Hipsters Go Redneck With Taxidermy, Moonshine

Hipster faves fixed-gear bikes, v-neck T-shirts, and ironic mustaches have a pair of new, and very red-neck, companions: Taxidermy and moonshine. The former, Melissa Milgrom reports for the Daily Beast, gives actual and spiritual Williamsburgers the chance to actually own an animal. And, one practitioner notes, “part of being cool is to appear fearless in the face of the intentionally ignored and frightening. So if the mainstream reaction to taxidermy is to be creeped out—a reaction that produces a strong reaction on its own—the counter-culture reaction is to be fascinated and unflinching.”

To get a backcountry buzz, meanwhile, Wayne Curtis finds that the process of getting liquor out of white sugar and whatever else aficionados are tempted to add has moved from “the steampunkish copper still of the Appalachian hollow” to cities, attracting “the same people who drove the home-brewing trend, and they’re just as dorky,” one moonshiner tells the Atlantic.
(More hipster stories.)