Old Saybrook Speakeasy Spotlighted in ‘Moonshiners’ Spinoff

Local Historian Jim Lampos Shares Insights on Prohibition-Era Hotspot

OLD LYME, CT – An infamous Prohibition-era speakeasy will be the focus of this week’s episode of Moonshiners: True Crime & Shine, a spinoff of the long-running Moonshiners franchise that brought local historian Jim Lampos to filming locations in Old Lyme, New London, and Old Saybrook.

Lampos appears in the episode “Seaside Speakeasy Conspiracy,” which premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel, with a rebroadcast at 1 a.m. The episode will also be available to stream on discovery+.

He said the episode explores the history and intrigue surrounding a speakeasy once located at Cornfield Point in Old Saybrook.

The show follows Moonshiners’ stars Mark Ramsey, Digger Manes and Tim Smith as they investigate the sale of bootleg liquor to the hottest celebrities of the day, according to the Discovery show listing. New York mobsters and federal agents round out the eccentric cast of characters in the true-crime retelling of a local legend. 

The three-day shoot took Lampos from the beaches of Saltworks Point and Sound View in Old Lyme to New London’s Lyman Allyn Art Museum library. His time in the spotlight culminated at the former Castle Inn, the site where illegal liquor once flowed. 

“Being part of the production was exciting, and seeing the inside of the Castle Inn, which is now a beautiful private home, was a special treat,” he said. 

He told LymeLine it was his research on rum running that caught the production team’s attention. 

Lampos, who serves on the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen, is the author with wife Michaelle Pearson of several books, including Rum Runners, Governors, Beachcombers & Socialists: Views of the Beaches in Old Lyme.

Lampos said viewers can expect sweeping drone footage of Old Lyme and Cornfield Point, but he is less certain about how much of his own commentary will be included.

He anticipated that only a few minutes of his local interviews would make the cut as part of an hour-long package that delivers the Moonshiners’ trademark chemistry to a true-crime audience.

“Somehow I don’t see them using my long discourse on the importation of rum from Barbados to Lyme in the 1680s, or blockade running during the Revolution,” he said.