Unidentified, Emerts Cove, Tennessee
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[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[U1 = Unidentified speaker 1; U2 = Unidentified Speaker 2; I = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
I: I’d like to know just who you are first, Martin, and where you live, it’s a good way to start off.
U1: Hmm, well, I don’t know, I don’t want to tell you all about that or not, I’d rather they wouldn’t know who it was.
I: [It will] never be used for evidence or anything like that.
U1: I know it.
I: You don’t have to be scared of that, I would never put it out.
U1: I’d rather they wouldn’t know who it was.
I: That’s all right, I guess, just uh tell how the old-timers used to make their whiskey.
U1: Well, they’s, they’s about three, three different ways of making it, and they make, the old timers made it with, with corn, what they made straight corn, they didn’t make no sugar liquor, they put, they’d take a bushel, about a bushel of corn to the sixty-gallon barrel, and a half a bushel of malt corn, and they run it then in a, in what they call single and doubling, they run a, the beer, they’d run hit off in the, put it in a still, run it out without any, they didn’t have any worm or, or any thump keg at that time, and they run it up just through the worm and then after the, they run out the singlings, and then they’d put it all back in the still and run ba- up what they call double, and now the way, way they make it now here, they put in, take maybe half a bushel of meal, fifty pound of sugar to a bar-, to a s- sixty-gallon barrel, and let it, let it work, it works in wintertime, it takes it about seven to ten days in the wintertime, it takes from about from three to five days with fifty pound of sugar, that way you get about, well an average of five gallon whiskey to that if it turns out right.
I: Now how did the thump keg work?
U1: Then that, that thump keg, it takes the place of the s- doubles, s- single and doubling, they, the old timers didn’t have that, you know, and they used uh, they run it twice, made the single and double in this thump keg, it goes between the, the still and the condenser or worm, which would, whichever you use, it goes, goes between, the steam comes from the cap of the still to the thump keg and then down, goes to the bottom of the thump keg, comes, goes in, in at the top of the thump keg into the bottom and then maybe your beer or water, whatever you put in the thump keg, it goes, comes out under this water, and then the steam comes up and then goes out through the worm or condenser, whichever you’re using to condense, you aww, and it takes the place of that singling and doubling, makes it so much faster.
I: Did the law ever raid you while you were making liquor?
U1: Never did to me.
I: Uh where are the best places to make liquor around here? where do they do it, back in the mountains or ... ?
U1: Mountains, well, they did, when they made it here, they’s not very, very little ever made here anymore, close to the Cosby.
I: They make it back in the mountains this way.
U1: Back in the hills and anyplace to get hid.
I: Yeah, yeah, I agree, would you hide your equipment?
U2: All right, in a few minutes then I’ll tell ye.