A Pennsylvania couple is accused of producing and selling moonshine for more than three decades, authorities said.
According to investigators with the state’s Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, Glenn McCleester, 75, and Barbara McCleester, 65, both of Port Matilda, face misdemeanor charges of unlawful sales of liquor and manufacturing and selling liquor without a license, the Centre Daily Times reported.
An investigation was launched in April 2021 after authorities received an anonymous complaint that the couple was operating as “bootleggers,” WPXI-TV reported.
Investigators said that between April 2021 and January 2022, an undercover officer made four separate purchases of the illegal liquor, which the couple sold for $60 per gallon, WJAC-TV reported.
According to Barbara McCleester, the couple’s recipe came from the late stock car racer Junior Johnson, touted by the NASCAR Hall of Fame as “the best-known bootlegger in Wilkes County, North Carolina.” Johnson was inducted into the Hall‘s inaugural class in 2010, and his still also occupies a spot in the museum.
The Daily Times, citing the criminal complaint, reported that Barbara McCleester poured some moonshine on her kitchen table and lit it on fire to show that it burned blue, not orange.
“She explained that when the orange color could be seen in the flames that this would be impurities in the product and would cause a hangover after being consumed and that her moonshine was the purest around,” the officer wrote in an affidavit of probable cause.
On Jan. 26, officers served a search warrant at the couple’s cabin in Taylor Township and seized the distilling products used in their operation, WJAC reported.
The McCleesters have a preliminary hearing scheduled for Feb. 15, the Daily Times reported.