I dunno where you folks get them strangr ideas. Some's pretty close. but take it from an old bootlegger's son, Ole Jimmy crackin corn isnt openin a jug, he's makin whiskey. that is corn likker. Straight from my old man who used to sing that song befo ol Burl Ives ever sung it, cracking corn was crushing kernels of hard corn. field corn that is, to make the mash then fermented, then distilled to make whatever you wanna call it, corn squeezins, white lightnin, etc. What ever the social and life aspects of a slave, or ex slave-tennant farmer-it is certain to be a way of earning a few hard won dollars for members of the hardes worked and poorest men the nation has ever seen. They aint the only ones, my daddy was anglo saxon to the core and in times of no money and high taxes he made whiskey to get his family by. I have his recipes still (but not his still) on how to make honey brown aged corn that'll go down as smooth as butter. Bob Clark's white lightnin was varnish remover as Don Firth and I can testify.