SCENE & HEARD
Friday, May 18, 2007
Like, um, old times?
2:38 PM
Yes, that was Junior Johnson peddling moonshine in the media center at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Friday. It was just like old times -- well, except for the fact that this time he was selling "legal" moonshine.
The former NASCAR car owner and driver who once did prison time for making and transporting illegal moonshine has teamed with Piedmont Distillers and now is helping promote and sell two brands of the legal stuff: Catdaddy Moonshine and Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine. Johnson is part-owner of the company, the only legal distiller in North Carolina.
"This moonshine here is the Real McCoy," Johnson said. "It's real smooth and pure. It's not the stuff from the old days that was 100 proof and would turn your toenails up or anything like that.”
Asked if it took some of the fun out of it to voluntarily pay taxes on this moonshine, rather than trying to outrun the revenuers like in the old days, Johnson threw back his head with a laugh and said: "I thought about that. But I've got a little better sense now than I did back then. I think it's great to finally get the moonshine to where it's not a crime to have it, to where you can go in a store and buy it or a bar and order it. It just didn't seem like it was something worth going to prison for.
"We just couldn't afford to pay the taxes back in the earlier days; now we can."
Johnson spent a year in a federal prison around 1956 for failing to pay taxes and running an illegal moonshine operation in the hills of rural North Carolina. But he eventually was pardoned for his crime by President Ronald Reagan.
"The pardon I got from President Reagan was the highlight of my life," Johnson said. "I was young when that happened. I was wrong. But I thought I had paid the price after going to jail and then living with it for 35, 40 years."
In a final gesture that indicated how much the times have changed, bottles of the new stuff were then handed out en masse to those in the media center. Alas, this reporter didn't move quickly enough and they were out of the stuff before some could be scored and sampled -- all in the line of duty, of course.
--Joe Menzer
The former NASCAR car owner and driver who once did prison time for making and transporting illegal moonshine has teamed with Piedmont Distillers and now is helping promote and sell two brands of the legal stuff: Catdaddy Moonshine and Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine. Johnson is part-owner of the company, the only legal distiller in North Carolina.
"This moonshine here is the Real McCoy," Johnson said. "It's real smooth and pure. It's not the stuff from the old days that was 100 proof and would turn your toenails up or anything like that.”
Asked if it took some of the fun out of it to voluntarily pay taxes on this moonshine, rather than trying to outrun the revenuers like in the old days, Johnson threw back his head with a laugh and said: "I thought about that. But I've got a little better sense now than I did back then. I think it's great to finally get the moonshine to where it's not a crime to have it, to where you can go in a store and buy it or a bar and order it. It just didn't seem like it was something worth going to prison for.
"We just couldn't afford to pay the taxes back in the earlier days; now we can."
Johnson spent a year in a federal prison around 1956 for failing to pay taxes and running an illegal moonshine operation in the hills of rural North Carolina. But he eventually was pardoned for his crime by President Ronald Reagan.
"The pardon I got from President Reagan was the highlight of my life," Johnson said. "I was young when that happened. I was wrong. But I thought I had paid the price after going to jail and then living with it for 35, 40 years."
In a final gesture that indicated how much the times have changed, bottles of the new stuff were then handed out en masse to those in the media center. Alas, this reporter didn't move quickly enough and they were out of the stuff before some could be scored and sampled -- all in the line of duty, of course.
--Joe Menzer
I think it sucks that you can't watch nextel challange if you can't afford speed channel!!!!!!
BOO and Hiss on the BS thouight
BOO and Hiss on the BS thouight
Nice job
--comments posted from a wireless device
--comments posted from a wireless device
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