22 Moonshiner A few minutes after I woke up I went to a store to buy
some bread for the next day and something to eat for dinner. After Wyatt had told me about the weather of the
next day I watched two series. At seven I decided to have a short visit to a
local bar I saw when I went out to buy my dinner. The only reason I recognized it as a bar was that
the sign above the door told me so. Without too much expectation I went inside. Inside it was
surprisingly large and a full-fledge bar. The bar had five or six guests and they looked
curious, but not unfriendly when I walked in (still wearing my red sweatpants). The guy next
to me at the bar introduced himself as Luis, a local. I told him
that I’d arrived here in Bowie at noon and that I was on a cycling trip. “The Town knows,” was his short reaction. This was
a good opportunity to get some inside information about the road ahead. Luis was a man of few words because he used
only two when answering my question. “Texas Canyon.” After a whole minute of silence to emphasize
his words he went on. “Your next two
days will be difficult. Even for a car it’s
a hard time.” His face was
nearby so I smelled the alcohol, it was an indefinable scent. I was confused
by the name ‘Texas’ so I told him that I already left Texas and I was heading for
Tucson He offered me a drink and with sign language
he made it clear to the bartender to pour two shot glasses. The bartender did not select an alcoholic drink
from all the visible possibilities, but went down under for a few seconds and with
two shot glasses filled with ‘whatever’ he rose from behind the bar and placed them in front of us.
It probably
had a high alcohol percentage; the color was between gin and whiskey. The taste was unique, probably locally brewed. Meanwhile, Luis told me that Texas Canyon was
a massive granite formation, about 20mi32km east of Benson on Interstate
10. “In the eighteenth
century a lot of Texans settled in that Canyon and for this reason the Canyon got
the nickname Texas Canyon. Historically the canyon was part of the
Chiricahua Apaches territory. The Apaches
controlled the area, but they were almost constantly in conflict with the ever-growing
number of settlers, miners and soldiers.
In 1886, the
last Apaches had to surrender. When,
during cycling, you pass a big pile of rocks, you must stop at the Texas Canyon
Rest Area. Enjoy the nice view that goes with it.” We drank the glasses
empty and Luis offered me another. With his
face a little closer to me he whispered in a conspiracy. When you
cycle on the I10,
between Willcox and Benson, you will meet ‘The Thing’. I remembered
vaguely that this was a title of an old black-and-white science fiction horror movie
about a scientist who found a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body frozen
nearby on the Arctic ice. I supposed that it was not this movie he was referring
to. I asked him
if it had to do with that old movie, but he smiled and told me I would find out
myself, soon enough. “You will be warned again and again via signs
beside the road. I will not tell you more” Before I could refuse, he ordered to refill
our glasses and he smiled meanly. Because I already drank two shots, the disorderly
collection of English words in my brain came smoothly out of my mouth. The alcohol lowered the bar so I could talk freely,
even though the quality of my words became more irregular. So, I made him
a proposition “I’ll tell you
a thrilling story about something that happened to me in relation to ‘Number Nineteen’.
It happened a few weeks ago. In return you give me more details about ‘The
Thing’.” To confirm the deal, he ordered two more of that
strong stuff. I started to like
the taste and without hesitation I began, starting from the day I arrived in New
Orleans till I crossed the bridge over the Indian Bay. To point out my story I
showed him my scratch pad. At the end of my story he ordered to fill my
glass for the fifth time and started to tell his part of the deal. “Around
1950 an Arizona lawyer opened a curiosity shop, a gallery of oddities, somewhere
in California. In 1965 he moved all his odd objects to Arizona.
He reopened his attraction just east of Benson,
right alongside Interstate 10
exit 322. The Thing, a
mummified creature, was his top attraction. If you ask
the people over there where it came from, they’ll tell you the legends and
leave you to decide for yourself what you think of it. This collector
of oddities died in 1969. After his death
the property was maintained by his wife for a number of years. Eventually she
sold it to a company with the name Bowlin. The dry climate
and the lack of neighbors have left this attraction almost unchanged. But there is more to see, like a 1937 Rolls Royce
that once chauffeured Adolf Hitler around.” At that moment, I lost interest; I knew he
was pulling My Leg! I saw he was intending to ask the bartender to
refill the glasses again, so I told him that I’d had enough. “Listen Peter, it’s my treat and do not worry,
it costs me nothing because I have been a moonshiner all my life and have an
agreement with the owner of this bar.” “A what!” “OK, you’re a foreigner so I forgive you, this
rather silly question. Moonshine is a clandestine distilled homemade
whisky with high alcohol content. It got its name
because it was normally distilled at night ‘by the light of the moon’. Sometimes, it is called mountain dew or white lightning. White lightning came from the fact that real moonshine
is colorless. Mountain dew
came from the fact that often, moonshiners dropped their product off at night
alongside mountain roads. Moonshining
is a felony. However,
local police usually tolerate moonshiners because moonshiners mostly live in small
communities where everyone knows each other.
The culture of
moonshiners has existed for centuries all the way to the beginning of American history.
However, the government don’t care about this.
I grew up in a family of moonshiners. Our family
recipes were handed down over generations, but I can tell you the basics without
telling you everything. Distilling moonshine is a remarkably simple process,
requiring four main ingredients: corn, sugar, yeast, and water. Use three gallons
of cracked corn, put the corn in a barrel and add water. Add 100 pounds of sugar. Add six packets of yeast. Stir it up and
heat it nearly to boiling, which speeds up the fermentation and releases alcohol
vapor. The vapor is carefully
filtered to remove any solid ingredients. The filtered vapor
will then be diverted into a device called a ‘worm’. The worm is a
coiled copper pipe bathed in cold water, which causes the alcohol vapor to condense
into moonshine. Repeating this process will remove the impurities
and leaves behind a jug containing some serious stuff.” After our last nip I told him I had to say goodbye
because I wanted to start cycling early tomorrow. When I
got up from the barstool I noticed the alcohol was trying to disturb my brain. Drinking so
much alcohol on a height of 4000ft1214m was not a good idea, at least
not for someone who is not used to this kind of altitude. I found
it out while I was walking back to the motel. In the motel room,
I lied down on the bed for a moment, but everything turned and turned around in
my head and it made me so dizzy and sick that I had to run to the toilet and throw
up. My stomach forced
all the alcohol to leave my body. But my stomach was well educated because it waited
till I was in the right position above the toilet. Immediately thereafter
I took a shower hoping it would make me feel a little better. Overall, it was
an educational and sociable evening without spending money and that was great because
the finish was still nine days cycling from here and my cash had no buffer for unexpected
costs. After a long
shower, I felt much better and it was possible to lie down without this wave of
nausea coming back. I started to imagine how this local whiskey was
prepared. Maybe somewhere
in some dirty surroundings and without following the rules and regulations of hygiene.
I’d probably find out tonight or tomorrow morning. Dear Note Maybe the motel is a little too commercial and too touristy
and even fake decorated, but the owners are real, and Evelyn is at
her age so powerful, energetic and pronounced. It’s wrong of me to judge the
style of this wonderful lady and her husband. They deserve respect. Everything is
so extremely clean! So, let them enjoy
this passion for Indian attributes. Thanks for
listening my friend, Without any problem I fell into a deep sleep. |