Each time he would somehow avoid a prison sentence. He was put on probation several times after being convicted of several crimes over the years. Through his illegal line of work, he had often crossed paths with the police and been in trouble with the law. He earned the Popcorn nickname after attacking a faulty popcorn vending machine. He considered his profession to be an integral part of his identity and his Scots-Irish heritage. Sutton resided in Maggie Valley, North Carolina where he was born on 5 th October 1946. Sutton rose to fame much later in his life yet became well known in a short time. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.Marvin Sutton or better known as Popcorn Sutton was a famous bootlegger and moonshiner. But that day I made damn sure I didn't drink none of his possum brandy. Well, we put our likker in that ol' 46 Jeep and we always drunk some likker going down the mountain.
He looked at me and said that damn possum made me another gallon of likker. Then he dipped the mash into the still and as he was dipping it in he said to me, "Popcorn, Do you know what I am going to call this?" I said, "No, I don't have the slightest idea." He said, "I am going to call it Possum brandy, by God." Well he run it and he got two cases and two gallons. Well, the other fellow took a big stick and throwed that ol' possum way down in the woods. Made real damn good two cases and one gallon. Well, I dipped my barrels in to the still and run it. I said to the other feller, "you ain't going to run that damn nasty stuff are you ?" He said "Hell, yes I am, damn sugar is too hard to get to waste it." "Well" I said, "Let me run mine first" because we had to use the same pot to run it, two barrels at a time. To beat all, every hair on that damn possum had come off. Because a damn big possum had fell in one of his barrels and drowned and swelled up fit to bust. My two barrels looked damn good, but the other fellers didn't. The morning it got ready to run, we went in, pulled the cover back off the barrels. We had up two barrels each 1/2 corn, 1/2 rye. Most of the time I made likker by myself, but at another time on Snowbird Mountain., me and another feller was making likker together. His flow of language is sometimes colorful and obscene it is the way he expresses himself. When Popcorn realized that few people were willing to put in the hard work necessary to build a good "pot" or to make good liquor, he wanted to pass on his experinces with the trade. He learned his trade early and chose to drop out of school, drive fast, and chase women. His life has been filled with disappointments and sadness as well as quality times when he grew up on Hemphill, a mountainous community in Haywood County, North Carolina adjacent to Great Smoky National Park. He shows a unique sense of character and value system much as our mountain forefathers must have held with which they survived and reared their families. Popcorn is an authentic moonshine distiller and builder of the still on which to run the brew. Popcorn Sutton is quite living legend in the mountains of east Tennessee and western North Carolina because of his centuries old trade.