Final Arrest and Legacy

This is an IHAT podcast . Guaranteed human . Let's take a minute to unpack the myths behind GLP one drugs. Myth number one, GLP one is a long term solution for weight loss. True. GLP one can potentially be a long term solution for weight loss if you want to be on a drug that changes your body's natural instincts. Myth number two GLP wen can fix your metabolism false GLP wins fix hunger and this leads to weight loss. But the GLP wins may actually slow down your metabolic rate as your body adjusts to consuming fewer calories. Myth number three GLP one leads to a loss of muscle mass true. GLP one can lead to a loss of muscle mass due to losing weight so rapidly that your body is pulling from both fat and muscle to make up for the energy gap from consuming so few calories. If you're looking for a natural GLP one therapy, you should consider metabolism Ignite. Metabolism Ignite is powered by plants and can help boost your natural GLP one. Visit varacityhealth.co to learn more. That's VRACITY health. com and type in promo code i heart for up to sixty five percent off your purchase. Virgin Voyages presents with love from Bermuda. We didn't uber to the airport. We didn't take our shoes off for security. We just sailed from New York. Now it's cocktails on deck, adults only everything , and waking up in warm pink sand paradise without flying there. No TSA, no chaos , just an epic winter escape. Award winning kid free cruises from Virgin Voyages now sailing from New York to Bermud a and beyond , explore sailings at Virgin Voyages. com So Edwin Castro Del ten twenty one podcast parasta mundal de la Fifa Armalacomo Becca Conacistancia, De Home Depot, Bista to Patio Paralocation, Const erde Espresso, Unasador Phenomenal, Unecen Pintado, Elmehorplan, Paracela Fiesta Fudolera Sigasta Mucho despuez del Silvato final, EcoNetrega Rapidaigratuita, Serra Legendaria, the Home Depot, promotor official del Copa Mundal de la Fifa Bain ty S. Sujeto Adispon Vilid I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything . It's the ragebait . It feels like it's trying to divide people . We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little . NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News report ing for America As cat parents, Ryder and I know the feeling of being ignored by our cats. I often wonder, does my cat even love me? Well, there's only one solution to solve that, Shiba Feed your cat Shiba and go from feeling ignored to truly adored in twelve days, guaranteed or your money back. Shiba has so many incredible products that can satisfy even the pickiest eater like new, Shiba Grill ed, made in the USA with the finest ingredients from around the world. They are savory strips and a succulent sauce that cats are sure to love. And it's one hundred percent complete and balanced with essential vitamins and nutrients for adult cat s like my bill. Made without artificial flavors or preservatives, no corn, wheat, or soy. To learn more, check out Shiba. com Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartradio . Hi Zern. How do you Elizabeth? How are you? I'm doing pretty well. I am well. Good. I like your striped pants. Those are like things that they give to convicts in prison in the nineteen thirties. A chain gang. Totally fun and ridiculous . It really is. Thank you. Ridiculous crimes You know it's ridiculous. Oh man. Aside from my pants , you know how I like history, right? I do know that. And I'm often reading about random things. And so I went down this rabbit hole and I thought I'd share it with you. So the founder of the Chinese Han Empire and so like the ethnic han are the largest majority in China. So when they basically took over the area and watched the Han Empire, this was like two hundred two BC. Right . Right. But the guy who founded the Han Empire, the first emperor was this guy named Lu Biang or Liu Bang , right? Now I apologize if I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but it's my best I got . So Liu Bang , he was originally just not of nobility, royalty, nothing. He's just this regular guy Yeah, and he gets this job, right? Taking a bunch of penal laborers, like some imprisoned workers. And he's supposed to escort them from a construction site to this other new construction site. And while they're going on the journey , some of the prisoners escape, right ? And according to Kean Law or QIN law, which was the previous empire , if the prisoners escaped, he would be put to death. Oh no , as the prison guard, right? They're like, You must have been on it. So what does he do? He swishes sides and he joins the rebels and they're like, man, this guy's good. He's a quick thinker. They make him the leader. And so then from that point on, he joins what ends up being part of the rebel army because there was all these warring states in China at the time . So he joins his rebel army. He works his way up and then he gets into it and then they win the fight and he gets made like one of the many kings of a province and then he leads a new revolutionary rebellion against against the guy who se rebellion he was helping defeats them in like two hundred and two BC and thus found the Han Empire. So the whole Han Empire is founded by a guy who was a prison guard who went to prisoners escape, he's like, I'm with you, fellas. Prison guard to emperor. Yes. That's amazing. And this is like the one like when we talk about like China extends back, this is the point they're talking about other than the yellowperor Em, which is like the real starting point. But this is like when the Han Empire. So this is like, you know, China's history was basically you're in it for the long haul. I just love that story. I'm with you, fellas. It's like, they're gonna kill me. So I guess I'm with you.. That's ridiculous Emperor, boom, ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Please. Fighting the revenues . Oh yeah. Oh yeah This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons . It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. I know you always heard that. We talked about moonshiners before. Oh yeah, you have basically homemade illegal liquor. Yeah, corn liquor. Corn liquor. So when we talk about moonshine , we think about the Appalachian region that's the stronghold. I think of my dad's family. You think your dad's family? Moonshining in Appalachia has a really rich and fascinating history . It's tied to the culture, the economics, and that like rebel ethos of the communities . They're outsiders and they know it, and then they kind of revel in it. Yes. And it's also by the way, as I pointed out my with dad's family, this is true of black and white. Region. It's like the regions like we all know . Yeah, totally. So let's start with how Moonshine got its start. How? Let me tell you, Sarah, good luck with you. Elizabeth. Scots Irish immigrants settled in the region in the eighteenth century and they brought with them all these old traditions of distilling whiskey from their homelands . So remember, whiskey with an E is from Ireland or the U S, whiskey with no E is from Scotland. Yes . And as Mike Myers used to say in the old SNL sketch, All Things Scottish, if it's not Scottish, it's crap. as you know, the Scots aren't the biggest fans of the English. I've heard this. Yeah. Nor are the Irish. Well, you know, the SNP Scottish National Party has called for another independence referendum by it. Really? And the Scottish Parliament endorsed it, Labor parties against it, so we shall see And I've heard over and over that Scotland and Catalonia will be the tipping points in terms of independence in Europe. So like if they leave the UK and Spain respectively, then all these other areas will bounce out . Yeah. Anyway, let's go back to the seventeen hundreds. Scott's Irish , they had already been operating under a practice of defiance of British taxation . And illegal distilleries were part of that. So in the US, the first major flashpoint was in seventeen ninety one . Alexander Hamilton pushed through this federal excise tax on whiskey with an e h. He wanted to find a way to pay down all that revolutionary war debt. Yeah . And so in the Appalachian region , whiskey it wasn't like just some tipple, that was currency. Yeah, no, they used it to pay things. Like this is a standing bit of commercial. Yeah, 'cause if there's a surplus of grain, especially corn , they had to use it or lose it. doesn So' itt keep keep. Its well as liquor. And it takes up a ton of room. Yeah. But if you distill it into liquor, you can solve both of those problems. It's, you know, store it, keeps longer than for parties. Totally, make new friends . So this new tax would have like absolutely wrecked the economy in Appalachia . You had to pay the tax in cash . They didn't have cash. They just had hooch . The good folks of the mountains weren't having it and thus was born the Whiskey Rebellion seventeen for Western Pennsylvania. So all these armed dissidents they attacked and they burned the house of the regional federal tax collector guy . And then four hundred armed rebels marched on Pittsburgh. Yes. And the powers that be, they're terrified like we're going to have a revolt. This is no good. No, we're having a revolt. Yeah. So President Washington , yes , he invoked the Militia Act of seventeen ninety two. Called out the militia. They called up the state militias from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland. Come on, boys . In the fall of seventeen ninety four , Washington led thirteen thousand militiamen into Western Pennsylvania . So let's back up a second, four hundred armed rebels , thirteen thousand militiamen. I know they got long rifles, but that's gonna be a wonderful . Yeah, that was actually the only time a sitting US president has ever led troops in the field. Then it's all talk after that . And so this shut the rebellion down with a quickness . Obviously, one hundred and fifty rebels were arrested, two got convicted of treason, but they were later pardoned, and the tax stood . Then we're going to jump forward eighteen sixty two, the Revenue Act. And that was passed to fund the Civil War. Like we're constantly just taxing to fund these wars . It reimposed these super steep federal taxes on alcohol . And so that is when the super large scale moonshining took root in Appalach . Federal revenues, as they called them, tax enforcement agents, started raiding stills, and it was mountain communities versus the Feds. There are a lot of families who had distilled openly for generations and now they're outlaws. So poor farming families in remote hollows and like you said, black or white , they were selling liquor as the only reliable source of cash income . And the reci pes and the techniques were really closely guarded family secrets and each one had its own sort of quality or character . And then also, you know, making your own whiskey fit right in with the region's value of independ ence and like the distrust of outside authority. Totally. And also a connection to like both of the land and with the tradition of your family. So it's like who are you to get involved with either of these? Exactly. And then prohibition came And so that was championed by Protestant temperance movements in the region. Yeah, the teetotal. Yeah, but it was also this cash cow for the moonshiners. They're like, we love protein. Yeah, sure. So there's the demand for illegal mountain made whiskey just skyrocketed. Yeah, them and the Canadians were like, you okay? I love this. So we had these like once small family stills in a haller are suddenly shipping out to big cities, Chicago , New York, the criming became organized . And so you once had a bartering tool. Now it's just a straight up industry . Prohibition ends, but the fight with the government continues. Yeah. So booze was leg al, right? All of a sudden, but the stills were still operating outside the law . And there was this like total cat and mouse game between the ATF, that was called the alcohol tax unit then and all these Appalachian Moonshiners . Agents were staging huge raids, moonshiners, they had to get more and more clever . They hid the stills deep in the woods. They had these really elaborate warning systems and then they developed fast cars to outrun the law on delivery runs. Yes, and thus was born NASCAR. Go watch Thunder Road with Robert Mitchell. Yeah, they 'cause they souped up their cars to outrun the revenue, but then they just started racing each other. That's the natural instinct for sport and bragging rights. So by the seventies and eighties, nineteen, seventies and eighties, improved roads, economic development programs, changing culture , like we're kind of bringing about like the death knell to traditional moonshining . So this romantic outlaw image was fading as the practice became more associated with organized crime. Yeah . Still, no pun intended, moonshining shaped the culture in these really lasting ways. It influenced the music. Yeah, yeah. There are a ton of folk and country side . Hell yeah. Oh yeah, all celebrating the moonshiner. And it's in the storytelling, it's in this culture of resistance to authority. It's in the cuisine . You know, corn is like central to mountain foodways. Moonshining holds on as one of the most evocative symbols of Appalachian identity. And I was pondering this, Erin. Where do you know? Yeah, I was like thinking about how it's at this crossroads of ingenuity, poverty, independence and defiance and that's kind of where we get like the best American stuff. A lot of people . So some former moonshiners decided to go legit. So you had states like Tennessee, North Carolina , Virginia and Kentucky . They issued craft distillery licenses. And Appalachian Moonshine became this marketable brand . The mystique of that old tradition gets reclaimed as heritage rather than criminality . And one such man who went from outlaw to law abider to outlaw is the guy I want to tell you about today. Right from outlaw to law abider to outlaw. All right. Zarin , meet Marvin popcorn Sutton. Get out of town. I will not popcorn Sutton. Popcorn Sutton. He was born in nineteen forty six. You know Joe Biden? Besties. Total besties. Corn, pop, popcorn. Corn pop, pop. They fought, pulled out blades . He was born. Go back to Delaware. He was born in nineteen forty six in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. And that's sort of between Asheville, North Carolina and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Oh, where the furniture making. Yeah, right next to Great Smokey Mountains National Park. And it was originally Cherokee country. So according to the Assembly magazine, quote, his family had been in Western North Carolina in the area of Hempill and Catalucci, as he put it in one interview, quote, As long as time lasted . And so they lived off the land. These people were just farming to survive . And they were just like their ne ighbors all up and down the hallers . His dad took whatever little gigs he could get. The mom kept the home . She would churn butter and trade that for groceries in Wayneville, North Carolina, which was the next biggest to wn. And that was the county seat. Today that Wayne'sville has a population of like ten thousand people and that's the big one. That's the biggest rural. Yeah . Kids had to work too. Popcorn quote grew up pulling weeds for hogs and picking tomatoes for fifteen cents an hour. fifteen cents an hour. Yeah, yeah. Not even by the amount he pulls the hour. So Maggie Valley, which has a population of about seventeen hundred people today at the time was pretty much a crossroads. And now it's been developed out first in the sixties because they put in an amusement park. An amusement That closed in two thousand three, but then as the Chattaluche Ski area . That's the entry point to it. So that's where they get like there's hotel motels and all that beginning of the tourist alley. Yes, yes . But back when popcorn was a pop , there was only a small store which had one phone located within the store. That was the one phone in everybody. Yeah. Yeah, popcorn told people that the only time anyone used it was to ring up the undertaker when someone died. It was like the sole purpose of the phone. So there's young popcorn in Maggie Valley. When he was just five years old, he was taught a trade . Pi. Five, moonshining I thought it was gonna be like, you know, a shoeshine board or something. That's how old he was when someone took him to learn how to make this stuff. And by the time he was six, he's like world weary. He was smoking cigarettes . Six years old. Six years old. So then by the time he worked the double shift, by the time he's sixteen, basically, he decided to make a go of it and distill his own brand of moonshine. sixteen. He's ten years eleven years into the game he was not very good at it . Those eleven years of instruction apparently didn't help . He called it liquor. Oh wow. Maybe that's why it didn't do too well. That's not gonna stop. But he wanted to get it right. He decided to seriously work in the tradition of his daddy and his daddy's daddy . Old grandpeppy. So he decided to go like super old school with it. He heated it with wood . He balanced out the heat using fresh stream water It was very much of the land that was on, like a sense of place. Totally. Which is kind of like Scottish whiskey. That's what I was just about to say. Yeah , the Terra aspect . Exactly. Both in the process and in the materials. Right, right . And so this is how the OG Scots Irish did it . And I do need to note that these aren't really Irish . They're Scots who were kind of pushed out by the English to quote settle in the ulster provinces in I reland. What's this say conquer? Northern Ireland Northern Ireland . But then they got pushed out of the ulster counties . You've seen the cool maps they do of where people got settled in America from the yeah. You see this like big arrow go right from there to the Appalachian. Exactly . So like the Scots were in the Ulster counties and they're starving. The Catholics don't want them there and the Anglicans who ran the place didn't want them there either. No one wanted them. So they ran off to the American colonies and no one wanted them there. And so they headed for the hills, like Appalachian Piedmont regions. It was rough living . And that's when they like really developed backward s living . You know, corn liquor because they didn't have barley like they'd use, you know, in Ireland. So corn liquor was medicine, it was currency. And now we got popcorn. So now popcorn's around twenty years old and he had perfected his liquor and he was distilling full time. And that's around the time that he earned his nickname . According to the assembly, quote, around the same time he picked up a fitting nickname for a corn whiskey distiller when he attacked a coin operated popcorn machine in a bar after it stole his dime . He snatched up a pool queue and showed the damn thing what he thought about it. It cost him fifty dollars and earned him a nickname he would use for the rest of his life . So let's stop there for an ad. Everyone in the bar sees them corn . Look at popcorn over there whooping on that . So we're gonna stop for and add our very own revenues . This is the tax that we all pay to listen to these tales of criminality. If you think about it , and when we return, popcorn gets poppin' . Let's take a minute to unpack the myths behind GLP one drugs. Myth number one, GLP one is a long term solution for weight loss. True. GLP one can potentially be a long term solution for weight loss if you want to be on a drug that changes your body's natural instincts. Myth number two, GLP one can fix your metabolism, falls. GLP wens fix hunger, and this leads to weight loss, but the GLP wens may actually slow down your metabolic rate as your body adjusts to consuming fewer calories. Myth number three GLP one leads to a loss of muscle mass true. GLP one can lead to a loss of muscle mass due to losing weight so rapidly that your body is pulling from both fat and muscle to make up for the energy gap from consuming so few calories. If you're looking for a natural GLP one therapy, you should consider metabolism Ignite. Metabolism Ignite is powered by plants and can help boost your natural GLP one. Visit Veracityhealth.co to learn more. That's VERACITY Health. com and type in promo code i heart for up to sixty five percent off your purchase. Virgin Voyages presents with love from Alaska. Scenery out here is unreal . Mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, the ship, designed for panoramic views, which is why I'm pretending to be a wildlife photographer. I am not. Yesterday we were hiking and kayaking. Today, I'm watching for Hpumback whal es. Anyway, wish you were here? Award winning kid free Alaskan cruises from Virgin Voyages with immersive shore excursions and zero kid energy Virgin Voyages. com The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in New York City. Experience Blackjack, Boplara, crabs in Roulette twenty four seven only at resorts world, New York City. Gambling problem call eight seven seven eight hopen y or text hope in Y four seven three six nine must be twenty one or older gambles standard messages supplied. Hey, what up y'all? Summer moves like a great jam session. You start with one idea, one direction, and then it shifts, somebody calls. Energy changes. You take a detour. That's the beauty of it. For me, summer's always been about discovering new sounds, new places, new people, new ideas. You start one place, end up somewhere completely different. And somehow, that's exactly where you're supposed to be. I've always had my spots along the way. Starbucks has been one of those constants before a session, on the way to a gig, and between conversations that turn into something bigger than you expected. It's part of that movement, part of that rhythm. The summer's got its own soundtrack too. You can almost hear it without trying . Life's happening all around you, that feeling of staying open to whatever's next. Sometimes it's the smallest things that lock you into that moment. What you're holding, what you're sipping, the new tropical butterflyres Reherf from Starbucks Guava and Passion Fruit Flavors with Mango Pineapple flavored pearls . Cold, colorful, alive. Feels like something made for the day that's still unfolding. And that's the thing. Sometimes one small stop changes the whole mood of your day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Lugging for something new? Try fencing, the Olympic and Paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun. It's like chess meets cardio, quick feet, quick decisions, and a satisfying beep when you score a point. Kids, teens, and adults can start anytime, no experience needed, and many clubs have loner gear. Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one. Find a beginner class for your kids near you at try fencing. org. That's trifencing dot org Zarin? Elizabeth. Zarin. All right, it's nineteen sixties. Okay . That's where we are right now. That's when popcorn Sutton hit his stride making a legal hooch in Appalachia. He got away with it for a bit , but then he got busted in the early seventies. He was like deep in the woods. Oh yeah 'cause you can always think and see the if you're burning the fire to get your still the smoke will go up so they used to look for the smoke in the woods like that shouldn't be like way Oh yeah . So per the Greenville son quote in nineteen seventy five Sutton was convicted in US district court on numerous federal charges relating to the manufacturing and possession of an unregistered still , having distilling apparatus and untaxed liquor, he was given probation. Yeah. And then he got pinched again in nineteen eighty . And this time it was on a felony drug offense. Oh, you got a five year suspended sentence. Do we know what the drug was? I'm gonna guess we'd my guess too. He said nineteen eighty, so I had to open up right to the Florida question He got five years suspended sentence. Okay. That's not bad. Not bad. And then five years later, he actually went to prison for the first time. nineteen eighty five, he got convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Was another it popcorn machine? I think it was a human popcorn . But you're back my daughter enough. He's back out. So during the eighties and nineties, he like late eighties, nineties, he went somewhat legit. Okay. He ran a junk shop on the outskirts of Cherokee, North Carolina. And when I say junk shop, I'm talking like old appliances, all these old dusty bottles, folk art. It's like stuff in a parking lot. Yeah, basically old fill in the blanks. Yeah, yeah. It's like this still got some life in it. Yes. And you know it's like a dusty store you walk in and immediately like sneezing nineteen eighty seven printer and he's like still got some life in it. You use dot matrix . Like stores like this litter the rural south. Oh yeah, they're not they're little central California in like more eclectic neighborhoods elsewhere. But they're in essence dust factors. Yes. Let's just be real . And so in addition to selling all this old stuff though, he also sold new brews. New Brews. Bottles of Moonshine were sold out of the back of the store. So it was kind of like this speak easy setup. You had to know that he had it and he had to trust that you were cool about it . But then someone squealed. And the revenue revenue came a call and deal with someone, I'm gonna get you nineteen ninety eight. Damn you revenue . And they hit the jackpot in that picker's paradise in the store . They came across popcorn still and sixty gallons of white lightning. He had the still in his store like in the basement the back. So according to the Smokey Mountains National Park blog, yes, quote, while operating a distilling unit and selling illegal alcohol is a felony punishable, by up to five years in prison, and a fine up to ten thousand dollars . Popcorn Sutton was not initially sent to jail. The judge instead put him on prob ation and offered him an out with a suspended sentence. No, you know, it's fair Well, there must have been something really charming about old popcorn. I was wondering. And when you look at his picture , you see that he's every inch the stereotypical old moonshiner. Does he even have the long beard? Yo, yeah, there's this one shot of him. He's like sitting in a chair, he's holding a jar of moonshine . And he looks like an Appalachian philosopher king. He looks like he lost a bet with a t axidermis . His hat is like this leather contraption that a raccoon died on top of . And it's decorated with feathers that were stolen from a parent who was probably like relieved to be rid of them . And you talked about like the long beard. The beard is less facial hair and more like this separate living entity that has decided to colonize his entire chest. It's just like the creepy stim chest . It's like playing risk creeping down . And it's like a tumbleweed that settled down and like got married and raised a family there . And then he's got these overalls on, right? It's like that's the official uniform of men who have zero interest in your opinions That's why so many pairs of overalls. He's got like the plaid flannel shirts forty seven different colors and none of them were coordinated to be together. Billy Chic, he's iconic . So I can see how people just couldn't make themselves commit this character to the jailhouse. Yeah. You need him in town. Yes, and he was a well known local character. Local color through and through. The assembly magazine describes him as sort of holding court in his junk shop. Nice . And per the New York Times, quote, he lived in a cluttered cabin on a wooded hill where he also built his stills, gave pistols to the incoming sheriffs, and fathered so many children that no one has any idea of the exact accounting. Fathered so many children really using the word father loosely just little kernels and kernels throughout the country children like a biblical spirit. Your seed . I've made all kinds of liquor in my time. Popcorn says, tending the still , I've made the fightin' kind, the loving kind, the crying kind. I even made someone time insult to this couple. They were happily married. Next damn week, they was divorced. So divorce lookers. Yeah, the marriage buster bestseller . So here's this guy. He's in his fifties, but he looks way older. I'm thinking low seventies. Oh yeah, thin as a rail. He's got the droopy overalls of floppy hat. He walks all bent over from like years and years of carrying heavy bags of sugar up to his stills in the mountains at the age of like seven. So like the Warner Bros. animators who did like all the old cartoons would be like he is our role model completely. He's weathered. Yeah . And he looks like he's from this other time, but he still he had a cell phone and he watched TV. I knew he did that. He just had like the old timy aesthetic. Yeah. He was walking tradition. Yes. He restored a model T. Oh, really? And drove it around like his own little tape. It was like super on brand if he actually drove it around. Yeah . No, he it was garaged up and like he only took it out on special occasions. It was this investment property. Yeah, on the front bumper, he painted mom corn in all caps in front of the passenger seat and popcorn in front of the driver's seat. So it's like hand painted . No, instead, he ran around in a nineteen eighty two Ford Fairmount that he turned into a two door. Yeah. It looks like it has a massive engine . And like if you glance quickly out of the corner of your eye, you might think it's an El Camino. Like it kind of has that long , like the back window's just like a slice of glass really, and the trunk is like super long . So he got that car by trading three gallons of moonshine for it. Three gallons. He called it his three jug car. And he sold he sold half gallon jars of corn liquor to tourists for twenty five bucks a pop. So that car ran him about one hundred fifty dollars He didn't sell all of his stuff in small batches to tourists though. Like he actually moved most of his product with bootleggers, like hundreds of gallons at a time . Do we know to where? Just all over the country coming out. One day there was like all suddenly a blossoming of interest in Chicago . Well, no, just those in the know Wait. Yeah . He entered into the Ridiculous Crime Book Club in nineteen ninety nine when he self published me and my liquor spelled LIK ER? Oh LIK E RAR Yeah, okay . The New York Times described it as, quote, a rambling, obscene, and often hilarious account of his life in the trade. So it was like in the trade. A spiral bound affair. Yeah . And tons of photos, tons, all black and white. And it 's printed in this sort of comic sans font. And it starts with a scan of his license to sell moonshine certificate from the National Moonshine Association signed by the mayor of Maggie Valley. Okay. Here's how does this have like any is this the governing body? Yes. Okay. I was just wondering if he just made that out because it's like a statement? I think he did. Here's how the narrative starts . Quote, this book is all true. There is not a damn thing in it , that is not true. My name is popcorn Sutton and how old am I? It ain't nobody's damn business . I've been making drinking and selling liquor for now forty years. My granddaddy made drink and sold liqu or most of his life. People worry about liquor killing them, I don't , because my granddaddy is proof it won't. He smoked camel cigarettes just like I do one after another . He also drunk all the liquor he could get and chased all the women he could. He lived to be about ninety years old. So what in the hell am I worried about? Not a damn thing. I like his spirit. You know, I'm telling you, this is a man who knows who he is, where he comes from and where he's going There's this photo of a rough looking woman in a house dress and an old man seated next to her on a floral sofa. So is this mom corn? No, no. The old guy's smoking a cigarette and there's like an old vacuum cleaner in the backg round. Here's the caption . This is Smutt Webb and his wife, Lucille. Smut is dead now. He's the one that teached me how to make a damn moonshine still a long time ago . Smut . Web. Yeah . He's dead now . In case you're smut, case he owes you mud. So the whole thing is like sitting listening to some guy ramble on a rocking chair on his front porch. Oh, I love it. And my time in the very rural south has made me very familiar with this type of socialism. I bet. There's a lot of technical remembrances about the actual making of the liquor . And then there are all these like scattered rambling anecdotes. I'm gonna hit you with one more. Look out, please. I have been worried all day. My doctor come to see me yesterday and he told me popcoin, notice the spelling, you have only six ty two years to live. Who's my doctor? It is nobody's damn business. I also had two of the best friends in my life visit me, Tunny Moore and his wife Alice. Me and Tunny Moore and all the Moore family goes back many years. I used to get drunk in hell with Claymore. His brother played a guitar and sang a song Nobody's Business What I'd do . One time me and Kenmore was out one night we had just got bought a bra nd new Ford car. I think it was a Torino . We left Grassy Fork, headed to Newport, got to Hartford and then on the I forty west, then on to the Bluffton curve. Ken had that goddamn ford wide . This is the first time I ever pulled a gun on a man to get him to slow down . I told Ken, if we are gonna die by God, we're going together. I had a cult thirty eight cocked right beside his head. That damn car was on two wheels going round that bluffin' curve around a hundred miles an hour. No less, I am sure . We made it to Newport some damn way and I don't know how. We spent the night at Reinhard's bar and made it back to Grassy For ks some the same damn way and I don't know how. Anyway, me and Ken Moore was always best of friends just as the rest of the Moore family . Love anyway anyway I'm up at Claymore not rel ation to the unition and Kenmore, no relation to the truck brand. Exactly. Tony more. All the boys, you know who they are. All right, humor me with one more. I was gonna ask for one more. Are you kidding me? Oh, here we go There are two things that I don't want a goddamn thing to do with that is bad moonshine and Viagra . I drunk some bad liquor one time and it came one tanker's damn killing me. I couldn't sleep or I couldn't just by God pass out. Anyway, I did go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, but when I did wake up I was in a daze . The bed I thought was bad guys spinning around and all at once had stopped spinning. Then I looked down at the foot of the bed and there sat a little purple eyed monkey with a pair of combat boots on staring at me. That's when I stopped drinking badass liquor and the Viagra to hell with it anyway, I ain't over the hill yet . He doesn't have a stir just on principle. That's not principle. He's not over the hill, Zarin . So they'll be recommended to be no picker pills . So he released his book , which I now own is a downloaded PDF. Are you kidding? No, I'm not kidding you. Share with a brother. Y'all send it to you . And not long after that , in two thousand two, Neil Hutchinson made a documentary about popcorn called This is the last damn run of liquor I'll ever make . It's the name of it. That's the name of it. A lot of Hutchinson's work is focused on like cultures and transition and all over the world, but a lot of it in the south. And so initially the documentary was sold out of the junk shop . And then it became this like underground cult phenomenon. . And then pretty soon the movie and popcorn were getting profiled in newspapers. Daniel Johnson type celebrities started coming calling, including good old Johnny Knovville. Of course. Well he's from Tennessee. Yeah. So he was he was writing old DJ Clap. Yeah , I'd love that that's his name . And then there was a history channel documentary in two thousand seven . Mark Ramsey, who was a close friend of popcorns, told him , quote , old man, you can't be a movie star and make liquor too. And then popcorn answered him, you can't sell it if nobody knows you got it. Like fair enough. Yeah, so popcorn was still a fixture in Mag gie Valley, but by this time he'd moved to Eastern Tennessee just over the state line , specifically Cawk County . He told people that he had dual citizenship . He thought the move to Tennessee would be better for business . And he had a bunch of money from the movie and the history channel thing and he wanted to move on up. So per the New York Times quote nestled in the rocky embrace of the Great Smoky Mountains, Cock County was a moonshine center for as long as anyone here can recall . For most families in a rugged place with few opportunities, it was a matter of survival, but for an enterprising few making it and hauling untaxed and unregulated liquor became a profitable, dangerous, and inevitably romanticized trade. Making moonshine later gave way to growing marijuana, and by the nineteen sixties the county was notorious for chop shops , cock fighting rings, prostitution, and corrupt officials. Over the decades, the lawless elements have been corraled for the most part, but the bad old image of Cock County lingers and irks and And Earth . So when they got overrun by hippie outlaws, they're like, We want to take a shot at this literally exactly. So like, of course, popcorn feels right at home. Naturally. And so he set up shop outside Parrotsville, Tennessee. Okay. Population two hundred and seventeen. Wow. Yeah, Parrotsville are just outside of it. That's like seven families too. Yeah. Pretty much. Is home to Swaggerty Blockhouse? Okay . And a blockhouse is basically a building that's used as sort of like a fort with gun portals . And originally, this one was supposed to have been built by a settler named James Swaggerty in seventeen eighty seven , but later inspection determined that it was actually a cantilever barn built by someone else in eighteen sixty. And it didn't stop it from being listed on the U. S. National Register of Historic Places as the Swaggerty Blockhouse. There's a certain like parks and rec awnee quality that story happen Ied really liked. So anyway, popcorn . He rented some land in Parrotsville and then built himself a house on it. Okay. On the rented land. And it was decorated much like his junk shop. Like he had old license plates, like lewd knick knacks. Like I think it's like ceramic salt and pepper shakers doing things they should . Antique tools . He papered the ceiling with dollar bills. Oh, that's a that's a good look. Cute. One of my favorite bars I go to has the alley in Oakland they're all over it's like a fire trap and so he also got himself a banjo. He paid eight grand for it. Eight grand could he play the banjo? No, no . Was it Earl Scrugg's banjo? He just he thought it was like a good looking accessory. He's like, this fits, this looks great. It does. It definitely is the way to accessorize his look. And he prepaid for his funeral. Good. So this was two thousand six , he's sixty years old. He bought a coffin , and then he ordered up his gravestone, granite, and engraved on it was the following epitaph Popcorn says you So this feels like the right time to take an ad break. He's so punk right. And think about how that might be the best grave marker idea around . Oh yeah. And when we return, Parrotsville . Let's take a minute to unpack the myths behind GLP one drugs. Myth number one GLP one is a long term solution for weight loss. True. GLP one can potentially be a long term solution for weight loss if you want to be on a drug that changes your body's natural instincts. Myth number two, GLP one can fix your metabolism, falls. GLP one s fix hunger, and this leads to weight loss, but the GLP wens may actually slow down your metabolic rate as your body adjusts to consuming fewer calories. Myth number three GLP one leads to a loss of muscle mass true. GLP one can lead to a loss of muscle mass due to losing weight so rapidly that your body is pulling from both fat and muscle to make up for the energy gap from consuming so few calories. If you're looking for a natural GLP one therapy, you should consider metabolism Ignite. Metabolism Ignite is powered by plants and can help boost your natural GLP one. Visit Veracityhealth.co to learn more. That's V ERACITY YEALT. CO and type in promo code i heart for up to sixty five percent off your purchase. Virgin Voyages presents with love from Bermuda. We didn't uber to the airport. We didn't take our shoes off for security, we just sailed from New York. Now it's cocktails on deck, adults only everything , and waking up in warm pink sand paradise without flying there. No TSA, no chaos , just an epic winter escape. Award winning kid free cruises from Virgin Voyages, now sailing from New York to Bermuda and beyond . Explore sailings at Virgin Voyages. com They said the Big Apple had everything . Now it has more. The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in the Big Apple, every roll, every shuffle, every spin happens right here. twenty four seven. Only at resorts world New York C ity. Experience Blackjack, Bakera, Krabs and Roulette. It's not just a whole new world. It's a world like no other Resorts World New York City gambling prone call eighths of an eight hopen Your text to open Y four seventeen three six nine must be twenty one or older to campus stairmanit supply. Hey, what up y'all? Summer moves like a great jam session. You start with one idea, one direction, and then it shifts, somebody calls. Energy changes. You take a detour. That's the beauty of it. For me, summer's always been about discovering new sounds, new places, new people, new ideas. You start one place, end up somewhere completely different. And somehow, that's exactly where you're supposed to be. I've always had my spots al ong the way. Starbucks has been one of those constants before session, on the way to a gig, and between conversations that turn into something bigger than you expected. It's part of that movement, part of that rhythm. The summer got' itss own soundtrack too. You can almost hear it without trying. Life's happening all around you, that feeling of staying open to whatever's next . Sometimes, it's the smallest things that lock you into that moment. What you're holding, what you're sipping, the new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Guava and Passion Fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls. Cold, colorful, alive. Feels like something made for the day that's still unfold ing. And that's the thing, sometimes one small stop changes the whole mood of your day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks . Lugging for something new? Try fencing, the Olympic and Paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun. It's like chess meets cardio, quick feet, quick decisions and a s, atisfying beep when you score a point. Kids, teens, and adults can start anytime, no experience needed, and many clubs have loner gear. Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one. Find a beginner class for your kids near you at try fencing dot org dot That's try fencing dot org Zarin? Elizabeth. All right, so we talk on popcorn Sutton . Infamous moonshiner. I'm so into this guy. He moved to Parrotsville, Tennessee , and it was there that he got three enormous stills running. Oh, I thought you were going to say new baby mummas. Well, probably I'm gonna assume yes . And those babies look so weird They had beards . No, he had two eight hundred gallon jobs . And the third one held one thousand seven hundred and fifty gallons. Like Shazam, that's some big stuff. This is like enough water for a small town if you had a water tower He's like one of those AI centers. Yeah . And so he didn't he didn't do these the old fashioned way with the wood and the creek water. You got to. No, he ran these on unleted gasoline . And it was there that he stored all his hooch jars in this still house as well as sacks of grain, a couple thousand pounds of sugar. So let's think about that, gas, grain, sugar, southern heat. Everything you said is explosive. Yeah, makes me think fire. Like or either fire or explosive. Yeah, you've taken like, you know, non dairy creamer and waved it over like an open flame again . And you realize, hey, kids , that's how bakeries catch fire. Flour has energy. Sugar has energy they will they will burn. Sarin just taught all the children the trick of non dairy powdered non dairy creamer. Yeah, shaken over an open flame and it'll first explode. It'll flash like a magician doing magic tricks . You're welcome, parents. So the Assembly magazine reported quote, on april twenty fourth, two thousand seven, a faulty wiring box ignited a fire in the stillhouse . There were dried out timbers, sacks of grain and sugar and gasoline to feed the flame, and the fire was instantly out of control. No, of course. erron, close your eyes. Your eyes are closed. I want you to picture it . You are a firefighter with the Parrotsville Volunteer Fire Department. You're sitting in the back of your mechanics garage tinkering with a minivan someone brought in yester . As always, you have your police scanner radio on and the emergency alert page are on your belt. You're on call. The alarm sounds and you jump up ready for action. Will it be a car accident? Heart attack? Nope. You trot toward your pickup truck, ready to head to the fire station and pick up the pumper truck. You glance at the pager and you see it. Fire . You look at the address. Uh oh . eight or so minutes later you're standing in front of the fire truck staring at the giant column of black smoke rising out of popcorn Sutton stillhouse. Dag Nebut The Fire Chief is called in support from neighboring towns and districts and you, are sure they, as you did, are following the rising tower of smoke and embers to the scene, and you know the sheriff's deputies are on their way too . You hear tires tearing up the gravel drive behind you. You spin around, expecting to see those very same deputies, but instead it's a blue Ford Fairmount and behind the wheel is popcorn himself. The old Coot certainly does make the finest moonshine you've ever sipped, but making that stump water comes with risks, like the fire raging out of control in front of you. Your fellow firefighters are doing their best to get it under control. You're manning the pump on the truck and backing up the chief as he tries to control the scene. Popcorn races up to you. He tells you he has three stills in there, plus a bunch of copper wire of dubious origin. Bags of sugar, a bunch of sour mash. You can't let the deputies see that stuff when they get here, he says. Maybe just let it burn, eh, son ? You tell 'em no, sir, you can't do that. You don't want this to spread and catch the woods on fire. Arcs of water spray behind you, pummeling the burning building and steaming high into the air. Popcorn stares at a school bus a few dozen feet from the stillhouse . Okay , he tells you , J ust let me go move my school bus out of the way. No, you tell him, you can't get that close to an active conflagration . You love that word conflagration. Popcorn tries to push past you anyway and get to the bus. You hold him back. You can hear the sirens of the patrol cars approaching . Look you little , popcorn sees at you. I got eight hundred and fifty gallons of liquor in that there bus, and I ain't going down on a possession charge like that . He's a small man but wiery and strong. His ropey muscles work as hard as they can to wriggle free from your grasp , but you are a big old milk fed country boy, man of the mountains . That old fellow isn't going anywhere. Popcorn takes one last long look at the bus , exhales, and lets his whole body sag. You don't fall for those sorts of tricks, so you keep them in your clutches . You hate to do it, but you gotta hand them over to the deputies . You look up at the burning building, your crew just about tamping that fire all the way out. You sigh too. Erin. When the cops were finally able to get into the burned out building, they found those three stills. I bet they did. And they found thirty seven half gallon jars of moonshine. Only thirty seven . Yeah, but then they entered the untouched school. Okay , and in there were eight hundred and fifty gallons of white lightning. Yeah . They had already called in the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms, and Explosives, ATF , knowing full well what they'd find. ATF busted him in no time . In July of two thousand seven, popcorn was fined three thousand dollars and got two years' probation for possession of moonshine plus another six months probation for possession of a still. He felt invincible . Like if he could skate by on that kind of wrap, then there's no need to fret and certainly no need to slow down . In fact, he wanted to rebuild bigger and better than before. To call the wrong messages . But here's the thing I'm invincible. Exactly . But here's the thing, like he's not like,, I' omh gonna go straight . I got lucky on that one. The revenueers are relentless . They kept an eye on popcorn. And so a year after his sentencing on the fire case and he's on probation. Yes, yes. ATF discovered that he had three stills again . And they came across this information when popcorn sold two hundred gallons of corn liquor to an undercover agent. And popcorn's like, look, I'll give you a deal. It's fifty dollars a gallon . And if you buy more than fifty gallons, the price goes down to thirty bucks a gallon. That's a good deal. And especially 'cause there's no tax. What I love is that popcorn offered different flavors of moonshine. He had apple pie that tasted like cinnamon and apple, he had cherry peach