Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State

Although legal spirits in the Tar Heel state only go back about ten years, making liquor in North Carolina is not new. Wilkes County, which was once dubbed the “Moonshine Capital of the World,” was the leading producer of illegal liquor for decades. In 1965, Tom Wolfe’s article in Esquire—“The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson. Yes!”—made the area nationally famous.

Today descendants of famous moonshiners are now respectable craft distillers carrying on the family tradition—people like Br...