Any drink nicknamed “white lightning” is going to be a doozy. With a long history in the United States — including scrapes with the law, dangers to public health (if it’s made wrong), and connections to far more cultures than the cliché Scotch-Irish of the Applachians — moonshine is experiencing a boom in interest.

“Moonshine is more popular today than it has been at any time since maybe the ’50s,” says Moonshine! author and Whiskey Forge blogger Matthew Rowley (@mbrowley). “It seems to be everywhere. Everyone seems to — everyone who drinks, anyway — seems to know about it or have had some.”

Speaking to Wired Senior Editor Adam Rogers and contributor Nate Mattise, Rowley says today’s liquor dealers zero in on constructing an “authenticity of age and heritage” in their products. “If you look at the ads, there are lots of ambers and browns and yellows and autumnal colors, and old-timey feels about them because that signifies, ‘This is the good stuff,'” he says.

In this episode of the Storyboard podcast, Rowley discusses moonshine, whiskey, home versus commercial distilling, and the several joys of being a booze reporter.