It’s a federal law dating back to 1868 and, technically, if it had been approved just a few years earlier, what Dan Call, Jasper Newton Daniel, and Nearest Green learned to distill in a holler in what was then Lincoln County might have been considered contraband. Now, Tennessee Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger looks to end the federal ban on home distillation with the introduction of the Freedom to Home Distill Act. It would give home distillers the same rights as home brewers and wine makers. It’s an apropos move for an elected official from a state with a rich whiskey making history whose origins derived from the deeply rebellious art of bootlegging.

A STATE BUILT ON BOOTLEGGING

Tennessee’s complicated relationship with home distilling didn’t start with federal law. In 1909, the state legislature banned the manufacture of alcohol statewide — a full decade before the 18th Amendment made Prohibition the law of the land nationally. The state ban forced Lynchburg’s own Jack Daniel Distillery out of business at home. Jack Daniel’s nephew, Lem Motlow, kept the brand alive by relocating distilling operations to St. Louis and Birmingham for nearly three decades.

National Prohibition ended in 1933, but Tennessee’s own ban stayed on the books four years longer. When the state finally repealed it in 1937, distilling was legalized in just three of Tennessee’s 95 counties: Lincoln, Coffee, and Moore. That’s the year Motlow brought distilling back home to Lynchburg — and it’s part of why Moore County’s identity is so tightly wound around whiskey to this day.

Through all of it — the 1909 ban, national Prohibition, and the decades after — moonshining never really stopped. In the hills and hollers of Appalachia and likely further into the Cumberland Plateau, unlicensed distilling was as much a matter of economic survival as tradition, and Tennessee became one of the country’s most notorious moonshine-producing states. Federal “revenuers” who came looking for illegal stills were frequently met with open hostility, an echo of the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, when Pennsylvania farmers took up arms against the young federal government’s first tax on distilled spirits.

That cat-and-mouse game with federal agents left an unlikely legacy: NASCAR. Bootleggers running moonshine on backroads modified their cars for speed and handling to outrun the law — stripping out back seats, souping up engines, reinforcing suspensions to carry heavy loads of liquor without giving away the game. Drivers started racing each other informally on dirt tracks and fairgrounds to settle who had the fastest car, and crowds started paying to watch. Junior Johnson, later a NASCAR Hall of Famer, started running his father’s moonshine as a young teenager before he ever had a driver’s license. In December 1947, a former runner named Bill France Sr. organized a meeting of drivers, car owners, and mechanics in Daytona Beach to standardize the sport’s rules — and NASCAR was born two months later.

WHAT THE BILL WOULD — AND WOULDN’T — CHANGE

The Freedom to Home Distill Act would allow adults 21 and older to legally distill limited amounts of spirits at home for personal use for the first time since 1868 — up to 10 proof gallons a year for a single-adult household, 20 for a household with two or more adults — using a still no larger than 50 gallons, without federal registration or excise tax.

Harshbarger has tied the bill directly to the region’s heritage, saying distilling reflects generations of Appalachian self-reliance and craftsmanship. The bill’s backers include Tennesseans Eric “Digger” Manes and Mark Ramsey, stars of Discovery Channel’s “Moonshiners,” who helped develop the legislation. Manes has framed the effort as an extension of a fight against prosecution that stretches back generations of hobby distillers.

But there’s a catch worth underlining for Moore County readers specifically: this bill only touches federal law. Tennessee’s own state-level restrictions on home distillation — separate from the federal ban and never repealed — would remain fully in effect. Unless the state legislature acts separately, a home distiller in Lynchburg would still be breaking Tennessee law even if Harshbarger’s bill becomes federal law.

Readers who want to share their opinion — for or against — have two Tennessee U.S. senators and one U.S. representative to contact.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Washington office can be reached at (202) 224-3344, and Sen. Bill Hagerty’s office at (202) 224-4944; both senators also take messages through the contact forms on blackburn.senate.gov and hagerty.senate.gov.

Moore County’s current U.S. House representative is Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-4th District), whose Washington office can be reached at (202) 225-6831, or through the contact form at desjarlais.house.gov. Worth noting for readers: because of Tennessee’s newly redrawn congressional map, Moore County is set to shift into the state’s new 9th Congressional District beginning with the term that starts in January 2027 — but for now, DesJarlais remains the sitting representative to contact on this or any other federal legislation. •

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