Beverages: Shine On, Georgia Moon

Moonshining has siphoned off $7 billion in liquor taxes in the past decade, the Licensed Beverage Industries, the trade association of legitimate distillers, complained last week. Moonshiners themselves are lamenting their own losses to a new and formidable competitor, who does not have to worry about revenooers busting up his stills. The competitor: Georgia's Viking Distillery, which has brought out a 90-proof corn whisky, Georgia Moon, that is just as throat-burning, stomach-churning and aggressively youthful (none older than 30 days) as its backwoods counterpart. The difference is that it bears the federal excise stamp.

Viking, which has raised its sales...