Whisky, Whiskey, Bourbon or that other stuff?

While stationed in Puerto Rico I went on a tour of a rum distillery, with three WAVE "friends". While we toured I noticed a lot of roaches running around. I asked the guide about that and he said "we're allowed a certain percentage of roach parts". I never drank rum again.

 

I've began to learn that "Sampling" is much better that actually purchasing. Too much temptation !

 

M

My grandpa got into a shootout with these guys. Well at least they think it was these guys. Around 1921, he lived downstream of their still and complained about the 'run-off' screwing up his creek and taking a number in his pigs. He didn't care what they were doing but just wanted his creek clean.


" Formed by Carl (born 1888), Earl (born 1890), and Bernie "Red" Shelton (born 1898) of "Geff" Jeffersonville, Wayne County, Illinois shortly after Prohibition came into effect in 1920, the gang operated in Williamson County, Illinois, making moonshine and other illegal alcoholic beverages. They eventually dominated both gambling and liquor distribution in Little Egypt until 1926, when a former ally, gangster Charles Birger, attempted to take over the Sheltons' bootlegging operations. This began a violent gang war, which saw both sides use homemade armored trucks and included an aerial bombing raid by the Sheltons on Birger's Shady Rest headquarters. This was considered the first bombing from a plane on U.S. soil. They are also responsible for keeping the KKK out of their general area after the constant flare ups into fights.[citation needed] The battle was for the control of bootlegging in all of southern Illinois.[according to whom?]

Despite having more than fifty gunmen, the Shelton Brothers were eventually set up and blamed for a murder they did not commit. Based on the testimony of Birger and Art Newman, the Shelton Brothers were convicted of an unsolved 1925 mail carrier robbery of $15,000 and sentenced to 25 years in prison but we’re later released.[citation needed]

Without its leaders, the gang slowly faded, and Birger dominated bootlegging in Southern Illinois, until he was hanged in 1928 after being convicted of ordering the murder of West City, Illinois, Mayor Joe Adams, a Shelton partisan.[citation needed]

After their eventual release from the lack of evidence against them, the Shelton brothers moved in to control gambling in Peoria, Illinois. They grew an alliance with other known gangsters like Al Capone. They dominated their territory with few serious rivalries and with that they started to grow the attention of the Federal Officials who eventually placed a $15k bounty on each of the Sheltons heads. Carl and Bernie Shelton (in 1948) were both murdered on orders from former gang member Frank "Buster" Wortman, who had taken over the Shelton operations in their absence and dominated St. Louis' illegal gambling and other criminal activities until his death in 1968. Earl Shelton was also ambushed and shot, but he survived. After a third attempt on his life in the early 1950s, Earl and his family left Illinois for Florida. Earl died there in 1986 at age 96, the last member of the Shelton Brothers Gang.

Now although all the original members have passed and the gang dissolved throughout the years. It’s believed that some of their descendants still hold a good amount of power and are starting to grow in members again."

Grandpa and a Great uncle got the better.