_ Tar Heel Profile
By Sheila Turnage
The Moonshine King
Ai 74, Alvin Sawyer is finally sealing down after a lifetime
making whiskey and eluding the law.
"You got to know how to run in dial
swamp. You got to know where to step
at. You got to jump right in mud and
water." lie says, holding his finger side¬
ways just beneath his nose.
lawmen never did find Alvin Sawyer
that cold February morning. As a habit¬
ual offender. Sawyer faced as much as 10
years in the federal penitentiary for mak¬
ing and selling moonshine. But he says
he laid low until an understanding judge
took the bench and made a move that's
Elizabeth City’s ;\lvin Sawyer is the unofficial hini> of
atuiday morning. February 2*1,
1990.
In the chill gray light just
before dawn, law enforcement
agents creep silently toward a mobile
home just outside Elizabeth City, on the
fringe of the Great Dismal Swamp.
Their prey?
The Moonshine King: 72-year-old
Alvin Sawyer, distiller of some of the
finest corn whiskey ever i un up the East
Coast — or down.
True. Sawyer swore oil the family busi¬
ness a year or so ago when he limped
hark into F.li/alx‘lh City, a free man after
two long years in a federal penitentiary.
Instead of making whiskey. Sawyer told
lawmen, he’d make and sell model stills,
and become a model citizen to boot.
Bui the habits of a lifetime «lie hard, if
they «lie at all. And Alvin’s estranged 33-
year-old wife tells police that lately the
soft-spoken man’s clothes reck of corn
mash when he comes a-callin*.
As lawmen approach the trailer, any
lingering doubts about Alvin's recent
career choices disappear, eaten away by
lhcl50*proof breeze wafting from his
Shed.
The agents move in. Moments later.
Alvin, wearing rumpled pajamas, stum¬
bles from the trailer, white hair
disheveled, ol«l eyes bewildered behind
thick-lensed glasses.
He watches lawmen rummage
through the shed in the early morning
light — turning up a small still, three
barrels of mash and a glass bottle with a
funnel in its mouth.
Wearily. Alvin Sawyer bangs bis head.
Busted. Again.
Then, the unthinkable: I he Moon¬
shine King snuDlcs. He swipes at a tear
trickling down hisweatlier-ereased face.
I lis shoulders sag. and he begins to civ.
It's’a pitiful sight.
The «»l<l moonshiner makes one
Eastern .Worth Carolina moonshine.
request of the officers: that he be al-
lowe«l logo inside to collect himself and
put on his britches before they haul him
off to jail. I Ic pulls the trailer door shut
behiiKl him as lawmen mill about the
front year, talking and joking.
Onr«- inside. Alvin Sawyer — grinning
like an old possum — scurries thr«nigh
the trailer and out the back door, high-
tailing it to safety deep in the heart of
the Great Dismal Swamp.
They said I went out a back <loor.“
Sawyer says, blue eyes dancing. "But the
only back door I saw was the Dismal
Swamp."
I le shifts slightly. niKlging the strap of
his faded overalls higlici on his shoul¬
der. and clasps his hands on the table in
lr«>nt ol him. “They couldn't catch me
in that swamp," he says.
worked for him many a time
over the past five decades: he
turned himself in.
Instead of 10 hard years in the
pen. lie pulled 30 days in the
local jail.
And what happened to his
shed full of moonshine?
Sawyer glows with a quiet
pride.
They (said) they needed it
for evidence." he says, his voice
soft and lilting. He flashes a
snaggle-toothed grin.
"You know, it don’t take but a
half-pint for evidence." he says.
The law was always earning
my whiskey home with them.
They divided it up. or they’d
carry it somewhere and «lividc it
up. They never poured it out."
He lowers his voice.
“1 never siid nothing," he says.
“I let them go right on."
Moonshine has served Sawyer,
a teetotaler, well over the years.
"I made a good living." he says.
"I don’t owe nobody a penny."
But making moonshine lias been
more than a business for .Alvin Sawyer.
It’s been a life.
“I was born and raised right here
around Elizabeth City." he says. "I live
right there in the e«lge of the swamp.
Down at my home it’sa big swamp. A Aig
swamp. Lord have mercy. Thousands
ami thousands «>f acres.
"1 always had a still in the swamp." says
Sawyer, a welder by trade.
"И
I didn't
have nothing to do. I'd just go in there
and work some. I been in moonshine
ever since ’S3."
Sawyer, who now says he’s retired from
the moonshine game forever — no fool¬
ing — went into the whiskey-making
business during the Great Depression.
"I was about 15 vears old." he recalls.
The Stale/July
199.»
32
IV»- Volt Imi|t
