The Many Names

of Moonshine

Moonshine goes by many names, including mountain dew, catdaddy, and hooch. The latter comes from the word hoochinoo, which was the name for liquor distilled from a mash of molasses or sugar, along with flour, potatoes, and yeast, by the Hoochinoo Indians, a Tlingit tribe from Alaska. It’s believed that the Hoochinoo were taught to make the liquor in the late 1800s by a whaling-ship deserter. Old oilcans were used as stills. For the worm, or the part of the distilling apparatus through which steam passes during the liquor-making process, the Alaskan natives used either a musket barrel or the long hollowed-out stem of bull kelp, a common seaweed.

 

Later Moonshine was made in a still, many of which were hidden in desolate areas.  Moonshiners typically distilled and tended to their mash at night in order to avoid discovery by the authorities. The name moonshine originated from the fact that that most of the stills had to be tended to by moonlight. Once the moonshine was bottled it was often marked with a XXX on the jug. The Xs once indicated how many times a batch of moonshine had been run through the still.