Officers smelled something that turned out to be six tubs of corn mash a couple miles below Greencastle.

The Aug. 16, 1921, Daily News reported that a 30-gallon still was found because of “local officers’ acute sense of smell.”

The officers left Bowling Green around midnight and when passing “the old Reeves river farm a couple miles below Greencastle” they could smell something that turned out to be six tubs of corn mash. In the early stages of fermentation in the corn whiskey process, the mash can smell like vinegar, rotten eggs or vomit.

– “Way Back When in Warren County” is compiled by researchers at the Warren County Public Library and appears twice weekly in the Bowling Green Daily News. For more information about the library, visit warrenpl.org.