What is Taos Lightning?
Mike Scott
Saugus, Massachusetts
Taos Lightning was a particularly spicy brand of whiskey concocted by mountain man Peg-Leg Smith and partners in 1824. From the early 1830s until his death in 1847, Simeon Turley, who grew and milled wheat on New Mexico’s Rio Hondo (just north of Taos), sold the brew, which was known as aguardiente (fiery water). It was the drink of choice for the mountain men who used the town as a base for entertainment when they weren’t trapp
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