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- His luck came to an end when he told an undercover officer that he had over 900 gallons of illegal moonshine that he was ready to sell. They weren’t about to let that stand, of course, and ATF officers raided his property in March. He was charged with illegally distilling spirits and possession of a handgun as a felon.
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Tim Smith Spirits. Fox News. original article on Grunge. The cast of Discovery's hit show "Moonshiners" appears to be engaged in illegal activity, so how do they avoid getting arrested? The...
- Law Enforcement Threatened Tim Off-Camera
- Special Agent Jesse Tate Was Misled About The Show
- Virginia Authorities Condemned The Show as Fake
- Tim’s Day Job as A Fire Chief Caused Problems
- Popcorn Sutton Was Arrested in 2008
- Virginia Denied Tim A Legal Moonshine License
- Tickle Had Political Aspirations
- Chico Was Allegedly Arrested For A DUI
- Josh Owens Lost His Trailer in A Fire
- The Show Was Supposed to Be About Legal Moonshine
The Cops Entered Tim's Home To Question Him
Discovery Channel wants Moonshiners viewers to feel like they’re getting a real look into the experience of illegal moonshiners. Occasionally, the personalities on the show are stopped by law enforcement while cameras are rolling. They are almost always allowed to walk away without an arrest, but it provides a good moment of tension during the show. However, not every law enforcement interaction is caught by the Moonshinerscameras. In some Moonshiners bonus footage, Tim Smith admits that poli...
He Didn't Know They'd Be Making Moonshine
Special Agent Jesse Tate is one of the familiar faces from season one of Moonshiners. He worked for the Virginia ABC Bureau and appeared regularly throughout the first season. However, what makes Tate so interesting is that he never interacts with moonshiners like Tim and Tickle, two of the main characters in the series. It turns out that Tate was misled about the nature of the show. He had no idea that it was going to be depicting moonshine manufacturing or distribution. The Bureau had thoug...
The Crew Believes The State Is Just Mad
In the same press release where they claimed to be misled about the nature of the show, Virginia authorities slammed Discovery for airing a false, misleading show (via Fox News). After viewers kept asking why the state allowed the criminal activities to continue, Virginia said the show was not actually portraying illegal moonshining operations but was actually just a dramatization. They asked Discovery Channel to add a disclaimer, but their request was “overlooked.” Cast members of the show c...
Some Fans Believed He Shouldn't Have His Two Jobs
Once someone signs onto a reality TV show, they invite a certain amount of scrutiny into their life. Tim learned that quickly once viewers realized what he was doing during the day as illegal moonshining wasn’t the only source of income for Tim. When he wasn’t evading police offers to run secret stills, he worked as a Fire Chief of the Climax Volunteer Fire Department in Virginia. Most people think of firefighters as upstanding members of society, so some viewers had issues with Tim going fro...
He Was Sentenced To 18 Months
Viewers who have been with the show since the first season probably remember the occasional clip of Popcorn Sutton. Sutton was one of the most famous moonshiners and was so famous, that he even had a few documentaries made about him. These include Hillbilly: The Real Story (2007) and Popcorn Sutton: A Hell of a Life (2014). Hillbilly: The Real Storywent on to win a 2009 Southeast Emmy Award. Sutton was lucky enough to mostly evade the law for decades during his moonshining career. His luck ca...
Things Are Now Free For Him To Sell His Moonshine
Tim no longer has to hide his moonshining. He is now proudly able to sell his moonshine legally, which he hopes will aid him in his effort to preserve the traditions and culture surrounding moonshine. Climax moonshine is produced in Virginia, but it very nearly wasn’t. As Tim was starting up his distillery, rumors flew that the Virginia ABC almost denied him a license to produce moonshine legally. Whether they were angry that he’d evaded punishment for so long for "shining" illegally, or if t...
He Wanted To Run For Congress
The president isn’t the only reality TV star who had his eye on politics. Steven Tickle, a fan favorite on the show, also admitted that he considered going into politics. In 2012, there was a promo for Moonshiners where Tickle "ran for president," but this turned out to be a lot closer to the truth than the show's fans might have believed. Tickle said that he wanted to run for Congress in southern Virginia (via Washington Examiner). This was at the same time that his spinoff Ticklebegan filmi...
He Managed To Get Off With Just A Fine
Popcorn Sutton wasn’t the only member of Moonshiners who had issues with the law for something other than the illegal moonshining the group is so notorious for. In 2015, Chico was allegedly arrested for a DUI in Knott County (via Troublesome Creek Times). The report says that he drove his vehicle into a crowd, after which the officer made him take a field sobriety test...which he failed. No one was hurt, but the officer still said that Chico shouldn’t have been driving and ordered him to appe...
His Fans Raised Money To Help Him
Before he was a moonshiner, Josh Owens used to be a professional motorbike and motocross racer. He still rides his motorcycle on the show with his dog, Cutie Pie. Many viewers admitted they loved Cutie Pie as much as the human members of the show. Josh was coming back from a motorcycle rally last August when he discovered that his trailer had caught on fire. Josh described the event on his Facebookpage. It didn’t look like he’d be able to recover the trailer or any of his belongings, and his...
Things Changed Because It Would've Been Too Boring
There’s one question that almost everyone has after watching an episode of the Discovery Channel reality show: Is Moonshiners real, and why are they not arrested? It seems like if you’re being filmed making illegal moonshine, they would probably get in trouble for it. The producers had the same thought, so the show was supposed to be about legal moonshine production. It seemed too risky to make a show about illegal moonshine productionand not get everyone involved in trouble. The original pit...
- Mark. Growing up as a local moonshine expert, Mark served as a former employee and still-builder for famous moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. Mark's passion for moonshine is undeniable, and he does his magic alongside his distilling partner, Digger.
- Digger. Digger is Mark Ramsey's longtime distilling partner whom Popcorn Sutton trained. As an expert moonshiner, Digger creates new recipes spearheaded by fresh ingredients to develop a unique taste anchored by moonshine.
- Kelly. Kelly is a moonshiner and Mark and Digger's business partner who is a master in acquiring raw and large ingredients for anything. Mark describes Kelly as the "guru when it comes to sourcing anything."
- Josh. As an outlaw moonshiner and high-octane thrill seeker, Josh will do anything to succeed in life. However, Season 13 begins with Josh in crutches due to an injury he suffered from a bike racing competition in the Daytona 500 race track.
Jun 6, 2023 · Smith states that you have to be physically caught by the law making moonshine to be arrested for it — not just watched on television months after the fact. Tim Smith: Retired...
Mar 1, 2021 · Unfortunately, Tim's request was denied. Apparently, the judge didn't think it was a good idea to have an inmate working with moonshine. This isn't the first time Tickle has been arrested.
Sutton was arrested in 2007 by ATF agents in Cocke County, Tennessee (led by Jim Cavanaugh of Waco siege fame) for illegally distilling liquor and possession of a handgun by a felon, and was sentenced to eighteen months in jail in 2009. He subsequently died by suicide, apparently to avoid serving the federal prison term.
Jun 1, 2023 · But Tim Smith, who grew up as a moonshiner, took a shine to him after his father, who taught him the craft, died. ... “If a customer is going to pay for it and risk being arrested and pay more ...
