A reference to making liquor

Posted by SCBert on May 09, 2003

In Reply to: What the heck does this mean? posted by LisSuz on May 03, 2003

"cracking corn" was a phrase describing the process for making liquor in the slave days. The folk song "Jimmy Crack Corn" is a song of a slave mocking his master who got drunk, fell, and died.

Some try to argue that the phrase "cracker" as applied to southern whites, comes from this. But there are other explanations for that.