Just we thought we’d seen it all, comes this shocker: Moonshine is suddenly très chic. Yes, this colorless newborn whiskey (aka White Dog, White Lightning, Mountain Dew, Happy Sally, Hillbilly Pop, Panther’s Breath) is now being produced by several micro-distilleries and marketed to urban hipsters. Not surprisingly, NYC is leading this tipple trend, including a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that offers white-whiskey flights.

So what’s the appeal? As raw or non-aged whiskey, Moonshine unkissed by the charred oak barrels that lends whiskey some or all of its color and much of its flavor. “You’ve got less to hide behind,” says moonshine author, Max Watman. “You can mask a lot in a heavily charred barrel. You don’t get any pass with white whiskey. All you have is an expression of the distiller’s craft and the agriculture from which it came. It ups the stakes of the craft end of it.”

No word on any local bars offering moonshine, but Matt Carter was planning on offering some at his gastro-pub in downtown Phoenix. However, that project went up in flames in March after Carter was forced to close the adjacent Nine 05.

[NY Times]

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