How is moonshiners legal

As the camera crew with the Moonshiners is not helping them to actively evade police or to create the moonshine, they are merely documenting it. Also, these alleged crimes would have happened several months prior by the time they ever reach the air, meaning that evidence beyond this reality show is likely to no longer exist. There is a burning concern that the show is nothing more than a dramatization, and that is what the Virginia ABC Bureau of Law Enforcement has released statements to suggest.

Their take on the situation is that if they were under any suspicion that actual illegal activity were taking place with the production or distribution of unlawful moonshine, that their department would be there immediately to arrest all parties involved and to put a stop to it. According to this primary office within the state, the show merely has been offering viewers an exciting spin on what making shine actually looks like and the idea that they are somehow eluding law enforcement with their distribution techniques.

According to the main man of the show, Tim Smith, he is always hopeful that the majority of people can see the authenticity of what he is doing and root for the multi-generation moonshining family to continue to escape the law. It is hard to say whether or not the show is still authentic this many seasons into it, as logic would dictate that if illegal activities were being filmed that law enforcement could track it somehow.

Regardless of which side of the fence that you might land on, the show remains wildly entertaining several seasons in, and does not show signs of slowing down. Moonshiners is produced by Magilla Entertainment, a company based in New York.

Lance died Feb. Currently, Bill is one of the best moonshiners working on the brew. The man can do anything from carpentry to building stills. The duo are worth more together than apart. While most of their income comes from the reality show, Mark and Digger also started a distillery together called Sugarlands Distilling Co. Sadly, when he was on a Florida race track on March 16, , one of the tires on a vintage bike he was riding blew up.

That incident forced his bike to smash into a wall and resulted in several significant injuries for the reality star. How much is Tickle Moonshiner Worth? He is the second original cast of the reality television show and has been part of it since the first season. A majority of his income comes from reality television. Then how do the moonshiners not get arrested? Some moonshiners have gotten busted in the past — most famously, Popcorn Sutton, who took his own life a few years before Moonshiners was produced, though his legacy lives on.

Tim Smith is based in Southwestern Virginia, where he is a third generation moonshiner. The report says that he drove his vehicle into a crowd, after which the officer made him take a field sobriety test His attorney was able to help him walk away with just a fine and court costs. Before he was a moonshiner, Josh Owens used to be a professional motorbike and motocross racer.

He still rides his motorcycle on the show with his dog, Cutie Pie. Viewers might like Cutie Pie better than they like Josh, honestly. He still loves motorcycles, and he was coming back from a motorcycle rally last August when he discovered that his trailer had caught on fire. The producers had the same thought, so the show was actually supposed to be about legal moonshine production.

It seemed too risky to make a show about illegal moonshine production and not get everyone involved in trouble. The original pitch to the network was about legal distilleries that exist. There was just one problem -- they realized it was going to be boring. There was no way that they would have gotten the viewership numbers that they do now. Adding Tim, who was able to take the cameras into the woods and offer an inside look at something that had been so secret, was what really took the show to the next level.

If they pay attention to the production credits, the production company might be one reason why. Moonshiners is produced by Magilla Entertainment, a company based in New York. Magilla also produces things like Lakefront Bargain Hunt , where some participants actually bought their home years before the show was taped, and Southie Rules , which was painfully scripted. First, he was arrested for public intoxication. Then he was arrested for possession of a sawed-off handgun, which a police officer found in the front seat of his car.

After that, he was arrested again for probation violation, after he admitted to drug use. He was originally given a suspended three year sentence in July for the shotgun. After his probation violation, a judge revoked the original sentence but made him serve five months of active time.

After his five months were up, he had twelve months of probation and has to be on "good behavior" for the next five years. He learned the consequences of being caught early.

He experienced his first raid at five years old, when police officers were investigating his father. Smith explained in an interview that when the police showed up, he had to try and hide the illegal moonshine from the authorities. His dad must have taught him well, though, since he managed to avoid the police long enough to eventually become a legal moonshiner.

Popcorn Sutton never did serve the months in prison that he was sentenced to.