[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
[Digger] All right, I'm going to show you this fancy sugar.
Honestly, this is not the direction that I usually go when making liquor.
It is good.
It better bring a damn premium with all this work.
I'm gonna start pushing on this thing from the inside.
Daniel made this still himself.
He love this thing.
I messed it up. I don't think it's working.
I don't know what the hell we're gonna do with this thing.
[Josh] This is crazy.
There's coffee everywhere.
I'm hearing Brazil making a coffee-infused moonshine
that's going to take the world by storm.
We got a lot of ground to cover.
And this road is crazy.
[grunts]
-[grunts] -[thuds]
[man] This is how we make the moonshine!
[plane flies by]
[Josh] Whoo! Talk about a long damn trip.
[narrator] Traveling from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia
to Sao Paulo, Brazil to evade the law,
outlaw shiner, Josh, is on a mission
to create a backwoods coffee moonshine
to cash in on a booming market for caffeinated spirits.
[Josh] We made it out of the United States.
My buddy, Chris, got me out of town.
Henry told me that the law was looking for me even more,
so me staying in the woods at home was pointless.
He's got a guy down here named Paulo,
I'm supposed to be meeting.
He's supposed to have some motorcycles lined up.
We're supposed to go from coffee farm to coffee farm.
I'm here in Brazil 'cause me and my friend, Chris,
are developing a coffee-infused moonshine
that's going to take the world by storm.
There's a huge market out there for coffee-infused liquor.
I'm going to make the backwoods version of that.
[Tim] In my neck of the woods,
the number one illegal seller is coffee moonshine.
I think it's important for a moonshiner to be able to adapt.
There's a market for a moonshiner to get in to make some money,
hell, I'm down.
I'm looking for Paulo.
He's supposed to be around here somewhere.
Brazil's the best country for my mission
because they've got the best coffee in the world.
There he is, right there. That's Paulo.
Once I find the right bean,
then we're gonna start developing the coffee-infused moonshine.
Sup, man?
I finally made it, bro.
[exclaims] A-ha!
-What's up, man? -Nice to meet you, man.
[both exclaiming]
-Nice to meet you, too. -Ah, you have your gear with you.
Oh, yeah. I'm good. I'm good.
-Want to see the bodies they got for us? Yeah? -Damn, right.
Come on.
Hell, yeah.
What have we got here, man?
[Paulo] Ah, two 900s.
Yeah.
So, we're gonna be sometimes on a highway
-and some dirt roads, too. -Sweet, sweet.
-And places to camp. -Oh, man.
-Have you been to Brazil? -No, sir.
-No? This is the first time? -First time I've ever been over the pond. You know?
-That's nice. Huh? -Yeah.
[Paulo] We're gonna have some coffee now.
And I'm gonna show you a map of the area
and we're gonna plot our trip around.
-Okay. -You were looking for coffee,
we got coffee here.
[Josh] My first impression of Paulo...
He's super-awesome. He's laid back.
He's got some really damn bad-ass motorcycles.
-You ready? -Yeah, I'm ready.
Paulo's want to go get a cup of coffee
and look at the map and go over our plan.
So, now, it's time for us to get on the bikes and roll.
[bike revving]
Paulo's my guide. He's totally in-charge.
He knows where we're going. He's been in touch with Chris.
I have no idea where the hell we're going.
[Digger] You know, Jeff seemed pretty excited when he called.
I'm hoping that corn's filled out.
It's time for it to be mature.
[narrator] Northwest of Cocke County,
Mark and Digger return to harvest their corn crop,
hoping to yield enough grain to feed their stills
for the rest of their season.
[Mark] Damn.
We ain't made nothing but weeds and damn stalks.
-[Digger] That's what it looks like to me. -[door closes]
[Mark] Damn, this corn field is pitiful.
Is it just burnt?
[Digger] I've seen a lot of sad things in my life,
but this corn crop to my eyes right now,
it's pretty sad.
Hello boys, how you all doing?
Well, looks like we're sucking at...
growing corns.
Currently, I am, too.
I thought I knew what I was doing.
[Mark] Well, we had some cruddy weather.
Yup. We got a hell of a crop of weeds.
[Jeff] It's got a lot of damage in here.
One thing we didn't even consider or discuss early...
I didn't expect,
we got a lot mold coming in here.
[Mark] This is a totally failed crop.
You know? And I know that he's feeling really horrible about it.
What do you boys got on your mind?
Ain't nothing to have on our mind, Jeff.
This is... This is a bust. I mean...
Well, I got the right to be.
Yes, you have it. It's your seed. Your time.
The reason why I went ahead and took this job.
I was supposed to get 15 percent off of this liquor
they're making this year,
produce 60 bushel of corn.
Just wanna put $9,000 in my pocket.
And anytime that you can make that kind of money
in this short of growing season,
it's worth any kind of risk.
Ain't none of us gonna make no money here. None of us.
I'm done with this damn patch of corn.
[Jeff] That brings me to another subject.
I do have some other fields of corn.
Got this young corn that's coming on.
I will furnish you all your 60 bushel.
Okay.
But I'm gonna need an extra five percent.
Jeff, we're too deep in that. We can't do it.
Thing about it is, Jeff,
if we surrender this other five percent,
it would be cheaper on us to pay the $25 a bag and buy meal.
I can understand where you're coming from.
You've got expenses, too.
Honestly, it's just going to be a shared loss here, Jeff.
You sure you can't go up to 20 percent?
There really ain't no way we can, Jeff.
I mean, hell, we're going to be lucky if we can get above water.
[Jeff] Tell you what I'll do.
I'll furnish you your 60 bushel
at 15 percent
if you pick it and you shell it.
But we maintain 15 percent?
[Jeff] We maintain the 15 percent.
[Mark] Good deal, Jeff.
-Jeff, thank you. -Thank you.
Actually, I hate we got you into this.
[Mark] We've all salvaged each other here, guys.
[Digger] Let's get out of here before the damn chiggers take over.
-[all laughing] -[Mark] Yeah.
[rooster crowing]
[Paulo] So, here we are in Extrema.
So, this is 130-year-old restaurant.
[Josh] It's so beautiful.
[Paulo] I'm gonna order some coffees,
bread, little piece of cake.
And we can plan our trip.
So, we're gonna go up
this road here, Fernao Dias.
It's mountainous, right?
-Yeah. -So, all mountainous.
All these days, we're going up the hills
to visit Cruzilia, Tres Pontas
and other towns.
You know, the best coffee in the world.
All right, man. Gosh, dawg, this is awesome.
[Paulo] Wow, look at this.
I couldn't be any more ready for this ride.
We got some breakfast, we got some coffee.
I'm feeling energized and I'm ready to get on the road.
Before we hit the road,
I wanna show you a special place here.
Paulo's saying where we're going,
them motorcycles is gonna be the best way
than any other way to get there but on foot.
So, he knows where we're going.
He knows a lot of people we're going to meet.
He's really on top of it.
[engine revving]
[Josh] This is so rad, dude.
[Paulo] This is the border of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais,
so we're entering Sao Paulo, then.
What do you say, huh?
[Josh] This is beautiful, man.
All this water here is the water system of the capital.
All these mountains and stuff, this really reminds me of back home.
Standing up on top of this mountain,
you can see, like, a hundred or something miles.
It's almost like you can see all of Brazil.
Brazil's amazing.
-What an epic adventure. -[Paulo] Yeah.
[Craig] This is not what I wanna be doing today, man.
Well, I mean, that's our option. The only one.
[narrator] In Sevier County, Tennessee,
Richard and Craig are taking Daniel's crushed still
to some seasoned professionals
for an expert opinion.
Daniel left for a couple of weeks. He went on vacation.
I went ahead and try to make some more money and...
I did a run.
-We got rain. -[Craig] Ooh.
[Richard] We gotta get out of here.
-[still clangs] -What the hell?
-The fire went out, Craig! -[Craig exclaims]
[Richard] Take it to 'em and see what they say.
I don't expect Mark and Digger to fix it for us.
I just need advice from these guys.
I know they are gonna give me some honest advice
and tell me the truth about it.
Daniel made this still himself.
He loves this thing.
I mean and...
I messed it up.
[Mark] What's up, guys?
[chuckles] What's happening, Mr. Mark?
Man, you are sight for sore eyes.
-How you doin', brother? -What say, brother?
[Mark] Why are you here, when you oughta be working?
It looks like you've been slapped away from a table for farting.
[chuckling] That's how I feel right now, too.
I ran into a little situation I need some advice on.
I mean, what, did she go willingly?
-You had to tie her up? -[Richard and Craig chuckle]
Now, go ahead and yank all this off of there.
Check this out.
-Whoa! -Son of a bitch.
-Damn! -Oh, no!
[Richard] Yeah, that's not what I wanted to hear your reaction was.
That's Daniel's brand new still.
He's in the mountain and I hate to ruin his trip.
-[Mark] I know what you did. -[Digger] I know exactly what you did.
-Somebody didn't turn the cap loose. -We turned our back
for one second, the flame went out
-while we were taking care of the other still. -Mmm-hmm.
And in one second, that thing imploded.
It started raining on us real hard.
We were trying to hurry up and get out of there
and before we could get to this thing, the flame went out and--
Hey, it don't matter if the second coming of the Lord is happening at
that exact moment, you bust a cap as soon as you kill the flame under this thing.
-Get it off of there. Let's look at it under that. -Okay.
I've been having my fingers crossed
since I hung up the phone with Digger.
I mean, I prayed that there's something that we can do with this thing.
[Digger] When you fellas do something, you do it right,
-don't you? -[Richard] Yeah.
[Digger] Well, I'm gonna tell you what you're facing right now.
Copper right now is just a shade under $300 a sheet right now.
[Mark] This is going to cost a lot of damn money.
[Digger] Yeah. Good God.
See it ain't the dents. It ain't these.
-Uh-huh. That will pop back out easy. -[hitting still constantly]
It's not them.
These. These little kinks, these creases right here are the problem.
[Digger] I mean, those are severe crinkles.
Now, with that being said,
it might be salvageable.
Maybe.
You might get your rubber mallet and hammer it back into place
the best you can.
And everywhere these are,
just put another patch of copper right over it,
just for strength.
-[Richard] We put a patch on that. -Shape it same as the steel
and solder it to it.
-And let the solder run down behind it good... -[Richard] Yeah.
...because the solder is stronger than the copper.
Everything you do to it to fix it now
is just gonna give it some character.
-Yeah. -That's it. From here on out.
[Digger] It's just like battle scars.
-[Richard] Yeah. -Yeah, chicks dig 'em.
[all chuckling]
I'm not gonna give up on it.
I think it's a good still and I'm not gonna let it die like that.
I think it's got a second life.
[Digger] We would be more than happy to help you, but you know what...
I got hair transplants coming up.
Mark's got another hysterectomy coming on, so...
You take care of that and we'll take care of this.
[all chuckling]
[Richard] I know now which way to go.
I got a lot of work in me and I got a little bit of time.
Daniel's gonna be here in a few days.
I gotta get this thing done, the clock's ticking.
-[car horn honking] -[Digger] All right, Hatty.
Let's get out of here and get this corn picked.
[Mark] It ain't big corn, now, is it?
[Digger] No, but it don't have to be big.
It just has to amount to a lot.
Jeff calls us and he says, one of his other fields of corn
is ready for picking.
[Digger] That's a good ear right there.
Unlike our previous corn field that we met Jeff at,
this one is green.
[Digger] Jeff made good on his promise.
-[Mark] He's a man of his word. -[Digger] Yup.
Jeff had a safety net down here for us.
It saved our hides.
Our corn field, we relied on it to keep our prices down,
he threw us in here.
[Mark] I believe we got enough to do a mash in.
Yeah, we've got about six big bags of corn,
about 60 pounds apiece.
We're gonna get this ground up and make mash.
Everything looks safe and sound.
Ain't nothing knocked over, ain't no hogs nor bears stomped anything.
Detective Robertson, he's still out of town.
But he's not going to be gone long.
We really like this site.
But we can't let our guard down
even though we are three counties away.
Jeff said he was real proud of the fact it was super high in sugar content.
It is extremely, extremely sweet.
You know, Jeff, he came through for us on sweet corn.
We just picked enough right now for the moment
to mash in one round of corn shine.
Ain't that good?
[Digger] That needs to be roasted, not made into liquor.
Damn. You know what that reminds me of?
That Elote that we made there in Mexico,
I was talking about that street corn.
They just pile 'em up a bunch of wood on the street,
build a little fire and roast corn over it.
-[Mark] Really? -Hell, it's the best [bleep] you've eaten in your life.
They got a liquor called Licor de Elote, I believe is how they say it.
What's special about the flavor?
Do you mash in the flavor?
No. We got... It's like post-flavoring it.
Distill a run of liquor first.
Yeah, just made regular old corn liquor.
Where do you get your flavor from?
From this, right here.
Roasting the corn, then you cut it off the cob.
Pulverize it up into just a slurry.
And then, kinda infuse it.
[Mark] Would you use corn sugar?
[Digger] That's a pretty good thought. We got corn sugar.
I promise you. People taste it.
If it tastes as good as what it did down yonder,
it'd sell way better than $100 a gallon.
[Mark] What are you trying to say here?
I say we need to make us a little run of that.
[Mark] Oh, of course we do.
[Digger] I'm pretty stoked up about this.
We're gonna run corn liquor anyhow
and that's all the base spirit for this Elote is corn liquor.
[Mark] Here we go. You ready?
[Digger] Now, beyond that, we'll figure out how it's flavored,
you know, the original version in Mexico.
And if we can't hit it on the head,
we're gonna make a United States version of it.
Corn sugar, powder fine, too.
If that was a damn sack of cocaine then we'd have something, wouldn't we?
Probably a lifetime in the penitentiary or guilt one.
That's sweet.
-I get it in my whiskers? -Yeah.
We keep corn sugar and cane sugar.
And corn sugar has got a sweet corn flavor instead of just sweet flavor.
It really adds a little bit of corn essence to your liquor.
Sugar melts really fast. Now, that's the other side.
With this sweet corn that we have,
this is a golden opportunity to do something different.
I think if it's good and people like it,
it will bring a little more of a premium price.
Look at all that. Look at that coming out of there.
All that sugar coming out of there fixing to be turned into damn liquor.
That's what we're after.
[Mark] Steeping the corn just gives it
a chance to start breaking down the starches
and converting the sugars into corn.
And it makes it much easier for the yeast to feed on and to digest.
Then, we just top it off with cold water
till we get it to a tolerable temperature.
You know, probably, you get a little more
return on your investments.
You might just get a little more alcohol content.
Throw that cob in there when you get through chewing on that.
Damn it, didn't see that worm.
You mean, a half a worm.
Well, we're going to put a lid on this mash, put a rock on it,
so no critters can get in it.
And six or eight days, we're ready to run.
And in that six or eight days, I'm gonna be doing more research.
[Mark] I think, it'll be some damn excellent liquor.
[Paulo] So, when we get to the farm,
you're gonna practice your Portuguese.
[Josh laughs] Oh, hell!
We got a lot of ground to cover
and my time to sleep was on the plane.
So, Paulo is taking me to the first coffee farm.
I'm expecting to be on trails and this and that.
There's people swerving at us, trying to run us out of the road.
Hell, yes!
Bikes passing us on both sides.
Cars coming from both directions.
God almighty!
I'm not one to follow the rules,
I'm an outlaw.
But this place definitely needs some traffic laws.
[Paulo] You see the environment is pretty different than Extrema.
[Josh] Yeah. The trees are smaller.
[Paulo] Yeah. And it's very dry.
And all you see around is coffee farm.
[Josh] This is crazy. There's coffee everywhere.
[Paulo] Yeah. Coffee here. Coffee there. Coffee there.
They're just starting again, the coffee production here.
You see, they're baby trees, but they're not.
They were cut to let it grow again.
And we're not gonna see any rain for days here.
Maybe, for a month.
And the road here is pretty hard. Isn't it?
[Josh] Hell yeah, it's hard.
[Paulo] It's gonna get harder.
I think Paulo is trying to scare me or something
because he keeps talking about how it's just gonna get tougher and tougher.
Hell, I like it, bro. [chuckles]
[Paulo] We're pretty close now.
[Josh] But what he don't know about me
is the tougher the terrain is,
the more I'm gonna like it.
-Hello. -Hello!
[Paulo] How are you?
I'm fine.
-Fabiola. -Pleasure to meet you.
Pleasure, pleasure.
-Thank you. -This is Ramsey.
-What's up, man? Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
If you wanna find the best coffee,
you have to know Fabiola.
This is real coffee farm.
This is the real thing, man.
Well, I'm glad to be here.
She's the fifth generation
of coffee planters.
And I knew that she was the person to meet.
[speaking foreign language]
-[Paulo] Yeah. -[Josh] What she say?
-[Paulo] She's saying, "Welcome." -Thank you for having us.
[speaking foreign language]
We go down the road and up the hills there
and Leandro, her employee,
is going to teach us how to pick
and he's going to show everything around for us.
Can we go now?
[speaking foreign language]
-Let's go, man. -Thank you, guys.
-Bye. -Nice to meet y'all. Thank you.
Fabiola welcomed us to her farm.
[engine starts]
[Josh] She's got all these mountains of freaking coffee trees everywhere.
She basically, just turned us loose.
[both exclaiming]
[Josh] These motorcycles are really big and really heavy.
And we're taking 'em to the extreme.
More than what they were made for, I would say.
[engine revving]
[Josh] God, this is crazy.
Fabiola told us that we're gonna have a really hard time
getting up on top of the mountain.
And guess what?
She was right. This road is crazy.
The only way I know how to explain this road
is it's like driving on the washboard.
This is the roughest, bumpiest road in the world.
Whoo! God, no!
-[engine revving] -[Josh] God!
-God, no! God! -[thuds]
[Josh exclaims] Dang!
[grunts]
[grunting]
Why the [bleep] does the throttle not work when you want it to?
[engine revving]
I hate that motor, man.
Going up the mountain,
when I go to take this turn up this hill,
I just kinda washed out. It happens.
[Paulo chuckles]
[Josh] I mashed the gas, the son of bitch didn't go.
The front end started washing down,
didn't have no power to pull out of it.
And when I went to give it gas, it wouldn't go whoop!
[Paulo] Too much dust. Right?
[Josh] Yeah, it wouldn't pull out of it.
So, it just slid out from under me.
[Paulo] And these babes are heavy.
Heavy as hell. Top heavy.
These bikes are so heavy
that the front end constantly wants to wash out.
-You ready? Let's do this. -[Paulo] Yeah, I'm ready to go.
[Josh] Let's do it faster this time.
-[Paulo] A-ha! -[both chuckle]
These motorcycles that we're on, they've got, like, ABS system.
Where if one wheel is spinning faster than the other wheel,
the motor just kinda cuts out.
When I romped out the gas, it didn't go,
so I was just like... [blows raspberry]
-[Paulo] This is it, man. -[Josh] This is crazy.
[Paulo] This is coffee, going up the hill here.
This is coffee.
This is a yellow species.
-So, they're all just loaded like that. -Yeah.
-How do the branches not break? -[Paulo] That's nature.
You know, what is amazing to me?
-A-ha. -Is how much it changes
from right here...
-Yeah, the beans, Right? -[Josh] Yeah.
-Like it's all-- -[Paulo] They're very white.
And then, you dry them and you roast them.
-Amazing, how the flavor comes out of 'em after that. -Yeah.
You can't even tell the difference. You know what I mean.
[Paulo] Not at all.
Coffee is a major thing in Minas Gerais.
[speaking foreign language]
Hey, man. How are you doing, sir?
-His name is Leandro. -Leandro.
Let's get some equipment here.
We have very specialized producers.
Little farms with families that produce
their own coffee for generations.
And this is where tradition becomes perfection.
Put the sifter under the branch we're gonna pick.
And if we're going to pick only the cherries,
we choose one by one.
-[Josh] Okay. -[Paulo] Okay. You can do that.
Yeah, find the very red ones.
-[Josh] The darkest red ones? -[Paulo] Yeah.
If you're going to pick all of them, just pull like this.
-[Josh] Just strip it? -Yeah.
[Josh] These people are living on the farm.
They're growing coffee. They're harvesting coffee.
It's a lot like an old-school moonshine operations run.
-[Paulo] Can you imagine doing that all day long? -[Josh] Hell yeah!
These workers, they do their job
and they take a lot of pride in what they do.
So, how you doing, bro?
Hell yeah.
I think it's beautiful.
[Josh exclaims] A-ha!
So, they fall to the front.
-Throw it to the front and jerk it back. -Yeah.
[Josh] Leandro really makes it easy to separate the leaf from the coffee beans.
He's got the sifter.
And Leandro just does like this
and the leaves just go away just as pretty as you please.
-So, I need to go this way? -Yes.
-Okay. -Yes.
-Like that? -Yes.
[chuckles] That's hard.
It's easy to do it like this.
[all chuckling]
Takes a little bit of practice to learn how to do that.
Leandro is definitely a professional.
Hell yeah.
So, you hand-pick coffee, man!
Came a long way to do it, too.
I told you I was going to bring you to the right place.
This is awesome, man.
The beans from this region in Brazil
are known for having a slightly acidic,
really full, smooth-body flavor profile.
And that's exactly what I'm looking for to make the best tasting moonshine.
Tell him, I says, no bean left behind.
No bean left behind.
These beans are known to be some of the best beans in the world.
I could make a recipe that's gonna take the backwoods by storm.
Throw the leaves to the side.
-[Paulo] Now, you're having fun, huh? -[Josh exclaims]
-[Digger] Liquor day. -[Mark] Yeah.
Let's see that mash.
-It oughta to be ready. -Check it out.
Oh, yeah!
[Mark] It looks ready, don't it?
Today is the day we run our base spirit,
our corn liquor for this Licor de Elote.
[Mark] Ain't it crazy, how something that started off that sweet
ends up that bitter?
[Digger] That is some of the best mash
that we've ever put out.
You know, I've never seen a corn flavor left behind
in a still like this one has.
We're gonna bucket this over, pour it through the strainer,
get all the solids out, crank this rascal up
and get ready to make some liquor.
All right. Let's let it heat up a little.
[Digger] Now, it's time to start roasting this corn.
[Mark] With this sweet corn that we have,
it's gonna open up a whole new set of doors for us.
Maybe, new clientele
because everybody wants something different.
We'll slow roast this corn
and let it caramelize up real pretty.
This is precisely how they did it in Mexico,
except we're on dirt
and lot of times they put it right there on the street.
We're just gonna cut all of our liquor in this thurmonster.
And then, we're gonna infuse our roasted corn.
Hopefully, that increases the corn flavor.
Headed on the way to Digger's Licor de Elote.
Go ahead and cap it up.
[Digger] We blowed enough steam out of here.
We got all the heads burned off.
Now, we're gonna start catching liquor.
Well, we're starting to get a stream now, Hatty.
-[Mark] I like that filter. It gets that funk out of it. -[Digger] Yeah.
You know, we need to toast this up pretty good
and caramelize it up a little bit.
Does that look like that corn you ate in Mexico?
This has got a flavor, like you ain't never seen.
The kernels are cooked up perfect.
All the starches are converted.
They're smoky, they're tasty.
I mean, they're absolutely delicious.
And I think it's going to be a premium liquor.
And it will probably bring a little premium price.
Let's get this maceration process started.
-Let's put the corn in the corn. -Yeah, that.
Maceration is a process
of steeping botanicals, vegetables, fruits,
anything else, in the liquor
and imparting that flavor and into that liquor.
[Mark] Shame to mess up that clear liquor like that, wasn't it?
[Digger] It is.
[Mark] We may have just ruined two good things.
It's possible.
We'll let this steep for three days.
We're gonna post-flavor it, sweeten it up.
Boom. We should have Licor de Elote.
Hillbilly style.
[Richard] Mark and Digger said this is safe right here.
We ain't got nothing to worry about.
Let me take it with you. That's good.
Mark and Digger, they told me, go to the chicken house.
Won't you grab me that mallet real quick?
It's a nice secluded spot.
That everything we need to fix this still, we can find in that barn.
That's all I need, right there.
Give a little bit of light in there.
Aim it this way for me.
[hammering]
First thing they said to start pounding this thing out.
I'm trying to get it back into place
as best you can by pounding.
-Starting to see things move. -Yes. Definitely.
[Richard] I want you to get that torch.
I'm gonna start pushing that thing from the inside.
[hammering]
[Richard] You know what? Slow down for me a little bit.
I don't think it's working.
We spinning our wheels here.
Man, let's pressurize it.
That's why I bought an air compressor.
We're gonna have to pressurize the whole thing,
so that mean we gotta try to seal up the top.
I got one last shot.
We inflate this thing, kinda like a balloon.
It will pop right back out.
I saw a bucket lid on the ground over there.
I thought about that. We gonna seal it up real good.
We're gonna wrap that up with some tape real good
where the air is not coming out of it.
Got plenty of tape. Blow this thing up like a balloon.
This thing imploded because it created vacuum in it.
It just sucked itself in.
-Uh-huh. -Make a nice gasket something for it to sit on.
Drill a hole in it.
And pressurize this thing.
Well, we're gonna do the opposite of that.
We're gonna fill it up with air and make it push itself out.
I'm gonna get this thing
as perfect to the size of the bucket lid as possible.
Make sure there's air-tight and if this works...
I'm gonna leave here happy, happy, happy.
[engine starts]
Good. Oh, you heard that?
What, you heard something pop?
-[still pops] -Oh!
-You hear that? -Oh!
I can feel it on my hands. Look at this.
So, we start puffing air in this thing
and I can hear it start popping.
-[still pops] -[Richard] Bang, bang, bang, bang.
So, I know something's working.
-[still pops] -Ah, ah, ah.
We good right there.
I'm feeling total relief right now.
I just think this is so good. This thing is back into a cylindrical form.
It's got a lot of dents. It's got a lot of ugly spots.
But at least I'm giving Daniel back a still that works.
-We did it. -Told you.
[Richard] Yeah, that's just a little character, right there, man.
[Josh] So, basically, you're trying to get it all spread out,
so it's just like one or two beans high.
[Fabiola] Si.
I've seen all the hard work and all the love
that these workers are putting into picking all the coffee beans.
Now, it's time for the next step, that's drying the beans.
[Paulo] Smell. It means that the quality is good.
She wants these coffee beans into this giant pile
spread out to where they're like one or two, three beans tall.
So, the sun can hit 'em all and dry 'em all out.
You will only know if it's really good
when you drink the coffee.
But this is a sign of good quality.
So, when they come here, the beans,
-they are still very wet. -Yeah.
And if you keep them like that, they ferment.
So, you wanna dry them
until this 11 percent of humidity,
then they're ready.
And you do this, like combing.
-I understand now. -[Paulo] You see?
[Josh] Are these already roasted?
What makes 'em black?
[Paulo] The skin becomes dark
when it starts to dry here.
So, the humidity is going down.
As it happens, it gets darker.
[Fabiola speaking foreign language]
-[Josh imitating motion] -Yes. [speaking foreign language]
[Josh] I know one thing, you guys work your butts off.
Hard work.
I tell you what, these people who have these coffee farms,
they really work their rear ends off.
This trip has really opened my mind
that the world is way different than anything
I've experienced in the United States.
Is it good?
[speaking foreign language]
-What she say? -[Paulo] Oh, she's saying that,
"Let my boys do that."
It's no good? It's no good?
Ah... Good, not excellent.
[Paulo] We're learning, man. [bleep]
[all chuckling]
-We tried. We worked hard. -[Paulo] We tried. Yeah.
There's several steps into drying these beans,
but after they're dried in the sun,
it's time to be roasted.
[Paulo] Okay. Now, we're gonna see how they roast it.
[rattling]
-You hear that noise? -Mmm.
It moves up and it falls down.
Moves up and falls down.
To roast it properly would be around 12-13 minutes.
Oh, yeah. Definitely starting to change the smell.
[Fabiola] Sweet, sweet.
I don't know how to explain that smell.
I've never smelled anything like it.
Fabiola's got this little old bitty contraption
for roasting the beans.
When you put the coffee beans in there,
they have to get to a certain point.
And she just does it by nose.
She's a fifth-generation coffee grower
and she feels like she knows where it's supposed to be better than the computer.
[Fabiola speaking foreign language] Caramel.
[Paulo] You smell it? Like...
-Oh, you can smell... Yeah. -Like it's very sweet now.
When you dry the beans out there,
they're still alive, let's say.
You could plant them.
When it comes here, you kill the seed.
So, they're just dehydrating it.
Those 11 percent, remember?
They're lowering it to zero.
-[Josh] So, it's totally dry. -[Paulo] Yeah.
How do you control whether it's a light roast,
medium roast or a dark roast?
[Paulo] Looking at the color and smelling it.
So, she's looking at the time, but not the controls.
[Fabiola speaking foreign language]
[Josh] Yeah, look at that.
That's amazing!
By roasting the beans,
it brings out a lot of flavors.
It also locks a lot of flavors in.
The amount of heat and length of time that you roast a coffee bean
drastically changes the flavor profile of the coffee.
Go.
-Yes, ma'am. -Thank you, Fabiola.
Thank you so much.
-That's amazing. -Amazing.
[Josh] Fabiola brought us out a bag of her best coffee.
I can't wait to try it.
I'm hoping that this is the right bean for my coffee-infused moonshine.
But right now, we're worn out
and it's time for us to go find a camping spot.
[speaking foreign language]
-Yeah, nice to meet you. -Thank you, ma'am.
[Fabiola] Bye-bye.
[Paulo] Now, we rest.
[Richard] Man, I'm not looking forward to go and meet this dude.
I'm kinda glad I couldn't get in touch with him
and let him know what happened to the still.
'Cause that would have messed up his trip.
Today is the day, Daniel is coming home from his fishing trip.
And I gotta tell him what's going on.
I tried everything I possibly could to fix Daniel's still.
I'm just hoping that it's good enough and it will pass muster.
-Maner! -[Daniel] Huh.
-What's going on, man? -What's going on?
I've been on a fishing trip.
As soon as I hit the blacktop,
I got a bunch of missed calls from Richard.
[Richard] I had a little accident with the pot.
I know you were gone for a little while,
but I though I was gonna keep the shop going.
Make a little bit of money for when you got back.
Kinda absorb the liquor you being on a vacation.
But you know what they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
[Daniel] Well... Hell, let's see it.
Well...
-Now, I did do some work to it. -Damn!
Yeah, she was far worse than that, Daniel.
-It collapsed. -Oh, it collapsed.
God, you gotta be kidding me.
Man, it looks terrible.
This still right here...
was my pride and joy.
She looks a helluva lot better now than she did.
She ain't pretty like she was when you left her.
I'm hurt. I'm sore of it
because it was a damn good pot.
That's why we wanna make it right.
We ran some damn good liquor off this, Richard.
So, you think she's good enough for us
to go ahead and start running again?
No. That right there, fellas, is a bomb.
That's a bomb waiting to happen.
You see all these little... little spots like that, right there?
-Mmm-hmm. -[Daniel] Once that gets under pressure
and it spews a stream of vapor out,
it gets to the fire running down the side of it,
you got a bomb.
[Richard] Well, how much I owe you, bro?
Copper's high.
I hate like hell to make you guys
pay to replace it,
but if you don't pay to replace it, I will. You know?
[Richard] And I'm gonna pay, so you don't have to.
In all honesty, time and all...
I'd say it,
that put me out about three grand.
[sighs] Well, I ain't got three grand right now,
but I've been working on something.
And I can get it for you.
Well, I do know that you're good for your word.
You know, I'm beside myself angry, mad.
That's a rookie mistake.
But this rookie mistake is gonna cost a lot of money.
And a lot of time to repair.
[Richard] You got my word, I'll make this good.
[exhales] I'm gonna go head down, rinse off a little bit.
This damn road is all over me.
I'm slimy, greasy, nasty.
Riding these motorcycles on all this terrain will beat you up.
All your joints start hurting,
your knees be killing you, your feet are killing you,
your back is killing you.
It's a good time though, I love it.
[water splashing]
Whoo!
[Paulo] Josh! Josh!
Come on! Get out of there! Get out of there, man!
Jump out!
Jump out! Come on! Quick!
-[Josh] Piranhas? -[Paulo] Yeah!
-Nah, man. -[both laugh]
-There's no piranhas in there, man. -[Paulo laughs]
-There's ain't piranhas, are there? -[Paulo] I got you, man!
[Paulo laughs]
[Josh] Oh, yeah!
We made it.
It's getting dark. I'm exhausted.
-I believe this will be a good spot to camp. Don't you? -[Paulo] Perfect spot.
So, we're gonna set up our tents,
start a fire, cook some steak.
We gotta get some rest 'cause we got a big day tomorrow.
I'm gonna go ahead and build us a fire,
so we can get ready to eat.
[Paulo] Then, we'll be able to barbecue a little bit.
[Josh] This has actually been a trip of a lifetime.
I'm evading the law in my country,
which is a good thing 'cause I'll be in jail.
Me and Paulo come down here and we met our coffee people.
They're super nice.
Can't even say enough for it, really.
Hell yeah. I have fire!
[Paulo] What else do we need?
[Josh] I don't know about you, but I'm ready to eat.
[Paulo] I'm hungry, too.
[Josh] That's enough meat to feed a damn army.
[Paulo] This could work.
-[Josh] Yeah. For both of us. -[Paulo] Yeah.
-You can start with this, too. What do you say? -Oh, yeah.
Let's just put them close to the fire
and... wait a bit.
Let's see what happens, huh?
[both chuckle]
-Okay. -Oh [bleep].
[Josh] I'm exhausted.
I've been itching like hell from picking them coffee damn beans.
But I learned a lot about coffee.
-I made some new friends. -[Paulo chuckles]
[Josh] My heart is happy.
How does it get any better?
This is old-school right here.
[Paulo] It's probably almost ready.
Yeah, it is.
There's some dirt on it, but it's okay.
[both chuckle]
-Is it like a eating a tire? -[Paulo chuckles]
You can try that.
[blows]
Roasted and smoked.
-Oh, yeah. Exactly right. That's exactly right. -[Paulo chuckles]
-Damn! -[Paulo] Isn't it good?
Holy [bleep].
Tomorrow is gonna be the be all, tell all.
It's gonna be the big test.
What you got there, buddy?
What is that?
I'm excited to try Fabiola's coffee tomorrow morning
because I came a long way
to come down here to find a perfect coffee bean.
When I taste it,
I will know immediately if it's the right bean to mix with alcohol
for the coffee moonshine that I'm developing
with my friend, Chris.
-What an epic day though. -Mmm.
[Josh] Man.
[birds chirping]
[Mark] Whoever said this is easy
never made no liquor, did they?
So, we got our base spirit here.
It's time to sweeten it up and post-flavor it.
What's the process here we do?
Well, the next step is we gotta sweeten it up.
It's just a simple syrup out of some brown sugar.
And then, we gotta cook some more corn up
to make a paste out of.
You put it in the syrup.
It should get us down about 50-60 proof.
[Mark] All right. Let's cook that damn corn.
If it is good, it better bring a damn premium
with all this work.
It's gonna have to with all the hours we got in it.
God almighty.
You know, honestly, this is...
not the direction that I usually go when making liquor.
It's out of our wheelhouse somewhat.
But, you know, I'm okay with it.
It just, I don't understand all of it like he does.
[Digger] All right, I'm gonna show you this fancy sugar.
The piloncillo.
It's 100 percent panela.
Brown sugar cane.
[Mark] We just dissolve this.
We need it to be pretty juicy, then. Don't we?
We do. It's supposed to be a pretty thick syrup.
You know, this is raw sugar, it's unrefined.
Look, it's sweet, ain't it?
-That's why it ain't vinegar. -Taste like...
-brown sugar kinda, don't it? -[Digger] Yeah.
[Mark] It's unlike any refined sugar
that we've ever used or tasted.
Very rich flavor, dark in color.
You know, I don't think there's anything on the planet
that could make anything any sweeter.
[slurps]
-Damn! -Wow!
That's insane good.
Now, what's the deal?
[Digger] I guess, we probably need to go ahead and filter that right there over.
Now, people will deal with a little pulp in their orange juice,
but they're not gonna deal with pulp in their liquor.
So, we gotta get all the solids we can, out of it.
And hopefully, by the time we mix this,
with that over there...
We're gonna have something that's pretty exceptional.
[Digger] Beyond the macerated liquor,
we're gonna do the syrup as well
to get anything out of there that might, you know, look a little funky.
You know, any of the fibers there left.
We're gonna fill it pretty good.
We need to get it out of there, too.
[Mark] I tell you what we must do.
Let's start with a little, we don't wanna over-do it.
[Digger] So, here we go, it's time to mix this syrup
with a base liquor and get our finished product.
[clicks tongue]
[Digger] That pass your approval?
It does.
That's just like a big ole piece of caramel corn in your mouth. Ain't it?
Wow.
[Digger] This Elote...
It's really deep, very complex
and I'm digging it.
I think it will be a hit.
Damn, I'm gonna take this little bit with me.
[Digger] Take it with you.
Let's let that sit and mari a little better
and we'll jar it up in the morning.
This vase here is gonna pump the cachaca
to his bigger tanks.
[Josh] This is an illegal operation.
This blows me away.
Ain't trying to step on nobody's toes here,
I'm just trying to give people better alcohol.
We're gonna flood the market in mega valley.
[chuckling] We'll have the best shine that they've ever seen.
Dude, look at that. That's Richard Landry right there.
[man] Better not be selling to our customers.