Volume 43- No. 22
May 31, 2012
by lyle e davis I remember when I was in the Army, stationed at Brooke Army Hospital, in San Antonio, Texas, we had a barracks-mate from Tennessee. His name was Doyle. Time dims the memory as to his last name, but I distinctly remember as though it were yesterday, when Doyle came back from vacation in Tennesse and brought with him a Mason jar of ‘White Lightnin’ - the eternal name for Moonshine. I’ve never been much of a drinker. An occasional cold beer, a glass of wine, maybe a Scotch and soda. But, small drinker that I was, I recognized perfection when I tasted it. This was the smoothest tastin’ stuff I ever did partake of, at least in the alcohol department. That’s as close as I ever got to the moonshine culture. If you really, really, wanted to understand moonshine and its culture, you’d have to consult ‘the old perfesser,’ by his own definition, the finest maker of moonshine there ever was. His name was Marvin Sutton but everyone called him “Popcorn.” He was an American Appalachian moonshiner originally from Maggie Valley, North Carolina. To say that Popcorn Sutton was colorful would be to shortchange him. And Popcorn didn’t like to be short-changed. Sutton's career in bootlegging—and getting caught for it—extended back to the 1970s. Sutton considered moonshine production a legitimate part of his heritage, being as he was ScotsIrish and descended from a The Paper - 760.747.7119
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long line of moonshiners. A scrawny, long-bearded mountain man with a foul mouth and a passing acquaintance with copper tubing and kettles, Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton seemed the embodiment of moonshiners of yore. Brought up in rural Cocke County, Tenn., identified as
one of four "moonshine capitals of the world" in the cornwhiskey history "Mountain Spirits," Mr. Sutton learned the family trade from his father. The practice goes back to the Scots-Irish, who brought it to the New World, and it wasn't illegal until after the Civil War, says Dan Pierce, chairman of the history department at the
University of North Carolina at Asheville. "This is something that legitimately is an expression of the culture of this region," Mr. Pierce says. “He was a short, skinny fella, who always wore his hat—that was kind of his claim to fame, his hat that he always wore.
“Popcorn Sutton” Continued on Page 2