Moonshine from Down Under toasts to sprint car racing

by: Lauren Soulek

Posted: Aug 27, 2023 / 03:39 PM CDT

Updated: Aug 28, 2023 / 05:45 AM CDT

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – There’s a new whiskey being sold at Williquors in Sioux Falls, but its origins don’t come from Tennessee as you might imagine. The story of ‘Methanol Moonshine‘ comes from the Land Down Under and pays tribute to a sport beloved in the Midwest.

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“You got to understand that America is the Wimbledon of sprint car racing. So for us, it’s our dream as Aussies to get over here to the fabled, you know, it’s like the field of dreams,” Wade Aunger said.

Wade Aunger from Mildura in Victoria, Australia, started coming to the United States in 1992 to see the action of sprint car racing. In 2015, he began announcing at the Knoxville Raceway in Iowa.

“The generosity and the purity and the friendliness of the Midwest is the most beautiful people in the world and I wish more people outside of America saw that,” Aunger said.

In 2020, Aunger had to stop his motorsports announcing because of COVID-19. To fill the time, he started making moonshine.

“So I thought, methanol is our fuel in sprint cars, let’s call it methanol moonshine,” Aunger said.

Aunger wanted to bring the moonshine to America, but it’s illegal to ship in liquor. So he got set up with the Century Farms Distillery in Spencer, Iowa.

“I brought the labels over from Australia, we created an LLC in Spencer and within a month we were trading in Iowa. And we’ve now grown into South Dakota was our second state, Pennsylvania, Minnesota,” Aunger said.

Some bottles even have a face on them that many sprint car fans will recognize — the face of retired flagman Doug Clark.

“It’s pretty good, they come out with a peach flavor now and stuff,” Clark said.

Dubbed ‘an Aussie take on an American icon’ and now it’s on the shelves at Williquors.

“And when I say, ‘would you like to try an Australian moonshine,’ people go ‘….okay?’ Apparently I’ve got an accent, I don’t know, you guys have the accent,” Aunger said.

Methanol moonshine has a variety of labels featuring sprint car icons from both America and Australia.