“There is a rich history of growing apples in Wilkes County,” says Perry Lowe IV, a sixth-generation apple grower at Perry Lowe Orchards. Browse homemade craft goods and homecooked food, listen to live gospel and bluegrass music, participate in a knife-making demonstration, and shop for peaches from heritage orchardists or peach butter made on-site during the festival.Īpples: With a cool mountain climate, Wilkes County is prime for apple growing, making it second only to Henderson County for the most apples produced in North Carolina.
Photography courtesy of EXPLORE WILKESBORO Get a taste for Wilkesboro.īrushy Mountain Peach and Heritage Festival: On the fourth Saturday in July, head to downtown Wilkesboro for this annual festival featuring local artisans and fruit growers. Pick your own apples at Perry Lowe Orchards. Add to that the countless opportunities to get outdoors on land and in the water, and Wilkesboro is the perfect place for a well-rounded adventure. Wilkesboro also has rich traditions of bluegrass music and artisan crafts, as evidenced by the downtown mural of Doc Watson, the annual MerleFest music festival, and the Blue Ridge Craft Trail. With half a million gallons a year of untaxed liquor flowing through Wilkes County in the ’40s and ’50s, revenue officers dubbed this area the “moonshine capital of the world.” Whiskey runners modified their cars with faster engines to outrun the law - and out of this, NASCAR was born. These days, Nance makes legal spirits at Copper Barrel Distillery in North Wilkesboro, where the moonshine tradition runs deep. “Most people ask questions, they either were the law, or they were gon’ give it to the law.”
“When I came up, you didn’t ask questions, so I never inquired about that,” Nance says. He learned from his father, but he doesn’t know how far back in his family the tradition of making moonshine goes.
Master distiller Buck Nance has been making moonshine in the woods of Wilkes County since before he can remember.
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