Appalachia Hats

Appalachian pride runs loud and gift-driven across West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, western North Carolina and southwest Virginia, plus a large diaspora that carries the identity well outside the mountains. These hats open with the two plainest claims: the bare region name, and the PEPPERONI ROLL, the coal-camp lunch bread that is basically a regional flag at this point. IT'S APPA-LATCH-UN settles the pronunciation fight the in-group cares about more than almost anything else, and I'LL THROW AN APPLE AT CHA carries the specific, affectionate threat of a mountain grandmother. ALMOST HEAVEN and TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS pull the two most recognizable lines from the region's unofficial anthem, worn straight rather than ironic. RAISED IN A HOLLER names the specific kind of place half the region actually grew up in, and SOUP BEANS AND CORNBREAD is the Sunday dinner that needs no further explanation. RAMP SEASON marks the spring foraging ritual for the wild onion that has its own festivals here, and I BELIEVE IN MOTHMAN closes the set with the cryptid Point Pleasant, WV has built a whole tourist economy around. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. The two strongest lines, ALMOST HEAVEN and TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS, each get a second colorway. Pick the one that matches your mountains, or the one you're more likely to actually sing on the drive home.