The alcohol served in the rural and plantation juke joints was often illegal hooch made by the more enterprising farmers on the plantation--moonshine, corn whiskey and the like. The Boss didn’t care since it saved him money. During Prohibition, all kinds of alcohol was consumed by the nation’s poor. One of the most popular sources was Sterno—jellied alcohol that could be burned in the can. For this reason, it was called “canned heat” which Southerners pronounced “candee.”
Invented in 1900, Sterno contains ethanol which is consumable alcohol but the manufacturer added wood alcohol (methanol) to denature it (i.e. make it too toxic to consume). That didn’t stop people from drinking it during Prohibition. They extracted the alcohol—both the ethanol and methanol together since there was no way to separate them—and drank it. It was quite popular among the bluesmen. Some, as Tommy Johnson, continued to drink it even after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Because of the deleterious effects of methanol, the Sterno alcohol earned the name “rotgut” which eventually came to be applied to any cheap alcohol.
With a belly full of this horrible stuff, a man could turn into a raving demon. Juke patrons would attack one another with little to no provocation. Men would pull out guns and simply start shooting. A man jealous by nature became an insane monster on rotgut if any man spoke to or even looked at his woman. Since the musicians were generally eyed by the women, they were the biggest targets of vengeance. The performers had to be careful what women they spoke to or flirted with. Even innocently smiling or waving at another man's woman could cost a musician his life. Many musicians packed heat and I know of at least one case where it may have saved his life (described later).
A plantation owner and his sharecroppers in front of a general store in 1936 Clarksdale, Mississippi. Such was the power structure in the South at that time. The Big Boss stands almost triumphantly, foot planted firmly on his car looking immovable while his tenant farmers sit quietly, assuming passive, shrunken postures.
Clarksdale, Mississippi today.