Popcorn Sutton…Dead at 62

According to the Knoxville News — Nationally renowned moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton died today in Cocke County and authorities are investigating his death as a possible suicide, a Cocke County official confirmed tonight. (Popcorn was one of our most unusual customers-paid cash and hated having to pay sales tax.) He was truly a interesting man…

Sutton, 61, of Parrottsville, was soon expected to report to federal prison to serve an 18-month sentence for illegally brewing spirits and possessing a firearm as a felon, the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed.

Sutton spent the last three decades building a reputation as one of the South’s top makers of white lightning. He starred in various documentaries about the tradition and penned an autobiography, “Me and My Likker.”

A raid last year on Sutton’s property turned up guns, three 1,000-gallon stills, more than 800 gallons of moonshine and hundreds of gallons of sour mash and other ingredients, records show. He kept some of the illegal brew in a shed and some in a junk school bus.