Chapter Eight
“CLEAN YOUR KETTLE,
START A FIRE”
Mary Wood Shiflett:
Now you want to know how we make the apple butter. Alright. You take and peel six bushels of apples. Cut off. You cut 'em off the core. And then you take and put your pot on. You put three water buckets of water in your kettle. That's to keep your butter from burning. And then you get your fire under your pot. And then when the water begins to get hot, I feed in a bushel of cut off apples. And then I let that come to kindly of a boil. And I stir it all the time. I don't let the apples set in there because I don't want it to cancre. You have to stir those pots all the time. When you first feed your apples you have to stir your kettle. And then I feed on until I feed those six bushels of apples up. And then after I feed those apples up and I cook those apples till they're just like applesauce -- there are no little pieces of apple in it -- I put a hundred pounds of sugar in. Feed the sugar in till I get a hundred pound sack in the pot. And then I let it cook then until this apple butter begins to get done. And we take it out -- take us out a couple o' spoons of apple butter out of the pot and try it in saucers to see if it's done. And whenever you dip up a spoonful and hold the spoon up like that and it don't drop down it's done. Then we put our flavor in. Pull the fire out and begin to dip it up and put it in your containers. We put two bottles of cinnamon and one of oil of cloves. I do. Some people puts all of one kind. They'll either put all cloves or they'll put all cinnamon, but I like two bottles of cinnamon and one bottle of cloves in it. We take up anywhere from 28 to 30 gallons out of the kettle out there but we got a full pot when we take it up. Well, one year the highest I ever made I made eight kettles, but I didn't make 'em all for myself. I made three kettles for myself and we had a big orchard man -- over here, Mr. Hayden, he died here this last year -- and I made five kettles for him. And he's the one that's takin' my picture and the man, the photographer, broke the camera. And he had a big picture made of me stirrin' this pot out here, the steam just flyin', you know. It was kinda cool, and you could just see the steam comin' off that apple butter. And that fire underneath there and the smoke a-rollin'. Oh, it was a real good picture. But my sister came home and I let her take the picture back to show the people down in Maryland how that they made the apple butter back here. 'Cause a lot of people like to come to Virginia and I have one sheriff here in Charlottesville, he buys anywhere from 17 to 18 gallons of apple butter a year from me -- just that one man. He said, I get me enough to last until you make again. So I sell quite a lot of my apple butter and I keep right much of it. But make two to three kettles a year and I just plan this year just to make around two kettles for myself. But it's mighty nice when you get it done. Get it all in them pots and that snow a-flyin', you can just eat them hot biscuits and that apple butter and butter.
We make every year when the Winesaps gets ripe. I like Winesaps and Stamin. Now the old gentleman over there that got me to make all of his apple butter, he likes the Pippin. He loved the Pippin apple butter, and he called that a very rare apple butter because he like to put it on market, you see. He had all o' his apple butter put in quart jars and I made him a hundred and some quarts in one week of apple butter and put all in quart jars for him.
So we'll be making apple butter again pretty soon now, sometime next month in October -- October or November.
Frankie Morris:
Oh, yeah. We used to have apple butter boilin's in the fall. When the apples get ripe we just gather the apples off and then have people to help us peel 'em. Then after we git the apples peeled, we git ready for the boilin' and people comes back and helps us boil it.
Well, them that you would ask would git together at different places. Just like I was gonna make butter and I would ask Dave's folks and Charley's folks and Sam's folks, just whoever I asked to help. Then when they'd make they'd do the same. They'd turn around and ask you back.
Long time ago it used to be a whole lot of people would they git together to do that but they don't do that 'ny more. There're not as many young people and we don't have very many. Just enough to help. Well, you peel your apples and then you got to git your kettle ready and wash your apples and put 'em in the kettle and mush for awhile. Squash 'em up and stir 'em up. Let 'em boil. You couldn't put 'em all in at the time, you see, and so as they boil and go down you keep feedin' in fresh apples 'til you git all the apples in and then you have to boil 'em 'til you think it's apple butter. Then when you think it's apple butter just put out your fire and then put your seasonin' in.
Just keep stirrin' and mashin' till it gits all beat down. And they'd take turns doing that. It'd be hard for one. And the rest of 'em would dance and talk and sing. If it was a big crowd, the rest of 'em had fun. They'd go back out and stir and help the rest of 'em stir awhile and then go back. They'd take turns.
Besides apple butter, well, they made preserves of damsons, peaches, all kinda fruits. They used to put 'em up in pots, you see. They had to put five pounds of sugar to one gallon 'cause they didn't have cans like we have now. And they had to put that sugar to keep 'em so they could just put 'em in a open pot and tie 'em over. Just put paper or cloth over it and tie it over it to keep ever'thing out of it. But that sugar would keep a gallon -- if you put five pounds to the gallon it would keep. They did that with all different kinda fruits. Boiled it down 'til the syrup was thick enough to keep it.
About pickles and things like that, I remember you make cucumbers and then take and cut 'em over night. Well, in that time they did, they cut 'em over night and let 'em stay in salt water over night and then take 'em up next mornin', put 'em in sugar and vinegar, then put 'em in cans. But in olden times, in my growin' up, they put 'em in big five gallon jars and put salt enough to 'em to keep 'em. And then when they wanted to eat 'em, go take 'em out of that salt and soak 'em and put 'em in vinegar like they wanted. Not cook 'em at all. Just kept them in brine. Let the water come up over 'em. If you didn't it would turn dark. They were just as nice when spring come as they were when you put 'em in there if you kept that brine over 'em. And pickle beans. Now my sisters have made pickle beans, but I didn't 'cause I don't like 'em. They put them in a jar, whatever jar she wanted, and put a egg in there, and when that egg come to the top the water was salty enough to keep them beans. That was the way to test the brine. When the egg come to the top, the brine was salty enough to keep the beans.
Things like corn and some kinds of fruits and things like that, they used to just dry 'em. They dried corn and they dried apples and cherries. In my growin' up they did that more than they did cannin', but then that's the only way they had to keep it. Pumpkin. I seed 'em have sticks 'bout a yard and a half long and cut that pumpkin 'round you know and then hang it out in a place that nothin' couldn't git on it and then dry it and then when they got ready to cook it they'd just cut it up and just cook it. Corn. We used to take corn and had a mortar 'bout this tall and then a pestle with a big long iron wedge this long and then we'd make hominy. I tried it. I never was big enough to do much of it, but I tried it.
Nora Shiflett:
They dried peaches and cherries, sweet potatoes and apples, blackberries, beans -- green beans -- would all be dried for winter use. We would make dryers. You would go to the woods and skin bark off of a green tree. You'd had to git it early in the spring before it would stick, you know. The bark sticks. They would go and peel this off -- most would be poplar or hick'ry - - and strip this bark and take a strip and nail at each end to hold it down so it'd be flat. And then lay them in the sun, let 'em dry and then you just had sump'n to spread things on and set where you please out in the sun to dry. And that's the way they dried things, in the sun.
They buried potatoes in the ground and they buried cabbage and they buried apples. But they couldn't keep the apples or turnips 'til late in the spring; they'd lose their flavor. And the way they buried cabbage, they would dig a trench-like in the ground, like a little ditch, and set a row of cabbage. And then you'd cut your next trench -- you'd cover that row up -- and the next trench you'd cover that up 'til you had your whole bed of cabbage buried. They'd stay just fresh in the ground but it had to be done late in the fall, in November. And they would stay there. I have seen cabbage myself at my own home be taken up in March and be just as tender and fresh as the day when you put 'em in there.
Used to keep things cool in the spring house, too. You would keep your milk in the spring house and when you would cook food that you'd want to keep over, you'd carry that down and put whatever you meant to in the spring house in stone jars and glass jars and set it in the water. From one day to another you could keep cooked foods, you know, like beans or fruit that you wanted to use for next day.
Now when they fixed this dried food, they just take and wash it in nice clean water and go ahead and cook it. Eat the dried cherries or the dried berries if you wanted 'em just like they were or with sugar. And another thing that the mountain people liked, most of 'em did, was huntin' -- night huntin'. Go coon huntin' or possum huntin'. Hunt with dogs, yea. It's a sport yet, but it used to be differ'nt to what it is now. Used to go out and night hunt. My father did a lotta that. They would eat possums. Oh yea, et 'em. Anyone else want some, give 'em some. Most of the old people liked 'em. Take and roast 'em with sweet potatoes.
Did you ever hear of bee huntin'? They would trail the bee up, you know. Put the bait out one place. Well, you git 'em to come in there -- the bee would come to the bait -- and then you'd go so far and move the bait and then when you git near the tree, they all said that the bees would just swarm the bait and you know you was near the tree then. You could just git out and find it. Find three hundred pounds of honey in a tree. They git the honey outa the tree. Git you a smoker, cut the tree down and smoke 'em, and take it away from 'em. A smoker was sump'n 'bout the size of this and made kinda like a hand garden spray pump. Whatever kinda fuel you used, rags or somethin', and make this smoke to scare the bees away, and then take it out.
You used to git stung though, right smart. Yea. Pappa did. They'd sting him all over but he wouldn't sweat a minute. It didn't hurt him. He'd git stung but just didn't care. And they use the honey to sweeten food, yea, and have biscuits with honey and butter. Mostly the old people like it to eat and then they'd use it in the winter for colds with the children or themselves. They'd take it to home and mostly put it in bitty tin cans or in glass jars and seal it up and keep it for winter. Put you a little moonshine in it and sweeten it up and take it. It 'as good for a cold.
They could make moonshine out a honey. Oh yea! And make persimmon beer. They would take the persimmons -- you know what they are -- gather them up and put 'em in a barrel and take some nice clean wheat straw and put it in that barrel at the bottom and, you know, pack around a little bit and bake some brown cornbread and put in there with it. Make it ferment and sour and it would git in a state that was beer. Somethin' like the way you make strong drink, that's the way it was made. It wasn't distilled or nothin like that. Just drink it from the barrel after it got to a certain age, and some people these days likes that too, persimmon beer. Nobody much don't make it, but they used to drink it.
Lloyd Powell:
You know we drink sass'ras tea every spring of the year. Gettin' long yonder, you dig it out 'bout March on up until April, till it commence gettin' buds on the bushes; then it gets kinda bitter after sap gets up in the bud part when they're buddin' out and the leaves begin to start on bloomin'; you don't dig it then. You dig the roots up out the ground and peel the bark off of the roots. Put that in a pan or sump'n and pour boilin' water and then let it set so many minutes, and then that makes tea. Strain it; pour it in the cup; put sugar in it and drink -- I liked it. Hmmmm. Sassafras tea. I don't know that it make you feel better. I just had it for the saying. But every Spring, most all these mountain people 'round through here used to dig sass'ras roots and make 'em sass'ras tea.
Mervin Sandridge:
I don't think there's nobody in this mountain that couldn't tell you how moonshine was made. Ev'rybody made it; ev'rybody sold it. At them times they just thought you couldn't get along if you didn't have that moonshine, you know, but I see today we're eatin' just the same. Yes sir, I have run as much as two stills at one time. Put on two and put 'em on by myself and take 'em off by myself. But that's when I had the power. I was just up in my twenties then, so I could just throw a sack of sugar on my back, tote it right on over in the mountains. I could tote ten gallons of liquor, bring it right on back. Get myself a big tub and take it down. Shake it up and watch it bead. That's the way we done that. Yes sir, we could tell you all about moonshinin'. . .
Different ones made the stills. Made 'em out of copper like a big apple butter pot. That's what they made it out of. And some people has used those apple butter kettles to make whiskey in, but I always thought they were too valuable to take a apple butter kettle and put it out for maybe the law to catch it.
Talkin' about moonshine and makin' moonshine, they didn't make it so much outa corn. No. They made it outa rye and sugar here. People around here didn't grow enough corn to feed the hosses, much less make liquor out of it. Now down in Georgia, I believe, where they used to make a lot of corn liquor -- used to grow a lot of corn. And they'd use corn where we'd use rye. You can make rye. No trouble to buy rye or to grow it. And you take rye and your sugar, put it in your barrel and work it 'til it made rye liquor.
That's called a hen barrel. Yea. That's right. I reckon where they got the name of the hen barrel was feedin' -- see, you'd put in your rye and you'd make that twice, then you'd git all that rye out and you'd feed that to your chickens, then you'd put in new rye. Some people used to make it three and fo' times off the rye.
Well, you put new water ev'ry time you work it. You take a regular fifty-gallon barrel. You put in a bushel of rye and fifty pounds of sugar. Then you'd warm that to start out. That wouldn't fill up the barrel. Fill it up with water. Right up to the top. Then you'd have to warm your water. You'd put on a tub and then you'd heat your water and git it warm just -- not hot, but just warm. Then when that sugar and rye, it start workin', then all that stuff'd come up to the top -- your rye and your stuff -- and it would just bubble. Then work it that way about three or fo' days. Then when all your rye and stuff went down from your top -- went back down in the bottom and settled, it was ready to make. And then you'd dip that out and put it in your still. That was your mash.
You stir that from time to time. Keep stirrin', mixin' the sugar and the grain. You mix it all up then, well, like you'd settle it today you'd go back tomorrow and if it was workin' -- bubblin' -- you'd stir it and just leave it and go back the next day and stir it again. But if it weren't workin', you didn't have it warm enough. You'd have to dip it all out and put it in the tub and warm it again and put it back in there again. Oh, it was a job makin' liquor. That was in wintertime -- cold weather. Cold weather -- anytime. You had to warm it anytime you set it when you first started but after that -- it makes its own heat. But then when the grain would fall to the bottom, then it was time to still it. You dip off all of that down to your rye of your whole barrel. You don't want a git no rye in it -- you leave the rye in the barrel. Put it in your still. Then you run that off. We've had high as sixteen barrels settin' in one place. First you'd run off all what they call the low wine. Then you'd run it again until it quit beadin'. Pour it in a can and shake it, then when the beads would leave, well, you'd stop runnin' it. You'd take the cap off, dump that out. Then you run all your barrels of it like that. Then you'd run out all your low wine. About four and a half gallons would be all that you'd get out of a barrel. But sometimes we had stills hold as much as fo' barrels, but most the time they hold around two or three barrels. That's about as big as we'd make 'em.
When you first start it, it'd run good so you wouldn't have to worry about it 'til you run off about fo' gallons. It would always bead up 'til then but then after it got over fo' gallons, ev'ry time you run about a quart, see, then you'd just keep a-checkin'. You'd check it in a can. You'd shake it, then when you stopped shakin', it would still hold the bead all the way around, well, you'd run another quart. And you'd run it until you shake it and it stopped beadin'. Well, when it stopped beadin' it's gittin' too weak. Well, when you've shaken it, it'll bead. And just time you stop shakin', your beads just leaves, see. That's when it's time to stop 'cause you ain't got no more alcohol in it.
And then you pour out what was left in the still -- just throw it away. All you git off that is just the steam. Then after you run off all your barrels thataway, then you take all your low wine, put it back in your still and run that until it stop beadin'. Then that's what you call double liquor -- your pure alcohol, pure liquor.
And that was white. Just as clear as water. Fill a can full and hold it up and never look to a light and you couldn't see anything. It was just as clear as crystal. When you'd shake it up and the little bubbles would stay all around it and if you shake it and the bubble didn't stay there -- all your bubbles would leave -- it would have to be under 90 proof. We used to have testers. We'd run all that liquor off like that. Your last doublin', you'd run off and as it quit beadin', we'd take it off. Well, then we'd take all that liquor home or maybe do it there, have a clean barrel just to do it in. Take all that liquor and dump it in the barrel and drop your liquor tester in it and that thing would tell you 'xactly how strong it was. Maybe it'd be a 120 or a 130 and maybe a 140. Well, then you'd pour maybe a half a gallon of water in it. Then you'd stir and stir and stir it and drop your tester back in it again and maybe that'd bring it down to a 120. Well, then you'd drop another half gallon of water in it. Then you'd stir and stir. We'd always git it down to a 100 proof. That's what you tried for, tried for a 100 proof.
Now if whiskey's too strong when you shake it, the bubbles in the bead are big -- they come up real big -- and then as you git weaker and weaker by addin' water, says, soon it would come up and each bubble would break in half. They'd git smaller and each bubble'd break in half and stay. And that's when you're about a 100 proof. And then if you got too weak and you shook it up, it would just git like foamy on top like beer, or it would just like make little bubbles; it wouldn't stay. Shake it full of bubbles and they would all disappear. They would just leave. It wouldn't hold a bubble at all. Like if you shook water. Like you shake water, finally all of your bubbles would leave. But if it was a 100 proof or maybe 95, they'll stay a good long while around the rim of ajar. They just stick there and stay there. If there was 'ary a big one, you'd see it bust and divide and they was just like a row of beads all the way around the top of that can. They wouldn't hold in the middle; they'd just hold around the edge.
They used to use darn near ev'rything, though; I mean they used peaches and apples. Oh yeah. Well, we used to make some apple and some peach. We used to take rye and sugar and peaches. And you'd have to seed your peaches 'cause seeds would make it bitter. And you'd put peaches this time you make it, and new rye. Well, then the next time you make it, you didn't have to add peaches. You could make it next time off of just the rye. You'd git the same flavor out of that rye you did out the peaches. Then you can fill that same barrel up with water again without changin' the rye and do that for a couple times. We'd always do it twice. Sometimes we'd do it three times.
And the whiskey don't change its flavor the second time. Well, not the second but then if you would go over three times, then it did. You wouldn't git as much, say, if you run fo' gallons out of a barrel the first time but then after that you'd drop down, see. It'd be weaker. But the same bushel of rye could make two barrels easy. You have to put fresh sugar in ev'ry time. Fifty pounds of sugar ev'ry time you would set it. Lord, I've made a many and many a gallon. Never got caught at it, but I come blame near it. They caught nine in one day, and I's the only one got away. There was ten of us and I was the only one got away.
They got set up. Oh yea. All of 'em -- well, there was two women got caught that day. They let them off. They just went to notify the ones that was makin' it and they let them off, but the rest of 'em got six months apiece. Well, my daddy, he got caught; they got him. They let him off 'cause Mother, she was down sick. The doctor got him off.
That was right here, right in sight here. They had some shootin' scrapes up there in Bacon Hollow with the Federals. Oh God, they used to -- the law used not to go up there. We were makin' liquor back in the 30's, but they made all the liquor they wanted. Didn't no law go up there. They's afraid to go. But they weren't afraid to come around here. God, they used to come in here and git all your barrels. Break up your stills if they found 'em. Most of the time the only thing they'd git, your barrels. When you'd finish makin' it, you'd always take your still and ev'rything and hide it. They made those stills out of copper. What'd they do? They'd have a tub and a cap and the coil. The coil had to run through water. We'd always try to git in a branch where there was runnin' water. Lot of times you couldn't and you'd have to dip it. Then you'd put your coil down inside of a 50-gallon barrel or pretty good size barrel, you know, and dip your water in it. Most of the time they'd have it where you could run the water. Just have a piece of pipe -- most of the time we'd skin a poplar or hickory -- skin that thing and peel it -- of, God, we've had 'em 25 feet long, you know -- and lay 'em, put props underneath of 'em. That water run down through that bark. They'd last. You could skin one in the summer and they'd last for years. They'd last a long time.
But they really made whiskey all through here, from here on clear on back to Stanardsville. I mean there was nothin' else to do. They was a tough bunch in Bacon Hollow. It ain't been too many years got sorta civilized neither. The first startin' of the Bacon Hollow they built that Wyatt Mountain school, then they had another one up on what called High Top. The Episcopal mission schools.
You know this fella that, you see him on the road ev'ry once in a while, lives up in Brown's Cove? He's made a many a gallon. Still probably makes a little bit. He's a master. I had some of his whiskey. The best I ever had. He made it with rye and blackberries. There wasn't enough blackberries to make it taste sweet, but you just could barely taste the blackberries in the whiskey, just barely, not like blackberry brandy or anything like that. It looked like water.
I've tasted of corn liquor. Some people used to, now and then, make a barrel of corn liquor, but I never did like the taste of it or sump'n. I don't know, it's too burney or sump'n other. Well, a lot of people, they didn't make good liquor. They would keep a-runnin' it -- after it quit beadin' they used to run that off on maybe a gallon or a half gallon or three quarters or sump'n out of each still that they had on. Then when you git ready to bead the liquor down, 'stead of addin' water they'd add this old weak stuff and it was the meanest -- oh, it had a awful taste. It's better just to keep the pure alcohol and then cut it with water. And you cut it with just pure spring water.
And it has a lot to do with the taste of makin' liquor -- is the water that you have runnin' through your coolin' tub. See, when that steam actually comes up in your cap, it's nothin' but steam, and when it hits that coil that's coiled 'round and 'round through that barrel -- through that water -- that steam when it hits that cool it turns into liquid. I don't know why, but we have made liquor in water that's sort of swampy water like and if the water don't taste good that you could drink it, it don't make good liquor.
That was always the main thing, was gettin' in a good place to make good water. Used to go in the mountains and find wet places in the mountains away from the water, you know, and dig wells to git away from the law, you know. Just anything to be real sneaky, you know.
Before Prohibition, they used to have regular still houses. They had licenses. Now you take the one up in Shiflett Hollow, you know what they call the old mill? You hear them tell you about the old still house. I heard somebody was tellin' me not too long ago -- oh, Mose Shiflett up here was tellin' me 'bout he used to work there for this man that used to make this liquor. And I was askin' him, you know, how did they know? -- they had a gov'ment man that worked for the gov'ment come around and checked your mash. They used to set it in hogsheads. And they'd test your mash and they'd know just about how many gallons of whiskey you'd git out of each hogshead. And if they come back and you had done made that whiskey, you had to give account of each gallon or half gallon right down to the pint. You have to pay that tax on it, you know. And I was askin' him how do they know, and he said they had a tester. They tested each hogshead and they know just about how much you can git out of each hogshead and they come back after you've made or come back maybe when you was makin'. You never knowed when they was comin'. Regular inspectors.
Mostly apples and rye's what they made in these still houses. Now Dick Walton, his daddy, he used to have a still house. But they all, of course, closed up during Prohibition. That was just the end of 'em. Then ev'rybody just got to moonshinin', they called it. There was no more still houses. You weren't supposed to make it. But they still moonshine. Yeah. But if they catch you, buddy, they work on you. It's worse now than it used to be. Used to git six months, but now maybe they give you time, but it's such a fine. They fine you so blame much. They'd rather have the money now, and then nobody had any money; they just give you six months the first time, and the second time it's twelve months and third time eighteen months and like that, you know. But now they catch em ever' once in a while. Last week they caught old man Tom, lived at the last house in Bacon Hollow, that was the end of the road as far as you could go. They caught him last week makin' moonshine liquor down there.
They make moonshine down in Nelson County, too. Oh yeah. They caught 62 last Saturday night in Roanoke -- moonshiners. Said the biggest haul that they had made since 1925.
Now down in North Car'lina, South Car'lina they still make a lot of it down through there. Yeah. They go at it in a big way down in North Car'lina, too. They set up these big boilers and make it and they make the rottenest -- well, they turn it out too quick. They make it in steel drums and 'stead of usin' copper coil like we used to in the water, they run it through car radiators. Yeah, and you can git lead poisonin' from drinkin' that stuff. You can go blind.
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