Ryan WiluszKnoxville News Sentinel
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In the final years of his legendary life, Popcorn Sutton put his wife up on a pedestal – and on the catwalk above the 2,500-gallon pots where his moonshine was being distilled.
It’s only fitting the woman the notorious moonshiner was sweet on learned to stir the sugar.
“He made the best moonshine this side of the Mississippi, and I don’t care what anybody else says,” Pam Sutton told Knox News. “A lot of these so-called moonshiners would come and buy it from Popcorn and take it back home and sell it as their own and tell people they made it. And it wasn’t just one. It was several.”
Even if they could make liquor (“likker,” as Popcorn spelled it), his process and quality couldn’t be replicated … until now.
With Pam’s blessing, Popcorn products are returning to the market – legally, this time – through a partnership with Joe Baker, the founder of East Tennessee’s own Ole Smoky Moonshine.
Later this month, two beverages will hit shelves bearing Popcorn Sutton’s name and image: a “master blend” bourbon whiskey and his likker, a sugar- and corn-based product.
The white likker has been derived using Popcorn’s handwritten formula, while the bourbon is something Baker has worked to “reverse engineer.” The ultimate test for both products, however, will be whether Pam believes they are true to what her husband made.
“I hope (Pam) feels like she’s a partner and she’s got real equity in this,” Baker said. “Whatever we do to celebrate him and his legend, it’s important to me that she’s there to do that with us and to make sure that we’re representing his spirit – no pun intended – in an accurate way.”
The liquor will be bottled by Popcorn Sutton Distillery, a brand Baker and his team are bringing back to the market.
Popcorn Sutton moonshine is part of Appalachian culture
Say what you want about Popcorn – and plenty of people have – but nobody knew him better than Pam. While they were married roughly two years before he died by suicide, which happened just before his looming 18-month prison sentence in 2009, Pam isn’t convinced she ever said “yes” to his proposal.
When Popcorn first laid eyes on Pam, that’s just about all he did. He walked into the café where she was working, looked her up and down and walked back out.
“I just looked at the girls and I said, ‘Well, apparently we didn’t have what Popcorn wanted,'” she told Knox News from her husband’s favorite chair on the porch of their rustic co*cke County home.
That impression couldn’t have been further from the truth. When he returned to the restaurant to sell liquor to her boss, Popcorn handed him his business card with a handwritten message on the back for Pam: “Call me.”
His reputation as a moonshiner preceded him. It wasn’t something Pam was particularly interested in, but she didn’t mind it either. Her grandfather never made moonshine, but he ran the stuff. It’s all an important part of Appalachian culture.
“I want people to remember the history of it and remember that a lot of people used moonshine to make a living,” Pam said. “They traded it. … I’ve seen Popcorn give truckloads of moonshine away to families that needed something, and they’d go sell it and have the money to go to the doctor, to buy groceries, to buy clothes for the kids.”
Popcorn even put his sister through nursing school with his liquor, Pam said.
Pam eventually made her own trade with Popcorn: She agreed to go see the house he was building if he would just leave her alone. If she wasn’t back in 30 minutes, her boss knew to “call the law,” she said.
Pam returned safe and sound, but Popcorn was relentless. They would talk on the phone for hours at a time and eventually held a big wedding to make things official. It was the fourth time Popcorn married and the third time for Pam.
The two lived a quiet life together, despite his notoriety, and his intentions were clear toward the end: He just wanted Pam taken care of. It’s why he hid moonshine in the walls of his cabin (unfortunately, those evaporated) and buried some on their land as the legend goes.
In hopes of providing for her, he gave his name and likeness to a budding distillery when legal moonshine became a possibility in 2009 due to changes in Tennessee legislation. That distillery was sold in 2016, according to Whisky Advocate, and the Popcorn Sutton brand sat dormant.
“He signed the contract with them the day he died, through me and his attorney trying to tell him no,” Pam said. “I have yet to make my first dime off of Popcorn’s liquor. I have not made one red cent off of it in the last 15 years.”
Pam Sutton and Ole Smoky 'are from the same side of the street'
Pam stays skeptical. More people claim to be related to Popcorn than what seems biologically possible. He only had one sibling, she said, so how many extended family members could he possibly have?
Everyone seems to be related to Baker, as well, but that makes sense.
“If you’re in the Sevier County area before World War II, you’re related,” Baker said. “My mom is the youngest of 15 kids. And the history of mountain people and just that gritty survival kind of way – the fierce independence of the Scotch-Irish heritage. To me, celebrating that has always been important.”
As a teen, Baker learned to make mash for alcohol, which his father indicated was allowed under an “experimental license” to provide vanilla extract for cosmetic products. Even though Baker was a lawyer by the time he was seeking permission to make moonshine, this “experimental license” still lived in his head when he contacted the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
“And they said there’s no such thing as an experimental license,” Baker said. “I think that was sort of confirmation that maybe I’ve been fed a line.”
It took time to build trust with Pam, but Baker eventually received the compliment of all compliments: “You and I are from the same side of the street,” Baker recalls her saying.
If it wasn’t for that trust, Popcorn’s recipes might not have returned.
New liquor products will support the 'first lady of moonshine'
The relationship between the new products and Ole Smoky, the most visited distillery in the world, is a simple partnership. The bottles won’t feature Ole Smoky branding but will be available at the company's multiple locations and in Tennessee liquor stores for now.
The footprint could expand as interest grows in the products, which will be made at Ole Smoky’s facility in co*cke County.
“I hate that he lost his life because he was facing a prison sentence at a time where things were changing,” Baker said. “I don’t even know that he wanted to go down that path. … I struggle with the idea that somebody could be imprisoned for what other folks could do just given the opportunity.”
Pam believes her husband still would be making liquor outside the law if he were alive. There’s still tension between modern moonshiners and those who make it the old-fashioned way.
“Our product from the very beginning was corn whiskey, and that is as real as it gets,” Baker said. “Our process is probably a little more refined and cleaner and more sophisticated in the equipment we use, but it’s the same stuff. So, I think the mystique of doing it outside the law is certainly removed, but the authenticity is an important part to me.”
It’s also authentic in the sense East Tennesseans are the ones making it, Popcorn’s recipes included. Roughly 300 people work at the co*cke County facility alone.
As the product rolls out, Pam hopes the original recipes can rectify some false narratives surrounding Popcorn and moonshining culture made popular through reality TV.
“A lot of them that portray moonshine now, they’re not legitimate. I’m sorry,” Pam said. “I’m not complaining. I’ve got a roof over my head that’s paid for. I got food on my table. My light bill’s paid up. … I’ve got more than I ever had in my life, and Popcorn seen to it.”
Pam, whom many consider the “first lady of moonshine,” will receive a percentage of revenue based on the sales of the new products made from her husband's recipes. For more information, visit popcornsutton.com.
Ryan Wilusz is a downtown growth and development reporter. Phone865-317-5138.Emailryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com.Instagram@knoxscruff.
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