A delightful story about gauger's and whiskey making in the days when the penalties were merciless and swift and yet in many cases, on both sides, exemplifies with the sometimes insufferable charm of the perpetrators.
It is a story with many facets, moralities, curiousities and charm. And in my ongoing research of similarities in the Irish and their forebearers and later friends and relatives who migrated to other shores; one can always see the lnk of the culture. This story could be identifiable within the Appalachia of eastern American or the high brooding, desert plains and canyons of my Llano. And in the minds eye, it's not difficult then to see the association with the crashing of waves along the granite walls of western Ireland.
They called it Poteen there and then and it's had many names since.....
But one thing is as sure as the heat of the Jornada del Muerto in mid August...if you could drink it and live to see the sun the next day.....like the great Cúchulainn... you were a mighy man indeed.