Native Whiskey was the slang used to identify home brewed alcohol or as it was know in the United States, Moonshine.

In most instances the local small time Korean entrepreneur’s lacked the necessary knowledge to make distilled alcohol safely, in other instances they just didn’t care.

The primary motive was to make money. With the hostilities winding down boredom was setting in in many rear echelon units. When you mix boredom with a lack of available state side liquor you get a market for illicit alcohol.

The blindness and death resulted not so much from the organic products used to make the distilled spirits, but from how it was manufactured.

When you factor in manufacturing time, volume, and competition from the hundreds of small and large volume illicit distillers, quality and safety goes out the window.

In setting up their stills the locals needed a fermentation container to cook off their base/mash and often used stolen or discarded vehicle radiators or fifty five gallon drums that often originally contained petroleum based oils and fuels. To supplement the lack of virgin rubber or copper pipe to cool the distilled vapors they once again used the always available discarded vehicle fuel lines.

All of these items contained lead or were used for lead based products which highly contaminated the end product sold to the unsuspecting and sometimes uncaring GI’s.