Stills are used in distilling the mash (originally corn) to make liquor. The still is thought to have come to America with early settlers.  Most likely the settlers had already had a taste of good alcohol.  People brewed, fermented, and distilled. Originally moonshine was distilled in stills that had been cobbled together from various bits of barrels, machinery, and more. In later years, some of the bits of machinery even included old, recycled parts from automobiles, tractors, and similar vehicles. While the use of these leftover machinery parts, such as automotive radiators, was immensely clever and practical, such practices did cause problems by sometimes contaminating the moonshine itself. Many moonshiners ran into issues of antifreeze-laced batches and more. Others had issues with the lead that was sometimes used in the metal itself getting leached into the batch during the distillation process.  Additionally, ethanol is also produced by fermentation and distillation processes that are applied to corn. In fact, ethanol can be highly dangerous to humans and toxic if ingested. This is why most moonshiners discarded the first few ounces of alcohol that they made from their condensing processes. Generally, the first few ounces contain the ethanol that has been distilled from the corn. Overall the corn mash generally doesn’t produce a large amount of ethanol, if it produces any at all. However, it’s always best to play it safe. Distillers that wanted to increase the apparent strength of their product often complicated things. These men would often cut their moonshine with other hard alcohols, not all of them recommended for human consumption. As time passed, stills began to be made out of safer material and it is still something that Moonshiners like to experiment with. In the slide show above you can view the evolution of stills.