A Free Ebook From Boozemakers
Backwoods & Bonded
The Outlaw's Almanac of American Whiskey — 230 years of moonshine, mashbills, and the law your granddaddy forgot to read.
14
Chapters
~120
Pages
~50K
Words
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What's inside
Anchored in specific dates, real people, primary-source documents, and the legal-cultural argument that has shaped American whiskey from the Whiskey Rebellion to the April 2026 Fifth Circuit ruling that began to undo it.
Chapter 01
The Whiskey Rebellion
How America was born drunk and stayed that way. McFarlane's death at Bower Hill, July 1794. Hamilton's excise math. Washington's 13,000-man army.
Chapter 02
The 50-State Field Guide
Whether your still will get you arrested. The April 2026 Fifth Circuit ruling, the three states that affirmatively legalized (WV / NH / ME), the six legacy-exemption states.
Chapter 03
The Science of a Still
Thermodynamics explained by a coal miner. Fermentation chemistry, the heads-hearts-tails cut, and an honest look at the methanol myth.
Chapter 04
Popcorn Sutton
The last real moonshiner. March 16, 2009, the brand his family never authorized, and the Tenth Amendment argument he made for 35 years that won 15 years after he died.
Chapter 05
The Whiskey Family Tree
How Washington connects to NASCAR. Beam, Brown, Samuels, Van Winkle, Russell, Stitzel — and the bootlegger-to-legal grafting moments at Prohibition repeal and the modern craft revival.
Chapter 06
Prohibition's Hall of Fame
Capone, George Remus, Joseph Magnus, Bill McCoy, the Bronfmans, and the Walgreens medicinal-alcohol loophole. The 13-year period that built the modern industry.
Chapter 07
Junior Johnson + Maggie Bailey
How moonshine built NASCAR — and the third option Maggie Bailey demonstrated. Three different answers to the question of how to live with the federal government on whiskey.
Chapter 08
How to Actually, Legally, Make Whiskey
The DSP licensing primer. Realistic $300K-$800K startup budget, 9-14 month TTB review, the federal bond, and the three educational paths into legal craft distilling.
Chapter 09
Mashbills, Mythologies, and the Lies Your Distillery Tour Told You
Eight tour-guide myths debunked: limestone water, Char Level 4, the rickhouse-position mystique, age statements, and the Pappy-as-Eagle-Rare claim.
Chapter 10
The Sourced-Bourbon Confession Booth
McNulty v. Templeton, the Bulleit Rye transition, the Smooth Ambler transparency model, the modern Penelope Architect tier, and how to read a back-label DSP code.
Chapter 11
Pappy Van Winkle: A Statistical Improbability
The 1992 Buffalo Trace partnership, the 7,000-bottle annual production, the 100:1 demand-to-supply ratio, and what to drink instead at a fraction of the secondary-market price.
Chapter 12
The Backwoods Glossary
50+ entries from ABV to Yeast Strain. The working vocabulary of American whiskey culture as it stood in 2026.
Chapter 13
Drinking Smart When You Can't Drink Legal
The five-step tasting protocol, the 12 / 6 / 3-bottle libraries with budgets, and the 12-week palate-development curriculum.
Chapter 14
Resources, Reading List, Where to Apprentice
The full reading list (Cowdery, Minnick, Mitenbuler, Veach, Hogeland, Okrent), the federal regulatory portals, the trade press, and the distillery apprenticeship paths.
Why we made this book
Most books on American whiskey are either marketing companions to a particular distillery's catalog, or breathless romances of the moonshine tradition that don't pause to read the federal statute. We wanted the field guide that respects both traditions, refuses to flatten the legal-cultural complexity, and tells the truth about the chemistry, the law, and the people on both sides of the line.
Anchored in specific dates (July 17, 1794, at Bower Hill), real people (James McFarlane, Pappy Van Winkle, Maggie Bailey, Junior Johnson, Popcorn Sutton, Alan Bishop), and the legal record (the Whiskey Rebellion, Prohibition repeal, the Bottled-in-Bond Act, the Craft Beverage Modernization Act, the April 2026 Fifth Circuit ruling).
It's free because the conversation is bigger than the price tag. If you want more from us after reading it, our paid catalog — the Premium Trail Editions, Drink Smarter, Smoke Smarter, the Boozemakers Annual — is referenced inside the book and atboozemakers.com/ebooks.
Read it. Tell us what you think.
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