The story
- Middle English · inherited frommone schyne
- English todaymoonshine
From Middle English mone schyne, mone-schyne, moone shone; equivalent to moon + shine. Illegally distilled liquor is so named because its manufacture may be conducted without artificial light at night. The verb sense is a back-formation from moonshiner.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.