Circa 1840, my great, great, great grandfather Ambrose Brannan (Brennan), and his fiancé Mary Anne Murray, arrived in Savannah, Georgia from Ireland. Presumably stowaways, the young couple had seen the early stages of the great potato famine and decided to run away together to seek a better life. Traveling by horse and carriage, they ended up settling in Columbus, Georgia. Ambrose worked as a farm laborer just across the Chattahoochee river in Russell County, Alabama. The work was hard, and the wage was fair, but he dreamed of more. “More” came to him in the form of an old family recipe for a traditional Irish “moonshine” (very different from current American moonshines) called Poitín/Poteen (pronounced “po-cheen”). The drink quickly gained a popular following, selling in local shops and pubs.  With such success, the family ultimately opened their own dry goods store, J.R. Brannan Dry Goods & Groceries. To this day, the building still stands in uptown Columbus, on Broadway.