Rum-running
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Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling circumvents alcohol taxes and outright prohibition of alc
Police use a road roller to destroy bottles of illegal alcohol confiscated in Serpong, out of Jakarta, Indonesia on April 13, 2018.
A liquor raid in 1925, in Elk Lake, Ontario
Rum runner schooner Kirk and Sweeney with contraband stacked on deck
Rum-runner William S. McCoy, Florida area from 1900 to 1920
Moonshine
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Moonshine is high-proof liquor, traditionally made or distributed illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of distilling the alcohol at night, usually when the moon was out, to avoid detection
Rum-running
…the United States, the smuggling of alcohol did not end with the repeal of prohibition. In the Appalachian United States, for example, the demand for moonshine was at an all-time high in the 1920s, but an era of rampant bootlegging in dry areas continued into the 1970s. Bootlegging still exists, even if on a…
A modern DIY pot still
A thermal immersion circulator, like this sous vide stick, is used to evaporate ethanol in plastic stills or spiral stills.
Former West Virginia moonshiner John Bowman explains the workings of a still. (November 1996, American Folklife Center)
Lucas test: Negative (left) with ethanol and positive with t-butanol.