Jan Walker's Blog - Posts Tagged "whiskey"
http://janwalker-writer.com/blog/moon...
Moonshine making is generally associated with overall-clad men in the Appalachian Mountains who set up their operations in hollows where the law would rather not venture.
Well, Orval Blevins, one of four POV characters in my Depression era novel, THE WHISKEY CREEK WATER COMPANY, distills a good product in the Pacific Northwest, no more’n two-three miles from the shores of Puget Sound. Orval’s old grandpap taught him the business, and Orval hopes to pass it along to his newborn son, never mind the fact that Prohibition is about to end.
When the story opens, Orval is looking for a legger - one good man to carry his product to Bremerton and Seattle. He owns land where water burbles up out of the ground and flows off toward the bay. A local Indian chief called the burbling water “lum chuck,” Chinook Jargon for “spirits water.”
The man Orval finds, Farley Price by name, is the newly hired hand at a dairy farm. He arrives in the community in a sand-color car like none other folks have seen, and with a need for drink. Orval serves him a sample of the good product and sells him some beer made from mash tailings to hold him over until such time they can make proper business arrangements.
The Whiskey Creek Water Company is set in a small Scandinavian community on the west side of Puget Sound. Most of the residents have done a little logging, a little hunting, fishing and clam digging and a little vegetable gardening to make it through tough times brought on by the Great Depression.
The novel is drawn from stories I heard from my family. The characters include people I knew, but with some characteristics changed in the name of fiction.
Like most of my writing, I call it "Writing from Life."
Well, Orval Blevins, one of four POV characters in my Depression era novel, THE WHISKEY CREEK WATER COMPANY, distills a good product in the Pacific Northwest, no more’n two-three miles from the shores of Puget Sound. Orval’s old grandpap taught him the business, and Orval hopes to pass it along to his newborn son, never mind the fact that Prohibition is about to end.
When the story opens, Orval is looking for a legger - one good man to carry his product to Bremerton and Seattle. He owns land where water burbles up out of the ground and flows off toward the bay. A local Indian chief called the burbling water “lum chuck,” Chinook Jargon for “spirits water.”
The man Orval finds, Farley Price by name, is the newly hired hand at a dairy farm. He arrives in the community in a sand-color car like none other folks have seen, and with a need for drink. Orval serves him a sample of the good product and sells him some beer made from mash tailings to hold him over until such time they can make proper business arrangements.
The Whiskey Creek Water Company is set in a small Scandinavian community on the west side of Puget Sound. Most of the residents have done a little logging, a little hunting, fishing and clam digging and a little vegetable gardening to make it through tough times brought on by the Great Depression.
The novel is drawn from stories I heard from my family. The characters include people I knew, but with some characteristics changed in the name of fiction.
Like most of my writing, I call it "Writing from Life."
