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Who Said That?

"When we first started doing our tastings almost four years ago, there were probably one or two 'shine products on the shelf. You go now and there are probably 20 or 25 of them."

-- Dick Waters

Moonshine, the high-proof, un-aged, distilled American whiskey, has been making a comeback. The Discovery Channel docudrama Moonshiners may account for some of this newfound glamor. Dick Waters didn't know that moonshine would become so popular when he started Palm Ridge Distillery in Lake County's Umatilla, one of Florida's only microbatch distilleries. 

"When we first started doing our tastings almost four years ago, there were probably one or two 'shine products on the shelf. You go now and there are probably 20 or 25 of them," Waters said. "We thought it was a fad, and it still may be, to be honest with you. But this year Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam are doing it — it's got more legs than I thought it did, for sure."

Laura Reiley at the Tampa Bay Times writes about this new trend.