WEBVTT - The Likker King of Appalachia: Popcorn Sutton 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.720 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:05.279 Hi, Sar Elizabeth. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:05.880 How are you. 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:07.400 I'm doing pretty well about you? 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:08.879 I am well good. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:12.080 I like your striped pants. There's like things that they 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:16.000 give to like convicts in the nineteen thirties, a changing 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.760 very fun and ridiculous. It really is. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:26.320 Thank you, Ridiculous Crimes. You know it's ridiculous, Oh man pants. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:28.920 Well, you know how I like history, right, I do 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.479 know that, and I'm often reading about random things, and 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:33.720 so I went down this rabbit hole and I thought 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.479 i'd share it with you. So the founder of the 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.160 Chinese Han Empire, and it's like the ethnic honor the 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.400 largest majority in China. So when they basically took over 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.519 the area and launched the Han Empire, this was like 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.600 two O two BC, right, right, But the guy who 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.040 founded the Han Empire, the first emperor, was this guy 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.400 named Lou Bang or Liu Bang. Right now, if I apologize, 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.160 I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but it's my best I 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:06.360 got so Neo Bang. He was originally just not of 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.000 a nobility, royalty, nothing. It's just this regular guy and 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.200 he gets this job right, taking a bunch of penal 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.200 laborers like so I prisoned workers and he's supposed to 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.920 escort them from a construction site to this other new 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.840 construction site. And while they're going on the journey, some 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.039 of the prisoners escape, right, And according to Keen law 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.640 or you know qi n law, which was the previous empire, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.160 if the prisoners escaped, he would be put to death 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:34.800 as the prison guard. 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:35.000 Right. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:36.560 They're like, you must have been on it. So what 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.960 does he do. He switches sides and he joins the rebels, 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.800 and they're like, man, this guy's good. He's a quick thinker. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:45.959 They make him the leader. And so then from that 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:47.920 point on he joins what ends up being part of 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.000 the rebel army because there's all these warring states in 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.520 China at the time. So he joins his rebel army, 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.000 he works his way up and then he gets into it, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.080 and then they win the fight, and he gets made like, 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.080 you know, one of the many kings of a province. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.240 And then he leads an new revolution or rebellion against 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.920 against the guy who he who rebellion he was helping 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.080 defeats them in like two o two BC and thus 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.000 founds the Han Empire. So the whole Han Empire is 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.399 founded by a guy who was a prison guard who 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.000 when the prisoners escaped, He's like, I'm with you, fellas. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.760 Prison guard to emperor. Yes, that's amazing. 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.280 And this is like the one like when we talk 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.560 about like China extends back. This is the point they're 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.560 talking about other than the Yellow Emperor, which is like 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.560 the real starting point. But this is like when the 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.960 Han Empire. So this is like, you know, China's history was. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:32.680 Basically you're in the long haul. 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.920 I just love that story. I'm with you fellas, like 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.560 they're gonna kill me, so I guess I'm with you, Emperor. Boom, ridiculous. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.480 That's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:44.440 Fighting the revenuers? 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:45.600 Oh yeah, oh. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:03:10.160 Yeah, this is ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:16.760 outrageous capers. Heis and cons It's always always ninety nine 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.800 percent murder free and one percent ridiculous. 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.120 I know you always heard that we. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.720 Talked about moonshiners before. Oh yeah, you have basically homemade 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:28.480 illegal liquor. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:29.919 Yeah, corn liquor, corn liquor. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.040 So when we talk about moonshine, we think about the 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.480 Appalachian region. That's the stronghold. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.080 I think of my dad's family. 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.720 You think your dad's family. Moon Shining in Appalachia has 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.160 a really rich and fascinating history. It's tied to the culture, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.839 the economics, and that like rebel ethos of the communities. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.040 They're outsiders and they know it and then they like 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:54.040 kind of revel in it. 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:55.720 Yes, and it's also, by the way, as I pointed 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.560 out with my dad's family, this is true of Black 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.720 and White and the Apple Asian region. It's like the 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.000 re we all know. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.360 Yeah, totally. So let's start with how Moonshine got its start. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.720 Let me tell you, Saren Scott's Irish immigrants settled in 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.480 the region in the eighteenth century, and they brought with 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.839 them all these old traditions of distilling whiskey from their homelands. 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.480 So remember whiskey with an e is from Ireland or 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.279 the US whiskey with no e is from Scotland. Yes, 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.320 and as Mike Myers used to say in the old 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:34.200 SNL sketch, all things Scottish, if it's not Scottish, it's crap. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.359 Because you know, the Scots aren't the biggest fans of 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:39.040 the English. 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.000 I've heard this, Yeah, nor are the Irish. 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.200 You know, the SNP Scottish National Party has called for 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:49.640 another independence referendum and the Scottish Parliament endorsed it. Labor 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.240 parties against it. So we shall see. And I've heard 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.000 over and over that Scotland and Catalonia will be the 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:00.800 tipping points in terms of independence in Europe, so like 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.880 if they leave the UK and Spain respectively, then all 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.120 these other areas will fill out suit. Anyway, let's go 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.719 back to the seventeen hundred Scott's Irish. They had already 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.919 been operating under a practice of defiance of British taxation, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.360 and illegal distilleries were part of that. So in the US, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.000 the first major flash point was in seventeen ninety one, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:30.160 Alexander Hamilton pushed through this federal excise tax on whiskey 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.080 with any He wanted to find a way to pay 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.560 down all that Revolutionary War debt, and so in the 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:41.880 Appalachian region, whiskey wasn't like just some tipple that was currency. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.240 Yeah, they used it to pay things like this is 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:45.920 a standing bit of Congress. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.840 Yeah, because if there's a surplus of grain, especially corn, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:50.920 they had to use it or lose it. So it 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.400 doesn't keep and it takes up a ton of room. 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.119 But if you distill it into liquor, you can solve 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.880 both of those problems. It's you know, store, it's keeps longer, 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.880 totally make new friends. So this new tax would have 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.440 like absolutely wrecked the economy in Appalachia. You had to 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.920 pay the tax in cash, and they didn't have cash. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.239 They just had hooch. The good folks of the mountains 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.800 weren't having it. And thus was born the Whiskey Rebellion 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.240 of seventeen ninety four Western Pennsylvania. So all these armed 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.880 dissidents they attacked and they burned the house of the 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:32.560 regional federal tax collector guy, and then four hundred armed 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.159 rebels marched on Pittsburgh. And the powers that be they're terrified, like, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.520 we're gonna have a revolt. This is no good revolt. Yeah, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:46.320 So President Washington he invoked the Militia Act of seventeen. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:47.479 Ninety two, calling out the militia. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.680 They called up the state militias from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.360 Come on, boys. In the fall of seventeen ninety four, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:02.599 Washington led thirteen thousand Delitia men into western Pennsylvania. So 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.840 let's back up a second. Four hundred armed rebels, thirteen 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:07.920 thousand militia men. 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:09.800 I know they got long rifles, but that's going to 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:10.760 be a wha. Yeah. 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:11.040 Yeah. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.160 That was actually the only time a sitting US president 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.920 has ever led troops in the field. And then it's 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.080 all talk after that. And so this shut the rebellion 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.280 down with a quickness. Obviously, one hundred and fifty rebels 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.720 were arrested, two got convicted of treason, but they were 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.960 later pardoned and the tax stood. Then we're going to 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.040 jump forward eighteen sixty two the Revenue Act, and that 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.560 was passed to fund the Civil War, like we're constantly 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:39.840 just taxing to fund these wars. It reimposed these super 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.480 steep federal taxes on alcohol, and so that is when 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:49.320 the super large scale moonshining took root in Appalachia. Federal 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.040 revenuers as they called them, tax enforcement agents, started raiding stills, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.760 and it was mountain communities versus the Feds. There are 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.280 a lot of families who had distilled openly for generations 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:06.360 and now they're outlaws. So poor farming families in remote hollows, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.280 and like you said, black or white they were selling 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.160 liquor as the only reliable source of cash income, and 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.760 the recipes and the techniques were really closely guarded family secrets, 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.320 and each one had its own sort of quality or character. 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.320 And then also, you know, making your own whiskey fit 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.480 right in with the region's value of independence and like 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.920 the distrust of outside authority. 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.920 Totally, and also a connection like both of the land 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:33.760 and with the tradition of your family. So it's like, 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:34.560 who are you to get. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:39.560 Involved the exactly. And then prohibition came and so that 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.760 was championed by Protestant temperance movements in the region. Yeah, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.600 but it was also this cash cow for the Moonshiners. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.599 They're like, we love prot Yeah sure, so they're the 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.840 demand for illegal mountain made whiskey just skyrock yeah. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.960 Them and the Canadians were like, okay, I love this. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.160 So we had these like one small family stills in 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.079 the Holler are suddenly shipping out to big cities Chicago, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.480 New York. The criming became organized, and so you once 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.920 had a bartering tool, now it's just a straight up industry. 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:17.360 Prohibition ends, but the fight with the government continues. So 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.920 booze was legal right all of a sudden, But the 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:24.240 stills were still operating outside the law, and there was 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.880 this like total cat and mouse game between the ATF 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.520 that was called the Alcohol Tax Unit. Then and all 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:35.960 these Appalachian moonshiners agents were staging huge raids moonshiners. They 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.120 had to get more and more clever. They hid the 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.559 stills deep in the woods. They had these really elaborate 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.880 warning systems, and then they developed fast cars to outrun 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.439 the law on delivery runs. And thus was born NASCAR. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.480 Go Watch Thunder Road to Robert Mitchell. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.119 Yeah, because they souped up their cars to outrun the revenuers. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.160 But then they just started racing each other. That's the 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.880 natural instinct for and bragging rights. So by the seventies 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:08.559 and eighties, nineteen seventies and eighties, improved roads, economic development programs, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.720 changing culture, Like we're kind of bringing about like the 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.959 death knell to traditional moonshining. So this romantic outlaw image 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:23.440 was fading as the practice became more associated with organized crime. Still, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.720 no pun intended. Moonshining shaped the culture in these really 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.520 lasting ways. It influenced the music. There are a ton 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.360 of folk and countryside County, oh Yeah, I'll celebrate in 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.719 the moonshiner And it's in the storytelling, It's in this 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.800 culture of resistance to authority. It's in the cuisine. You know, 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:47.480 corn is like central to Mountain food ways. Moonshining holds 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.960 on as one of the most evocative symbols of Appalachian identity. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.640 And I was pondering this, Sarin. Yeah, I was like 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.880 thinking about how it's at this crossroads of ingenuity, pop 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.160 independence and defiance, and that's kind of where we get 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:10.760 like the best American stuff. So some former moonshiners decided 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.800 to go legit. So you had states like Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:21.240 and Kentucky. They issued craft distillery licenses and Appleachian moonshine 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.240 became this like marketable brand. The mystique of that old 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.839 tradition gets reclaimed as heritage rather than criminality. And one 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.000 such man who went from outlaw to law abider to 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.640 outlaw is the guy I want to tell you about today. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:42.480 To outlaw Zarin, Meet Marvin Popcorn Sutton. 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.200 Get out of town Wi Hopcornton Hopcorn Sutton. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.719 He was born in nineteen forty se Joe Biden besties 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:53.560 Total besties, popcorn. They fought, pulled out blades. 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.280 He was born to go back to Delaware. 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.760 He was born in nineteen forty six in Maggie Valley, 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.560 North Carolina. And that's sort of between Asheville, North Carolina 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:08.760 and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Yeah, right next to Great Smoky 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.440 Mountains National Park. And it was originally Cherokee Country. So 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.600 according to the Assembly magazine quote, his family had been 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.760 in western North Carolina in the area of Hemphill and Kataluchi, 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.160 as he put it in one interview, quote, as long 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.079 as time lasted. And so they lived off the land. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.880 These people were just farming to survive, and they were 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.480 just like their neighbors all up and down the hallers. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.720 His dad took whatever little gigs he could get. The 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.600 mom kept the home. She would churn butter and trade 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.600 that for groceries. In Waynesville, North Carolina, which was the 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.760 next biggest town, and that was the county seat. Today 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.400 that Waynesville has a population of like ten thousand people. 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.400 And that's the big one, that's the big rural. Yeah, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.240 kids had to work too, popcorn quote. Grew up pulling 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:04.160 weeds for home and picking tomatoes for fifteen cents an hour. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.959 Yeah, yeah, not even by like the amount he pulls, No. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.280 By the hour. So Maggie Valley, which has a population 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.880 of about seventeen hundred people today, that at the time 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.840 was pretty much a crossroads. And now it's been developed 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.480 out first in the sixties because they put in an 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.720 amusement park, an amusement that closed in two thousand and three, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.360 but then as the Chattaloochi Ski Area. That's the entry 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.719 point to it. So that's where they get, like there's motels. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.160 And all that the beginning of the tourists. 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.800 Yes, yes, but back when popcorn was a pop there 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.120 was only a small store which had one phone located 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.000 within the store. That was the one phone in two Yeah, 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.880 popcorn told people that the only time anyone used it 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.760 was to ring up the undertaker when someone died. It 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.439 was like the sole purpose of the phone. So there 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.679 is young Popcorn in Maggie Valley. When he was just 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:03.360 five years old, he was taught a trade. Five moonshininge. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.160 That's how old he was when someone took him to 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:07.960 learn how to make this stuff. By the time he 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.640 was six, he's like world weary. He was smoking cigarettes 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.960 six years old. Six years old, so then by the 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.120 time he s double shift by the time he's sixteen. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:20.760 Basically he decided to make a go of it and 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:25.600 distill his own brand of moonshine. Sixteen, he was years 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.280 into the year. He was not very good at it. 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.880 Those eleven years of instruction apparently didn't help. He called 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.720 it liquor. Oh wow, maybe that's why it didn't do 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.440 too well. But he wanted to get it right. He 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.840 decided to seriously work in the tradition of his daddy 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.640 and his daddy's daddy. Oh Graham peppy. Yeah, So he 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.440 decided to go like super old school with it. He 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.880 heated it with wood, he balanced out the heat using 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.400 fresh stream water. It was very much of the land 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:57.920 that was on like a sense of place totally, which 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.040 is kind of like Scottish whiskey about saying, yeah, the 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.120 terror aspects exactly in the process and in the materials 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.040 right right. And so this is how the og Scots 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.400 Irish did it. And I do need to note that 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.720 these aren't really Irish. There's Scots who were kind of 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.640 pushed out by the English. To quote settle in the 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.400 Ulster provinces in Ireland was to say, conquered Northern Ireland, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.000 Northern Ireland, but then they got pushed out of the 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:25.880 Ulster Counties. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.480 You've seen the cool maps they do where people got 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.440 to settle in Americas from the Aisles. You see, like 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.240 this big arrow go right from there to the Appolis exactly. 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.840 So, like the Scots were in the Ulster Counties and 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.640 they're starving. The Catholics don't want them there, and the 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.040 Anglicans who ran the place didn't want them there either. 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.760 No one wanted them. So they ran off to the 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.920 American colonies and no one wanted them there. Yeah, and 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.320 so they headed for the hills like Appalachian Piedmont regions. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.320 It was rough living and that's when they like really 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.360 developed backwoods living. You know, corn liquor because they didn't 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.120 have barley like they'd use, you know in Ireland. So 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.320 corn liquor was medicine. It was currency. And now we 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.720 got popcorn. So now popcorn is around twenty years old, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:16.000 and he had perfected his liquor and he was distilling 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.120 full time. And that's around the time that he earned 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.040 his nickname. According to the Assembly quote, around the same 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.920 time he picked up a fitting nickname for a corn 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.840 whiskey distiller when he attacked a coin operated popcorn machine 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.640 in a bar after it stole his dime. He snatched 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.840 up a pool cue and showed the damn thing what 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.600 he thought about it. It cost him fifty dollars and 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.480 earned him a nickname he would use for the rest 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.600 of his life. So let's stop there for an ad 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.360 They're like, corn all a good popcorn over there, whooping 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.080 on that machine. So we're gonna stop for an ad. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.360 Our very own revenuers. This is the tax that we 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.480 all pay to listen to these tales of criminality. If 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.280 you think about it, and when we return, pop corn 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:00.920 gets popping. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.240 Zaren Elizabeth thereon right. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.040 It's nineteen sixties, okay, that's where we are right now. 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.960 That's when Popcorn Sutton hit his stride making the legal 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.360 hoops in Appalachia. He got away with it for a bit, 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.320 but then he got busted. In the early seventies. 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.920 He was like deep in the woods, oh yeah, because 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:40.959 you can always think and see the if you're burning 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.919 the fire, wach you're still the smoke will go up. 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:45.440 So they used to look for the smoke in the woods. 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.320 You like that shouldn't be got to go like way. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.600 Oh yeah, so per the Greenville Sun quote. In nineteen 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.159 seventy five, Sutton was convicted in US District court on 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.359 numerous federal charges relating to the manufacturing and possession of 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:05.320 an unregistered still, having distilling apparatus, and untaxed liquor. He 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.320 was given probation not good. Yeah, And then he got 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.399 pinched again in nineteen eighty and this time it was 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.480 on a felony drug offense. He got a five year 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:15.399 suspended sentence. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:16.399 Do you know what the drug was? 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.600 I'm going to guess weed, so he. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:21.560 Said, nineteen eighty so I had to open up, yeah, 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:22.800 right to the floor. Question. 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.359 He got five years suspended sentence. That's not bad. And 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.119 then five years later he actually went to prison for 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.240 the first time. Nineteen eighty five, he got convicted of 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.480 assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:39.560 Was another Sikes popcorn machine. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:45.840 I think it was a human popcorn. Enough, he's back out. 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.840 So during the eighties and nineties, he like late eighties nineties, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.280 he went somewhat legit. He ran a junk shop on 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.720 the outskirts of Cherokee, North Carolina. And when I say 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.480 junk shop, I'm talking like old appliances, all these old 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:02.159 dusty bottles. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.200 Folk arts, like stuff in a parking lot. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.440 Basically old fill in the blank. 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.879 Yeah. Yeah, it's like this still got some life in it. 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.000 Yes, And you know it's like a dusty store. You 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.400 walk in and immediately you're like sneezing. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:14.840 In nineteen eighty seven printer and he's like, you still 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.000 got some life in it. You used matrix. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.879 Like stores like this litter the rural South. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.920 Oh yeah, they're not. They're little central California. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.520 And like more eclectic neighborhoods elsewhere, but they're in essence 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.520 dust factor. Yes, let's just be real. And so in 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.080 addition to selling all this old stuff, though, he also 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:36.280 sold new bruise. 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:38.440 New bruise bottles. 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.400 Of moonshine were sold out of the back of the store. 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.200 So it's kind of like this speakeasy setup. You had 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:44.840 to know that he had it, and he had to 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.440 trust that you were cool about it. But then someone 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.600 squealed and the revenue one revenuers came a colin, you know, 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.880 someone I'm going to get you nineteen ninety. 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:55.920 Eight damn revenue. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.200 Uh, And they hit the jack pot in that picker's 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.640 paradise in the store, they came across popcorn still and 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:07.359 sixty gallons of white lightning. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.200 He had to still in his store, like in the basement. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.720 So, according to the Smoky Mountains National Park Blog, yes, quote, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.639 while operating a distilling unit and selling illegal alcohol is 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.560 a felony punishable by up to five years in prison 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.520 and a fine up to ten thousand dollars. Popcorn Suddon 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.920 was not initially sent to jail. The judge instead put 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.159 him on probation and offered him an out with a 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:33.280 suspended sentence. 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.600 You know, fair enough, hard well, there. 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.120 Must have been something really charming about old Popcorn. 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:40.840 I was wondering. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.879 And when you look at his picture, you see that 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.560 he's every inch the stereotypical old moonshiner. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:48.680 Does he even have the long beard? 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.600 Oh yeah, there's this one shot of him. He's like 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.639 sitting in a chair, he's holding a jar moonshine, and 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:59.040 he looks like an Appalachian philosopher king. Okay, he looks 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:03.359 like he lost a bet with a taxidermist because his 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.880 hat is like this leather contraption that a raccoon died 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.040 on top of, and it's decorated with feathers that were 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.159 stolen from a parrot who was probably like relieved to 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.240 be rid of them. And you talked about like the 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.080 long beard. The beard is less facial hair and more 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.359 like this separate living entity that has decided to colonize 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:29.640 his entire chest. It's just like it's like playing risk. 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:30.600 Just creeping down. 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.960 It's like a tumbleweed that settled down and like got 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.960 married and raised a family there. And then he's got 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.080 these overalls on. Right, It's like that's the official uniform 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:45.719 of men who have zero interest in your opinions. So 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.280 many pairs of overalls he's got, like the plaid flannel shirts. 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.000 There's forty seven different colors and none of them were coordinated. 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.840 And to be together, it's Phil Billie's chic. He's iconic. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.880 So I can see how people just couldn't make themselves 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.840 commit this character the jail. You need him in town, yes, 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:05.639 And he was a well known local. 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.320 Character as a local color and through. 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.439 The Assembly magazine describes him as sort of holding court 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.760 in his junk shop. Nice and per the New York 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.960 Times quote, he lived in a cluttered cabin on a 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.480 wooded hill, where he also built his stills, gave pistols 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.040 to the incoming sheriffs, and fathered so many children that 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.840 no one has any idea of the exact accounting. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:32.080 Fathered so many children, really using the word father, little colonels, 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:37.200 colonels throughout the countries, the children like a biblical spreading seed. 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:42.359 I've made all kinds of liquor in my time, Hapcorn says, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.840