On September 6, 1924, the Tacoma "Dry Squad" dug out an elaborately concealed illegal bootlegging operation hidden in a "cave" under the house at 7813 A St. - two stills were found, each with a capacity of 50 gallons. One man was arrested and 200 gallons of finished moonshine seized.

This snippet of local police action during Prohibition comes from the Tacoma Public Library archives. Eighty-four years later, in 2008, Washington state passed a bill creating an artisan distillery license, which allows a craft distillery to annually produce 20,000 gallons of spirits. That's a lot of Vitamin L.

It's Five O'clock Somewhere, an artisan craft distillery in Cashmere, Wash., was the first to legally produce moonshine in our state. Of the 15-20 liquor stores within a 50-mile radius where this made-in-Washington hooch can be ordered, Browns Point and Puyallup are the closest.

Buying local is important, but what if you want the real (made-down-South) deal? Enter North Carolina's Piedmont Distillers and Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon - Johnson is the most recent in a long line of bootleggers,  as Jake Barth of Dirty Oscar's in Tacoma will tell you. Barth's dad turned him on to Johnson's hooch six years ago. He sees to it that it gets stocked at the Sixth Avenue bar. Piedmont produces a variety of flavored and original moonshines that will make you whistle through your teeth on exhale. Barth's favorite is an apple pie moonshine served neat. 

"In general (moonshine) can be used similar to a vodka or gin, falling somewhere in the middle," say Bradford Knutson of Swing in Olympia via email. "(It has) more flavor profile than vodka, but less complexity than gin." Knutson started by carrying Midnight Moon at Swing, but later switched to Headlong, a locally made un-aged whiskey produced by Woodinville Whiskey Company. He's currently looking for just the right vermouth to perfect his Harvest Moon Manhattan.

Back in Tacoma at Dirty Oscar's, the Atomic Rose incorporates cherry, strawberry and cranberry moonshine muddled with oranges and splashed with soda water. And Midnight Moon Lightning Lemon easily becomes a thirst-quenching lemonade with the addition of soda water and simple syrup.

On the Eastside, Top of Tacoma Bar and Café stocks Lightning Lemon and Catdaddy. "Catdaddy tastes like Christmas," says Top co-owner Jaime Kay Jones, referring to its surprising buttery sweetness. "In the winter I make cocktails and some warm drinks around it using cider, Irish cream or eggnog."

Whether it's called un-aged whiskey or moonshine, word is traveling fast. After hearing about Dirty Oscar's and the shine, Jazzbones' general manager Dan Rankin started stocking it, too. "We're just selling it straight up right now," he says. "I dig the new category of spirit."

Beginning in August, Backstage Bar and Grill will offer Midnight Moon Apple Pie, Lightning Lemon and Catdaddy.

Still perceived as high-proof liquor that ensures troublesome behavior, not all business owners are opening their arms to embrace it. "I don't have stuff like that here," says Lisa Owen of The Mark in Olympia during a phone conversation. "We'd have to watch too hard for when people are getting too intoxicated."

"We had the Catdaddy, (but) let it go and now customers seem to want moonshine back," reports a Cryptatropa Bar bartender recently. "We're looking at having it again."

Much of the new moonshine is being crafted at 80-proof (on par with Maker's Mark or Jim Beam). With definite and discernable tasting notes, it's more approachable as a sipping liquor and plays nicely in cocktail form. "Still being a newer product to the mainstream market, people are tentative," says Knutson. "Think of the old wives' tales about moonshine and blindness or madness. I have to take time to explain that in the market (today) it is nothing more than un-aged whiskey."