it only to the first. It happened to be one featuring Doc Collier Moonshine, a legal distillery (its downtown Gatlinburg shop window is pictured below).
Doing a moonshine "tasting" was a first for all three of us, and each of us downed everything that Trey from Doc Collier put in front of us. That probably isn't such a great accomplishment, considering the size of the samples (see the receptacle in the photo leading off the post, although that pour is from a whiskey sampling we did at a downtown shop the next day. But they use the same sample receptacle).
Trey started us off with the strongest straight moonshine that Doc Collier' distillery has in stock. He called it the store's "black label" moonshine -- and said it was "120 proof." When we asked the significance of a liquor's "proof," Trey told us that you usually halve a liquor's "proof" to gauge its percentage of alcohol content, which meant that "black label" was (gulp) 60 percent alcohol. Thankfully, we had just a small sample of it; I distinctly remember that it cleared the nostrils.
From that point on, the samples were either flavored or a fruit. For example, Doc Collier sells jars of cherries drenched with moonshine, apparently so people can drop them as a slight "kick" into mixed drinks (or, if you're really daring, consume them solo ... straight out of the bottle).
In addition to the actual cherry, there was a cherry juice moonshine, and moonshines or green briar apple (not bad), root beer float (delicious), banana (ditto), white oak (so-so), and a chocolate peanut butter combo called buckeye (I didn't taste the peanut butter, and was disappointed), watermelon (pretty good) and blackberry (very good). Then Trey started to mix and match at guests' suggestions, and I suggested the root beer float and banana, and ... well, I'll just toss there word "divine" in here. It was my favorite, with the root beer float runnerup.
Matt and I ran into Trey later that day at Doc Collier's shop in downtown Gatlinburg. Trey had promised tours of the distillery's moonshine operation to any resort guests who dropped in on the shop, and he was true to his word. He showed us the modest operation.
Lee Ann and I were at Matt and Mindy's house in Fishers a couple years ago (I can't remember for sure if this was before or after the move to North Carolina in 2017), and Matt and I made a run to a nearby liquor store. When we walked into the store, a couple representatives of Ole Smoky Tennessee Whiskey were offering customers samples of a couple of their products. I've forgotten what one of them was, but I distinctly remember the other one -- salted caramel. I was very impressed and decided to buy a couple bottles of it. Matt liked it, too, and it's kind of become a thing with us when we get together ... downing a shot of Ole Smoky salted caramel.
Neither Matt nor I was aware there would be an Old Smoky shop in Gatlinburg before the trip, so ... we were pleasantly surprised when we came upon it during our stroll through downtown early in our stay in town. We didn't stop in that day, but we came back two days later. I didn't take detailed notes (like I did at the Doc Collier tastings) about the Ole Smoky samples I tried. The ones I remember sticking out in my mind were the amaretto, salted watermelon and apple pie.
Ole Smoky also had a moonshine store in Gatlinburg (separate from the whiskey shop), and Matt's wife had asked that he pick up (and bring home) a couple of jars of moonshine pickles from there. Matt complied.
As always, if you'd like to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog from a mobile device.
Photo geek stuff: Most of the images in this post were taken with my iPhone. A few (those outdoors) were taken with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens. I took three exposures of each shot with the DSLR, which I later melded into one image using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software.
Next up: A final look at the Great Smokies
Previously in this series:
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Ripley's Aquarium
Downtown Gatlinburg
Mynatt Park
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