White Label

High-proof alcohol with a lot of history

What is Premium Moonshine?

Premium Moonshine is high-proof alcohol or high-proof “spirit” that were and continue to be produced illicitly, without government authorization throughout America. The name “Moonshine” was derived from a tradition of creating alcohol during the nighttime to avoid detection by the authorities, or police.

If detected they had the ability to move their 15-gallon barrels and 22-gallon pot stills to another location with speed and efficiency if the law was onto their location.

Distilling such high-proof spirits outside a registered distillery remains illegal in most countries.

In recent years commercial producers increasingly label some of their products as “moonshine”.

Definition by Wikipedia

“Click here to learn more about the Iowa Legendary Rye Distillery History During Prohibition”

Bootlegged Premium Moonshine from Templeton, Iowa.

If you were born near Templeton, Iowa after the 1940s you would have heard stories of the town being called the “Booziest City”,  in Iowa for good reason. It produced over 300 gallons a day of excellent premium craft spirits with a tasty, distinct flavor, that did not make you sick. 

This small farming town in Carroll County, Iowa was notorious for making rye, whiskey, and premium moonshine throughout the decades and was put on Federal alert for consuming more sugar per month than the city of Chicago for their yeast fermentation process during prohibition in the United States during circa 1930s-1940s. 

Today you don’t have to have an illegal still to produce these illicit liquors. The fabulous unaged whiskey of today’s stills are up and running better than ever with a ton of selection on the market but which one is better at producing a more flavorful experience? 

The Craft of an Award-Winning Spirit in Small Batches

At Iowa Legendary Rye Distillery,  we have taken the art of un-adulterated moonshine recipes by studying and learning from our past. 

Adding no artificial flavors and coming straight off the still, this rebirth of unaged moonshine is back and tasting better than ever.

Battle of the Stills: Who is The Winner?

There are a few types of moonshine that you can ferment. One is with a corn base mash bill and the other is with a rye base mash bill. Both produce a great tasting product but one is bar-none the better selection. 

Moonshine is produced via this fermentation process known as the mash bill. You have two types of capable stills that produce this wonderful elixir:

1. Column still 
2. Small pot still

Both stills that distill authentic moonshine spirits are currently used throughout the world today.

But, from a distilling standpoint. One stands out as generalized moonshine and the other is definitely the future of moonshine for its taste and amazing qualities of flavor grain adds to the spirit.

Although harder to produce, unaged rye is America’s greatest tasting spirit, leaving the unaged rye as the #1 winner in this category. We have paired this product up against the United States’ best vodkas and whiskeys alike while everyone keeps on telling us, wow I never knew this tasted so great. While winning award after award in spirits competitions throughout the greater United States.

With unaged whiskey, this art is harder to produce when distilled in large quantities, or “batches” it just does not hold the flavor with column still production. But with small-batch small pot stills of 22 gallons or less you get a piece of magic that happens in the distilling process.

Although the alcohol content produced is not as high grade as the column still, in the small pot stills you get the flavor of the rye grain into the liquor that ends up adding an exceptional flavor to the distillation itself.

The Lost Art of  Grandmother’s Hooch

Instead of producing 100 to 200 gallons at a time for the mass populace, we at Iowa Legendary Rye take our distilling back to the days of Prohibition when rye whiskey was the best-tasting, neutral-tasting alcohol that was mixed in every fabulous known cocktail to date in America.

Before the big switch to whiskey due to the harshness America experienced in the Great Depression and the combination of the Great Dust Bowl, in middle America. Distillers decided to switch to a more palpable corn crop from rye crops or the combination of corn and rye and sometimes barley to produce rye whiskey instead.

Moonshine and Today

Today at Iowa Legendary Rye we have taken this lost distilling art and combined it with our Grandmother’s bootlegging recipe to produce an excellent award-winning bottle called our White Label Rye.

Taste The Difference 

We implore you to grab a bottle today and taste the difference between an old-style recipe and a mass-produced recipe and see the combination of flavors you can experience straight, on the rocks, or as a replacement to any vodka recipe.

“It just tastes better”. It’s sunshine on your lips and does not have you feeling off the next day. premium