A Run For The Money, Now Legal

NASCAR legend Junior Johnson has a new batch of moonshine, but this time he isn’t trying to outrun the revenuers.

“Now they’re working for me, I used to work for them.”

Johnson introduced his Midnight Moon moonshine, which is produced by Piedmont Distillers in Madison, at a news conference this afternoon at Lowe’s Motor Speedway outside Charlotte.

“In your wildest dreams, you’d never think that what was so illegal is now ... a legal product,” he told reporters.

The government doesn't care what what you do as long as it is done legal and their cut comes out of it, which is the taxes made from the money selling it. I think they took it to heart when all the moonshine running took place many years ago and they weren't even offered a quart of it, little alone their small pension. I'd wager that more than not had their hidden share of it. Just stay tuned, marijuana may be next.

Piedmont Distillers has been looking to work with Johnson since the company’s inception, said Joe Michalek, company president.

“We’ve been talking to him (Johnson) for years and he finally came up and took a tour,” he said. “He fell in love with the town, the people and the distillery, and he said he would be interested in developing a new product.”

Johnson’s moonshine, which began being distributed to North Carolina ABC stores a week ago, joins the distillery’s other product, Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine, the only legal moonshines made in the only legal distillery in the Carolinas.

Midnight Moon will be available at the Eden ABC store Monday and throughout the county this coming week.

“They are complementary products,” Michalek said.

Graphics on the bottles of Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon feature his famous 1940 Ford that bore the original No. 3 -- before it was transferred to Richard Childress and later graced the car of the late, great Dale Earnhardt. Midnight Moon follows the Johnson family’s generations-old tradition of making moonshine. Every batch is born in an authentic, copper still and is hand-crafted in small batches and triple distilled.

Johnson was active in the development of the product and plans to be just as active in its promotion. In fact, he will be promoting the new beverage bearing his name at several ABC stores around Charlotte next week, Michalek said. Michalek is thrilled that Johnson is now part owner of Piedmont Distillers.

“To partner up with a legend like Junior Johnson is amazing,” he said. “He’s a legendary race car driver and owner and a legend in terms of moonshine. He brings all that history and stories.”

Like many of the other early stock car racers, Johnson was raised in the family’s whiskey business. He helped his father work the copper stills during the day and honed his driving skills by running moonshine at night. Johnson then combined his understanding of how to make a car run flat-out with his driving skills to become one of the most successful NASCAR drivers and owners in racing history. He is tied with Ned Jarrett for tenth place on the all-time victory list. For his part, Johnson says he is proud to own a part of a legal distillery.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life, and my history in the moonshine business is no secret,” he said in a release. “Back in the old days, we learned to drive cars fast because we’d go to jail if we didn’t. Now, you can buy part of a moonshine business, tell everybody where they can buy your product, and it’s all legal. It’s a different deal than it was back then.”