Western PA Distillery Delights Visitors with  Hand-Crafted Fancy Moonshine 

All I knew about moonshine and the people who made it came from old movies and television shows—black and white images that conveyed the general idea that making strong illegal liquor in odd-looking secret copper contraptions and then transporting it to customers over remote back roads in beat up souped-up sedans was dangerous work done only by poor, rumpled, cranky mountain people.

Oh sure, I may have had a snort of a clear smelly liquid at a WVU football tailgate that someone claimed was moonshine, but by and large, I was a moonshine neophyte, unaccustomed to the new fangled ways of 21^st Century distilleries.

Then, I visited the totally legal and fun-loving McLaughlin Distillery near Sewickley, PA where a tall gray-haired ex-Marine named Kim McLaughlin made me a warm Apple Pie Moonshine with whipped cream and a sprinkle of sugar cinnamon for my sipping pleasure—a far cry from the little brown jug of cartoon lore. 

I also enjoyed a Not Your Momma’s Joe Coffee Moonshine and was tempted by other samples called Hokie Pokie Moonshine, Cranberry Moonshine, Pickle Moonshine (yes, it’s flavored with pickle juice), and M.G.R.T.A. Moonshine before realizing that it might be best to throttle my enthusiasm.

The humble home of McLaughlin Distillery

There isn’t a lot of signage on the highway to help you find the little cabin-like building in the woods that houses McLaughlin Distillery. On the ramp leading into the building is a friendly sign with the greeting: “Welcome you glorious bastard.” Just beside the door is another simple hand printed sign that adds gravitas to the whole endeavor: “McLaughlin Distillery World Headquarters.”

Kim and his products were in great demand on the day we visited. He greeted each customer and quizzed them about their likes before recommending and then serving up tastes of his product line. The bottles were neatly lined up with classy labels and colorful presentations on the big tasting bar and on a nearby display table.

A veteran dairy farmer from northern New York State, Kim spent time in Western Pennsylvania working the oil and gas industry. When the industry slowed, he took advantage of the timing to convert his hobby into a business and McLaughlin Distillery was

Distiller/Cooper Kim McLaughlin welcomes all visitors

born. The woman at the tasting bar said Kim worked all the time, welcomed visitors with open arms, and would be happy to give us a tour explaining, “He’s as Irish as he can be.”

She was right. Kim happily took us up a couple of steps into a very rustic and unique work room where he proudly told us what was going on in four extremely large stainless-steel barrels filled with a bubbling yellow stew-like concoction.

It was corn mash, fermenting along at a happy clip where a simple single-celled organism we call yeast was doing all the work in the initial step toward making Kim’s product. The mash is a mixture of water, corn meal, sugar, and yeast. Fermentation is a metabolic process that consumes sugar in a yeast-induced chemical breakdown that creates alcohol. Boiling water started the mixing process but now, having been cooled at an appropriate rate to promote proper fermenting, the mixture was left to its own devices. It gave off a strong pleasant aroma that’s hard to describe along with a mild radiating heat.

The mash

“That’s alive,” Kim said holding his hand over the contents. “You can feel the heat coming off it.”

The mash will do its thing for four or five days before it is strained by Kim’s pal Jim and and loaded up in a towering copper contraption. That’s the still that separates alcohol from other components. The still heats the solution, condensing it. Then, alcohol-rich vapors are released as a high strength liquid that drips from the end of copper tubing at the top. Next, Kim goes to work adding flavors that provide the color the clear moonshine liquid, depending upon what is added.

But the moonshine in all its variations, is only part of what Kim McLaughlin is up to in his rustic little Pennsylvania building. He also makes bourbon and other whiskeys that require an altogether different skill. To become bourbon, the alcohol from the distillery must be aged in special barrels. In McLaughlin’s case, they are barrels made by the distiller himself from oak wood harvested from his property in upstate New York. That makes Kim an official “cooper,” someone who makes barrels out of steamed wood bound together with hoops. The cooper industry once thrived in North America but not so much any more.

McLaughlin shows off his cooper skills

Kim showed us how the wood strips are assembled and bound, lids are carefully carved and fitted, interior portions are charred to give the aging liquor unique flavor, and a hole made in the side for access. The typical U.S. bourbon barrel that big time distillers use is 53 gallons. McLaughlin’s are much smaller and are used only once to age his whiskey products.

The little loft area over McLaughlin’s workshop is lined with racks of the little barrels and vital information along with a unique name is scrawled one each round barrel’s top. For example, one barrel

Still on the left and some aging barrels to the right

carried the hand-written name “Shaylee Grace” along with instructions that it should not be opened for 21 years. Shaylee Grace is Kim’s granddaughter.

Although he didn’t talk about it during our visit, Kim also makes vodka and has plans for even more products. He describes his operation as a small batch craft distillery where each spirit is crafted to perfection by hand. There aren’t any hulking machines or a big staff. In fact, his web site boasts that volunteers do a lot of the work in the intricate operations, but only under his close supervision.

Moonshine’s image has come a long way since that old movie, Thunder Road, when Robert Mitchum drove a souped-up 1951 Ford sedan with hidden moonshine past inept local police and rival big-city gangs to speed the product to market. Moonshine’s reputation has come miles from the stereotype images of grizzled

Appalachian hill people with toothless smiles and old-fashioned muskets defending their hidden stills against the interference of pesky Yankee revenuers. Now, it’s a respectable business and guys like Kim McLaughlin are taking it to a whole new level.

You can find McLaughlin Distillery at 3799 Blackburn Road. Sewickley, PA or on the web at www.mclaughlindistillery.com.