login |  home | feedback | help                The Weekly Mix:
Shrubs, Scuppernongs, and Southern Tradition at Empire State
South      by Emily Bell     Antoinette Bruno     May 2012
"I come from a colorful family of people in the north Georgia
mountains," says Kellie Thorn, mixologist at Atlanta's Empire
State South. While some of us use "colorful" to glaze over an
estranged uncle's recent conviction or a cousin's upsetting
choice of tattoo, Thorn means colorful in the old school
sense—people living vibrantly. Take Thorn's great, great
grandmother, aka "Super Proud Old Elsie." "She was a midwife
living in the Appalachian Mountains," says Thorn. "She grew and
foraged herbs and would make medicinal tinctures with 'shine."
That's moonshine, Yankees, something of a family legacy. "My
great uncle learned to make 'shine from his parents," says
Thorn. (In contrast, this writer's dad once let her have a sip
of Rolling Rock when she was nine.)      But it's not 'shine
that runs through Thorn's veins. It's a cul