Popcorn Sutton always said his name, his legacy and his moonshine would outlive him. He was right.

Obscured by the brightly lit neon tourist attractions in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, there is a deeper truth about the mountains that I’ve called home for the better part of the last 35 years. It’s a truth we don’t market to tourists or even much talk about amongst ourselves. A truth that many of us have forgotten and maybe some of us never knew.

Those lush green mountains – the ones whose sharp edges have been blunted over the long eons of time – they still can cut you if you don’t respect them. Especially in the places where the asphalt turns to gravel and then dust. Those were the places that belonged to the Popcorn Sutton. The places where there ain’t nobody selling pancakes but you can get your hands on a damn good jar of, as he called it, “likker“.  

How Popcorn got his nickname

Before there was a legend, there was Marvin. Marvin was born in Maggie Valley, North Carolina in 1946. He spent most of his life running the mountain roads between his hometown and Cocke County, just across the state line. Marvin was the self-proclaimed descendant of a long line of moonshiners. He considered running moonshine his heritage, a part of his legacy.

Marvin himself was at least a little bit like those mountains of his youth, a force of nature. He earned his nickname when he took a pool cue to a bar’s broken popcorn vending machine. He continued his passion for making the “best damn likker” he could even after a handful of run-ins with the law.

What do we know about Popcorn?

We know Popcorn Sutton was not built to operate within the confines of modern society and really not even into the society into which he was born. He just didn’t give a tinker’s damn about what anyone – especially the federal government – thought about how he should live his life. Popcorn was of the mountains. He sprang from a region long ignored by the leaders in Nashville or Washington. A region forgotten except as a matter of national curiosity, a living breathing zoo populated by those whom “society” viewed as backwoods or backwards.

Popcorn was either unwilling or incapable of living the way outsiders – or the law – expected him to. He was a living, breathing Waylon Jennings song. He was a brazenly profane man with a long scraggly beard who was rarely caught without his “overhauls” and signature hat – complete with “coon pecker bone” adornments. Popcorn had a high, reedy voice and bony fingers. He could be hard when he had to, you don’t make a living selling illegal likker by being soft.

But he was also an artist. A man whose life’s work was the perfection of moonshine, the life’s work of his family for generations. The cliché is he marched to his own drummer, but it was more than that. Backwards? Popcorn was sharper than most. He was a puppet who masterfully manipulated both his strings and yours. He showed the outside world only the parts of himself he wanted them to see, the parts they expected him to play – iconoclast, mountain man and rebel – and it only made him – and his brand – stronger.

Popcorn: The author and movie star

Sutton didn’t become famous – or infamous – only because he made the best moonshine. His fame – such as it was – came because he made great moonshine and he understood how to market it and himself. He understood that Popcorn being Popcorn made it easier to sell books, to sell videos and, ultimately, to sell likker. In 1999, he wrote and self-published a book that served as both memoir and moonshine production guide. He called it “Me and My Likker,” there was a VHS video of the same name that followed. In the early 2000’s, his fame ratcheted up as he began appearing in various documentaries in which he talked about mountain ways and untaxed moonshine. The outside world began to take notice.

And thanks to the Sucker Punch Pictures documentary, “This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make,” we know that Popcorn was self-aware enough to understand the well from which his fame sprung. He could see the angles of it, like a caddy reading a green. Hell, the New York Times called him “hilarious” and from the documentary, it’s easy to see why. The camera absolutely loves him.

The Last Dam Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make

At one point, he takes a break from using the word damn about 90 times in a six-minute stretch and says he started smoking and drinking at the age of 6, pausing to light one unfiltered cigarette off another. “They say that smokin’ and drinkin’ will kill ya,” he explains. “But I don’t believe that ’cause my granddaddy lived to be somewhere around 90 years old and when he died they said that damned old likker and cigarettes killed him. I don’t believe that. I ain’t gonna worry about it, I ain’t gonna see 90 anyway. It don’t matter.”

But there are times in that documentary when Popcorn lets his guard down and the crusty, cussing, cantankerous mountain man fades and the artist, the craftsman and the legend comes to the forefront. Listen to Popcorn discuss the science behind the construction of the furnace – built with stone and creek mud – that powers the still. The way the water cools and the stone and mud redirect the heat. There’s no more pretense. There’s no more character. This is a true craftsman performing the task for which he was created. And then, the spell is broken.

“Hard work, isn’t it?” someone off-camera asks him after he climbs up out of a stream. “Hell, ain’t nuthin’ no Goddamned harder. Anybody that would have a man caught for trying to make a drank of likker ain’t nothin’ but a dirty sonofabitch, I don’t care who they are,” he said. “… I hope whoever turned me in, by God, may they rest in Hell is all I can say about it. And they probably will.”

The legacy of a legend

From a certain point of view, Popcorn died the way he lived, by his own hand. Popcorn got busted again – this time amongst a large effort to “clean up” Cocke County. Around the same time, the federal government conducted a large raid into illicit cockfighting and drug rings as well as chop shop operations for which Cocke County had long been infamous. Around the same time, some people in Cocke County law enforcement were snared for either looking the other way, participating in various illegal operations, or even running them.

This time Popcorn wasn’t facing a slap on the wrist. The law – specifically Judge Ronnie Greer – was tired of looking the other way. Popcorn was sentenced to 18 months in prison – real prison. He was 62 and facing various health conditions. In 2009, a few days before he was to report, he was found dead in his beloved green Ford Fairlane. The engine was running. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ole Smoky brings Popcorn’s recipes to market

There have been various efforts over the years to properly honor Popcorn’s legacy though none have quite taken. However, all of that is changing. Popcorn’s widow Pam Sutton has partnered with a Smoky Mountain legend of another sort – Sevier County native and Ole Smoky Founder, Joe Baker, to bring Popcorn’s original recipes to market.

“My family’s been in the East Tennessee mountains for well over 200 years and moonshine is just part of our culture,” Baker said in a press release. “I’ve always respected our history and heritage and making moonshine whiskey is a big part of our story. Being trusted with the opportunity to honor Popcorn Sutton and share his genuine American whiskey—and a bit of our local history, to boot—is truly special.”

To celebrate the partnership Ole Smoky will hold a special kick off event on December 8, 2023 at 10 am at The Holler in Gatlinburg (903 Parkway Suite 128, Gatlinburg, TN 37738). The event is open to the public and will include bottle signing and live music. Both Popcorn’s widow, Pam, and Baker will also be in attendance.

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