Moonshine

Joseph Michalek makes liquor the old-fashioned way, slowly heating corn mash in a large copper still. As for the rest of his moonshine operation, he steers clear of Southern mountain traditions. A relative newcomer to the Appalachian foothills, Michalek, 38, does not haul sacks of grain or sugar to a creek, hunch down in mud to stoke wood, or cast a wary eye about for federal tax agents. Instead, the Northern entrepreneur with gelled hair, crisp blue jeans and polished Dr.

FRESH fruit is a glorious thing. But what do you do when the markets are overflowing with it and you bring home more fruit than you can possibly eat? Force it on your neighbors? Learn how to can? Turn it into compost? In Europe, berries, stone fruits and apples are often distilled into elegant fruit brandies called \o7eaux de vie\f7. There's also a tradition of home-distilled spirits in this country, but here we might call them by a more poetic-sounding name: moonshine.

Thank you for the Sept. 1 article regarding the 96% similarity of the genome between chimps and humans. I suppose this excuses some of our politicians and pundits for being so simple-minded. But what was most interesting was the fact that chimps do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease, cancer, malaria and other afflictions. I guess the intelligent designer was drinking moonshine, or maybe she just prefers chimpanzees. Please, let science have the last word, not the hand-waving of the uneducated.

I found it interesting that Fenton Johnson, in "Gold in Them Thar Hillbillies," his Jan. 26 Opinion piece critical of CBS reinventing "The Beverly Hillbillies," links his point with the injustice of the president's tax-break package. Yet he reviews how his family in Kentucky made whiskey illegally to get around the government. I guess it is OK for his family to make its livelihood with moonshine to avoid taxes but not for others to see legal relief because they are "privileged." Bruce Wendler Burbank Here's an idea for the would-be producers of the updated "The Beverly Hillbillies": A weekly series in which a poorly educated good ol' boy from a Southern state is suddenly elevated to the presidency.