[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
Sorry, boss, today ain't no ride-along day.
I got to go do something for Mark.
Look at that darn bucket right there, Jerry.
-That thing's solid ice. -[Mike] Look.
[Mike] We should be packing it up
and getting warm in a damn recliner somewhere.
-This is the igniter. -[Mike] Mmm-hmm.
[Mike] Thanks to Richard and Craig,
our asses are still out here
trying to make something happen.
We got to get this thing going or our mash is gonna go crap.
This is perfect. We'll be able to do everything we got to do in here.
We're gonna mash up 20 barrels of liquor.
This is the biggest operation we've ever had going on at one time.
We've never done 1,000 gallons before.
[Kelly] She wants that crap gone from her garage
within two hours.
She's threatening to call the law.
[man] This is how we make the moonshine.
[Digger] Beaz, I think you're gonna like this guy that I've got.
He's a vet, he's combat proven so he don't get shook up easy.
-That's a good thing. -Oh, yeah, I like that.
He hunkered down in a mortar crater for 48 hours enduring fire
-so the rest of his men could get to safety. -Wow.
[Digger] That speaks volumes to me.
You know, Mark's laying low because of the law enforcement interaction,
but we're still got to produce a lot of liquor this year.
I'm not willing to let go of the reigns yet.
I got a guy in mind
that's gonna take up the slack.
I think I spot him over there.
That's a bootlegger car look. [laughs]
-[Digger] Joe Jackson. -Mr. Digger.
-It's good to see you, sir. -Thanks for coming down.
[Joe] My name's Joe Jackson.
I was in the 82nd Airborne Infantry.
I did a couple of deployments in Afghanistan,
and after I got out of the military,
in the process of trying to cope
and kind of figure my way through life,
I came upon distilling
and ended up applying to be on the Master Distiller show.
Whoa.
That was smokey, chocolatey goodness right there.
-Outstanding. -Thank you, sir.
I kept in contact with Digger.
Lo and behold, he shot me a text
and said, "Hey, do you want to come down here and help us run some liquor?
We're a little shorthanded."
And he's like, "I really trust you."
-Man, we are pumped up, man. -Yeah, let's see what you guys got going on.
-I saw something in the back of the truck over there. -Yeah, we got apples.
-Yeah, we got... -Check this out.
[Digger] Fall of the year it's apple season.
That's when the apples are harvested
and that's when we make Mark and Digger's apple moonshine.
That will make some fine liquor.
This rye apple
is probably one of the bestselling liquors of the season.
It's a tried and true recipe for me and Mark,
but, you know, you got to change with the times.
We've got the apples but we're gonna use malted rye.
I'm all about a little experimentation.
[Joe] Hey, let me show you guys this brown sugar
I brought down from my Amish buddy up in PA.
Amish brown sugar, it's an unrefined sugar
so there's lot more molasses content to the actual sugar itself.
Go ahead and get you a taste of that.
It gives it more of a savory mouth feel.
Damn.
More of, like, an umami taste.
I'm gonna tell you...
That brings a whole different possibility of what we can do with this.
We used to have an old moonshine bar.
It was the first moonshine bar in the United States.
-[Joe chuckling] Really? -It opened up in 1977,
and we became the purveyors
of all the liquors that they sold in that place.
The rye apple and the hazelnut were the biggest two sellers in that bar.
It's a good recipe and I don't want to file it up,
but sometimes, you know, change is good.
Here we go.
[Digger] That's why we're bringing Joe in.
He's got the new ideas, the new mindset,
and he's also young and strong.
I think he's gonna make an excellent addition
to our little team here.
-You need me to help you with that, Beaz? -No, I got it.
-Here, let me hold you up. -[laughs]
-[groans] -[laughs]
Hey, thanks.
That helped your back, too.
-Yeah, I finally peed. -You get a good crack?
-[laughs] -Thank you.
[Richard] This is Maggie Valley.
-One thing about this area. -[Craig] What's that?
[Richard] They love whiskey corn liquor.
We gonna give 'em some good corn whiskey. Flood the market out here.
[narrator] In Haywood County, North Carolina,
after getting their stolen thump arm elbow back from Mike and Jerry,
Richard and Craig prepare to scale up liquor production
to beat their rivals on their own turf.
[Richard] I love Maggie Valley.
Like, we got a real good customer base going here,
we're starting to meet a lot of people here.
Only one problem, Mike and Jerry.
[chuckles] Damn, I love war.
-You starting one, man. And... -I ain't starting [bleep.]
You got it started, we're just gonna
-finish it for you, man. -I came here to bury the hatchet, man.
You wanted to shake my damn hand.
I don't never bury the damn hatchet.
I keep that son of a bitch nice and shiny.
[Richard] We're not gonna let Mike and Jerry stop us.
Number one thing around here is corn moonshine,
so, I mean, we're going all in on corn moonshine here.
I mean, that's something that everybody knows, they love it,
so we're gonna make sure we got a whole lot of it.
Man, we were mashing 1,000 gallons at a time.
We could keep running every day...
Just keep going.
If we gonna scale up big like we thinking,
we're gonna have to have a lot of sugar.
-[Chris] But we're heading to Mr. Kelly, right? -Yep.
We're gonna scale up.
As long as we keep getting this free sugar from Mr. Kelly,
I mean, we're just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger.
What's going on, sir? Oh, you got that sugar out.
We got that sugar out ready for you guys.
-How you doing, my man? That's what we're looking for. -[Kelly chuckles]
You guys are using plenty of sugar
so you must be doing okay.
-We're doing damn good out there -We're doing good.
-in Maggie Valley. -Yeah.
We got a lot of customers going on over there.
[Kelly] Well, I told you from the get go,
as long as you're taking Mike's customers
I'm good with giving it to you.
If you can keep us up with the sugar, man,
Mike will be good as gone.
Kelly is doing this 100% for vengeance.
He's getting his payback on Mike Cockrell
and he doesn't have to lift a finger to do it.
Tell me something. I mean, is that all the sugar we got right here?
Man, I've got plenty of sugar.
You keep worrying about that so let me ease your mind. Let's go.
[Richard] I figure we can really take over
if we got enough sugar to keep doing this.
-I don't believe that you will use all this sugar in a while. -[Richard chuckles]
He's got enough sugar in there to crystalize the world it looks like.
I don't think anybody can corner the market on sugar any better than I have.
Let's load you guys up and get you down the road.
[Richard] I think this plan is gonna work.
Everything is falling right into place.
[Kelly] You might as well open it wide.
-There you go. [chuckles] -[Richard] There you go. Like that.
[Richard] Kelly said it's okay,
we can have all the sugar we need
as long as we're using it to run Mike and Jerry out of town
and just sell liquor to their customers.
So, my plan is to get this sugar to the woods and starting mashing it,
and we're gonna just keep repeating the process.
We're gonna keep running around the clock.
We're not gonna stop.
We're going and mashing 20 barrels of mash.
Sounds like a great plan, guys. Good luck with it.
1,000 gallons. We'll give you some on the back end.
[chuckles] I like it.
[Mike] It got colder than a damn well digger's ice in Idaho out here.
Can't believe we're fixing to mash in as cold as it is, Jerry.
[Jerry] We ain't got no choice but to be here, remember?
This is our time to shine and get ahead of them.
It's pretty damn clear to me it's too damn cold to mash in right now.
Son, it is cold, cold here, for sure.
[sighing] Oh, my damn feet and hands are telling a tale.
-[whistles] -Look at that damn bucket right there, Jerry.
-That thing's solid ice. -[Mike] Look.
[Mike] You know, the good news is Richard and Craig's from the Deep South.
They don't have no damn idea what to do in this kind of cold weather.
That's a half inch of solid ice right there.
You know, if Richard and Craig shut down for the winter
everybody's gonna come back to me and Jerry
and they going to be wanting our liquor.
Hold this a second.
-For what? -It's cold.
-Well, [bleep] listen to this. -[chuckles]
Well, I'm gonna tell you what,
under normal circumstances
-ain't nobody gonna try to mash in today. -No.
Only thing we can do is if we turn that boiler on
and get it good and hot,
and let the steam run through that,
it's gonna keep it warm enough
-to keep that mash hot, right? -It'll keep...
Yeah, but who's gonna be here
to change out gas bottles and camp out with it?
Because I ain't coming up here two or three times a day for a week
just to make sure that our mash is working off.
At the end of the day, we ain't made no money this summer, man.
We can't give up now
-or we're not gonna make none this winter either. -No.
You know as well as I do,
Richard and Craig being from the deep south,
they're not gonna handle this kind of weather.
They're not gonna be out here
-doing this kind of crap. -No, they're not.
But you know what? We can, we will, we are.
I don't know what the hell we're gonna do, man.
I got some ideas stirring.
I mean, I know if we light that burner periodically
and let it pump a little bit of steam over into that pot
it's gonna keep it warm enough to keep that mash working.
I know that, you know that.
Like I said, we'll put a timer on it.
If we had a timer we can set it on a timer and let it just roll.
-Yeah. -But, of course, we don't have electricity
so give me a little time to think.
I mean, I've got some ideas turning through my head
but I got to figure out how to put 'em all together.
[Joe] I like bumpy rides.
-[Digger] Well then, you're in for a treat. -[Joe chuckles]
-Woo, here we are! -Joe, I'm looking forward to getting you acclimated
to a little bit larger process.
This is leaps and bounds [laughing] from my process.
-Welcome to moonshine heaven. -Moonshine heaven. [laughing] Oh, man.
This is Joe's first trip to a true back woods moonshine operation.
[chuckles]
And I mean he looks like a kid in a candy store.
His eyes get big and he's just all about it.
This is our 300 gallon still. That's our 200 gallon still.
[Beaz] The twin.
[Joe] This is my first time running with the big dogs.
You know, I have been used to running on an eight gallon still.
I want to scale up
and run it on these big stills, this big operation.
Getting out here into the woods
is taking the next step of my distilling journey.
Let's get her unloaded, guys.
Yeah, we can't get finished if we don't get started.
We're gonna make a version of our world famous rye apple moonshine
but it's gonna be a new version of it.
Number one, we're gonna be using malted rye,
which was Beaz's idea,
and we've got brown sugar that Joe sourced
from a local farmer in his area.
[Digger] Here's what's gonna happen.
Get that fire lit, get that water heating up,
and then we're gonna be ready to rock, and then boom.
[Joe] I lost a little bit of hair on that one.
-[Digger] Welcome to the club, brother. -[laughs]
Every year, people go crazy over this rye apple moonshine.
We never have enough so we're gonna ramp up production.
We're gonna mash in two of the big pots,
we're gonna ferment in the pots themselves,
and we'll make one barrel which will go into the little stainless pot.
I think we're pretty full up on water here, Digger.
Take it up and take it to Beaz and he'll start filling that one up.
All these people that go nuts over this rye apple moonshine every year,
hopefully it just pulls them in deeper.
What you got to do, Joe, bust these up in half.
Sometimes you have to take that little stick
that I procured for you right there
-and kind of rake 'em over. -Ah-hah.
But, here we go.
[machine starts]
We need your stick, first and foremost, right off the bat.
-Boom. -[Joe] There we go.
-I think I'm in business, man. -I think you are.
-[chuckling] Thank you, sir. -All right, man,
-I'm gonna go over and get started on that rye. -That sounds great.
Joe is bringing an extra set of hands
we desperately need in Mark's absence,
but even beyond that, those fresh ideas.
And who knows, maybe this will garner a new client base.
The rye apple has always been a great seller for me and Mark,
but people's palates change and you got to change with them.
You got to bring 'em something new.
You sit static too long you'll lose your client base.
We're really proud of our old rye apple recipe
but this is gonna make it even better,
and that's gonna be some high quality liquor right there.
You act like you done this before.
Never done this before.
Matter of fact, I was an apprentice embalmer.
That's one of the things Digger and I have in common is we've both embalmed.
[Joe] So you're good at draining juice, right?
-[Beaz] Sometimes. -[Joe chuckles]
-[Joe] Man, this malted rye smells really freakin' good. -Isn't it amazing?
-You see those foam bubbles? -Yep.
You can already see it using its own diastatic power
to try and convert itself.
That's what we had to do in the old days,
-had to convert ourselves. -[laughs]
-That big power, -[laughing] You had to convert...
that's what this great nation was built on, Joe.
Bring me home.
Let's get all this slopping sloppy over here.
[groans]
[Digger] Just let her drip down.
It'll fall right where it needs to.
-Look how much liquid has come out of that. -I know, right?
It's like them apples just turned into water on us.
[Digger] Looks like mash is supposed to right there.
-It's time to sweeten it in. -[groans softly]
Brown sugar is really different than granulated sugar, Beaz.
Especially this Amish brown sugar.
[Digger] Yeah, it just gives it a more earthy note.
-It's more of a rum that you can get out of it. -Mmm-hmm.
It's not been completely refined like cane sugar.
It's got a lot of that molasses left in it
-so it clumps together. -[Joe] Mmm-hmm.
Like that last mole in the tunnel,
-all I smell is molasses. -[laughs]
Let's go over and get this barrel. It's the only one left.
-We need some brown sugar and it. -Let's do it.
Here we go.
We've got the two pots mashed in,
we've got a barrel built...
Smells good.
[Digger] Now it's gonna be time to pitch the yeast
and wait on the magic to happen.
-All right. -[Digger] Well, guys, we're running out of daylight.
-[Beaz] Let's do it. -[engine starts]
[Digger] I'm really pleased with Joe.
Number one, he's a hard worker,
and number two, he knows a lot about liquor.
I know he's not used to a big operation like this.
That being said, he's took to it like a duck in water
and I think he's gonna be a good add.
All right, Beaz, make sure you put that thing to bed
after you drop Joe off.
-[groans softly] -[engine starts]
Sorry, boss, today ain't no ride-along day.
I got to go do something for Mark.
[Mike] It's too damn cold, that's for sure.
I believe our little idea is gonna solve all that problem.
So, let's work your magic and show me what you got in mind.
I know you always got something up that old sleeve.
There's no way that mash could ever work off in this kind of weather.
Yeast prefers a certain type of temperature.
If it gets down there below 60 degrees
it's just gonna go dormant, go to sleep on you.
So, my idea is we're gonna take a thermostat.
We're actually gonna power the control box,
it'll actually cut the gas off and on.
[narrator] Jerry's plan is to use a salvaged thermostat
to make an automated heating system
that will keep mash at an optimal temperature for fermentation.
When the temperature of the mash drops below 65 degrees Fahrenheit,
the thermostat triggers a relay switch
which opens a gas valve and ignites the burner with an electric spark.
Once the mash reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit
the thermostat triggers the gas shut-off valve.
To charge the battery that runs the system,
Jerry plans to improvise a water powered generator from an old hoverboard motor.
Let me just take this control board out,
[clears throat] Take the whole...
-which is the important part. -Yeah.
Got an old hot water heater and a hoverboard
and we're gonna make this system work.
Take this igniter off and I need this gas valve off.
I guess you could say I'm kind of a parts hoarder.
You just never know when you might have
to grab a part and use it for something.
In order to beat Richard and Craig
-we got to run liquor all damn winter, don't we? -That's for a fact.
You know them men are from Louisiana
so they ain't brewing no damn liquor in the middle of winter.
[Mike] If I'm a betting man, I think Richard and Craig's dead in the water.
They simply just don't know how to react
and what to do in this type of cold weather.
That gives me and Jerry a leg up.
We've been here, we've done that, and got a damn t-shirt for it.
That's our thermostat.
So, we'll just basically set it to what we want it.
But we got a little thermostat prober right here.
This'll actually pull out.
[Mike] That'll go into the pot.
You know, all this is Jerry's idea. It's a little bit crazy.
This will actually send the power,
via the wire to that, to here, open the gas valve,
and then it'll send sparks to the burner, shh, shh.
-Boom. That's running. -Yeah, that's...
So, a whole lot of little bitty components has got to work together...
But if it works out it's gonna be pretty genius.
-Hard to believe there's a motor in that. -I'm telling you.
That's basically the way the electric cars are, pretty much.
Just got a wheel with a motor in it.
[Mike] I'll stick with old American muscle.
-Gas in your tank, huh? -Yeah, boy.
You know, each one of these wheels is a motor.
Actually, we're already turning three volts a turn.
[Jerry] You know, basically, if we can get this wheel turning fast enough
we can just charge our battery right up with it.
[Mike] It's working.
Got ten out of it, didn't we?
-Giving us 12 volts. -We'll get our bicycle wheel set up
and then we get this thing mounted, I can do a test drive on it.
Let's go get a damn bicycle.
[Mike] Jerry's got an old rusted up bicycle
out on the trailer behind the shop here.
Just gonna get it, and start taking wheels off of it,
and go, you know, build a damn water wheel out of it.
Put some soup cans on it.
[Jerry] Well, soup cans it is.
[Richard] We got 20 barrels back there, right?
-Now we got to mash all of 'em in. -We about to do it.
We're gonna mash in 1,000 gallons today.
We're gonna flood the market in Maggie Valley
with as much liquor as we possibly can.
[Richard] I love it when a plan comes together.
All right, man, the work begins.
-It's cold out here. -I'm gonna grab my little jacket.
Man, look at this.
-It's that cold out here? -It's cold.
This is too much ice to run a mash
in these damn woods.
[Richard] Where we're from,
we don't even think about
temperatures getting this cold.
I didn't see this coming.
I did not think winter would come this quick.
Man, we were coming in here today to run 1,000 gallons.
We got money in barrels and corn.
We've spent all our money on this.
-We got to. Ain't no if, and, or but. -Let's not waste it, yeah.
We're gonna have to find somewhere where we can go inside.
I say we just get out of here, go make some phone calls.
We ain't got no cellphone reception here
so we got to get down the mountain.
[Richard] This mash would never work off.
It would be spring time before it worked off.
We're losing money right now.
We got to find an indoor space to mash in.
-We just can't mash this in outside. -[phone ringing]
-[Kelly] Richard? -[Richard] Mr. Kelly.
[Kelly] What's going on?
Well, I'm trying to get some mash to work
and it's too cold around here to do that.
-I got to find me a spot where I can mash indoors. -[Kelly] Uh-huh.
[Kelly] Yeah, let me think a second.
I mean, I know some folks over there.
I'll holler back at you here shortly.
-We sure appreciate it, sir. -Hey, man, you're welcome.
-[phone beeps] -We're gonna see what he says
because there ain't no way we can do nothing right now.
Man.
[cell phone ringing]
-[phone beeps] -[Richard] Kelly.
[Kelly] Hey, Richard.
So, I've got a buddy who's got a good size garage.
It's a pretty nice place and it's down ahead.
Well, that's what we need right there. That sounds like a blessing.
So, Kelly gets back to us and it's good news.
[Kelly] He's always game to do a little something
-if he can make a dollar or two. -I love that.
His buddy said, "Yep, y'all can use the garage."
He only wants 15% of what we make overall.
Small price to pay for having a heated garage
where we can run mash all winter long.
So, this is the place.
-It's nice. -Guy said he'd leave the garage door opener
on the propane tank.
-Oh, man. This is perfect. -Whoa.
We'll be able to do everything we got to do in here.
Line mash barrels up right there.
This changes the game.
Let's get these barrels and start getting them in here.
[Richard] We're gonna mash in 1,000 gallons today, 20 barrels of liquor.
This is the biggest operation we've ever had going on at one time.
I mean, this is a lot of mash. We've never done 1,000 gallons before.
This is good to go.
[Richard] We're gonna just use white corn,
our clear sugar we get from Mr. Kelly, and some good water.
So, we're gonna have to work this thing just like an assembly line.
We're gonna have to do one, move to the other.
It's gonna take a while to do this.
You gotta keep stirring.
So the secret to this is steeping the corn definitely,
make sure it doesn't clump up on you,
keep stirring, keep stirring, keep stirring.
Got a lot of stirring and a lot of boiling to do today.
We're almost out of corn, man.
Good thing we're on the last one.
Kinda tough doing 20 barrels,
kinda forget where you've been.
-You know what I mean? -[Richard] I know.
Starting to get tired too.
[Richard] In each one of these barrels we have
10 gallons of liquid sugar,
and we have 50 pounds of corn.
Yesterday we were gonna just be out in the woods
trying to keep the mash warm.
So we got 1,000 gallons of corn mashed in.
We're gonna pitch our yeast,
let this settle for a little while,
come back and check on it in a few days.
We're finally making our mark here in Maggie Valley.
This right here,
this is the run that's gonna start the takeover.
We're sitting on top here.
I mean, we got an infinite supply of sugar.
Mr. Kelly's got more sugar than I can use in 10 years.
After we get this stuff on the market,
Maggie Valley's gonna be ours.
Mike and Jerry ain't gonna know what hit them.
I didn't come here to play, came here to win.
[Craig laughing]
You know why a bicycle can't stand on its own?
-I don't know, tell me. -It's too tired.
[both laughing]
[Jerry] My son gave me his old bicycle,
he said it wasn't no good, chain was all rusted up on it,
but it has two good wheels on it.
Here, you gonna set it up here now?
Yeah, we can put it up here on the table like that.
I got a table for a reason.
So we're gonna use the wheels on it
to make a water wheel.
[Mike] I wonder how many dad gum times, Jerry,
in our lifetime, we took a dad gum tire off of a bicycle.
[Jerry] Oh, God. All right.
[Mike] There, we'll set this
-right here out of the way. -[Jerry] Set it aside.
That's what we're gonna do is we're gonna just
marry these things up like this.
That way when one turns, the other one turns.
We'll put some soup cans around one tire for the water
and then, uh, this'll actually just set on there
like that right there
and just ride.
This little wheel is just basically a little motor.
If we get this wheel turning fast enough,
all we gotta do is run it to some re-charge-ifiers
and just charge our battery right up with it.
So we gotta get a little frame constructed.
We're gonna put them together and see how she spins.
-That's got it. -[Jerry] Looking pretty.
[Mike] It ain't bad for a damn old used bicycle, is it?
I think she's gonna work beautifully.
[Mike] It ought to, should it?
[Jerry] You know, this thing's turning really good.
We got a little frame constructed.
We're just gonna simply take some tomato cans,
get these things opened up, dump them out,
and attach them to the rim all the way around.
We got ourselves a water wheel.
So as we're putting water on top of it,
it's gonna capture it, and the weight of the water,
gravity's gonna pull it around one way,
dump it out the bottom,
the other side's coming up with empty cans.
So it just starts that process all over again, round and round.
Pretty proud of that. Let's take that there
and hook it to some water and see what she does.
-[Mike] I'm ready to see what happens, man. -Let's do it.
[Mike] You know, anytime me and Jerry does a build,
we like to try to check it before we ever take it to the woods.
[laughs] Turn it on, Jerry!
-[Jerry] You ready, Mike? -Let's go!
-It's spinning. -She's turning.
Like clockwork, son.
[Mike] That's damn neater than socks on a rooster.
-Put the meter on it, see what she says. -Put the meter on it
before I get soaking ass wet!
[Jerry] Well, you gotta have more than 12 volts to charge that battery up.
This damn thing's getting it now, ain't it?
Hey, 14, 15.
16.
About 16.1.
Checking it with the meter. we got plenty of power.
This is plenty enough to keep this battery charged around the clock.
[Mike] There's plenty, ain't it?
This is a very, very important situation that we're in.
We've got to make this work to keep our mash
at temperatures that we need
because we're actually behind right now in sales.
Richard and Craig's probably done for the season.
I feel like we can get a leg up on these guys
and get our customers back.
Well, this right here is gonna save the whole damn season.
[Killer Beaz] Let's do this.
[Joe laughs]
Digger's telling me he and Mark
got other things to take care of
over the next few days.
Whoo!
I want to blow Digger away when he gets back.
This is so out of character,
makes me feel like something's up,
and he's just not willing to share it with me.
[Joe] All right, let's see if it worked off, brother.
Oh, man. Yeah.
The cap has dropped.
Oh, my gosh. I can smell that.
-Whoo! -Wow.
It's got a really sweet flavor...
-[laughing] -This is great, man.
...you can really taste those earthy notes
that the brown sugar and the malted rye
have brought to the table.
[Killer Beaz] Now, I've not seen mash run over like that.
[Joe laughs] Yeah, look at that.
That looks like the morning after prom night.
[Joe laughs] Beaz.
Good lord.
[Joe] It was probably that brown sugar.
With brown sugar washes, it pushes that cap up.
-Like, you really always gotta leave a little head space. -[Killer Beaz] Really?
Digger and Mark have done the rye apple for years,
and it's kind of a staple
that's a big deal run for finances for the season.
[Joe] Kick the tires and light the fires!
So there's pressure on us that it needs to turn out right.
If it doesn't, we're part of the problem.
Whoo, there she blows.
You didn't lose any hair this time.
-Get Big Sloppy lit? -[Killer Beaz] Yeah, let's do that.
All right, go ahead.
Whoo, damn, Beaz.
Trying to set me on fire!
[both laughing]
[Killer Beaz] We've got all three stills fired up.
[Joe] So we're nice and full up,
we should get a darn good run out of this rye apple.
[whispering] Beaz.
[whispering] There's a guy walking back and forth.
There's a big guy.
[Killer Beaz] Is he on the four-wheeler?
[Joe] Yeah, he's on the front of it.
[Killer Beaz] Where is he at?
It's right there in the trees.
Right there.
That's Jeff.
-Jeff? -That's Jeff.
Who's Jeff?
Jeff lives at the top of the hill.
What?
He's coming down to check stuff for Digger.
Digger let's him hunt here.
Jeff!
-[Jeff] Yeah? -Hey, it's Beaz!
[Jeff] Y'all over here today?
Yeah, man.
[Jeff] I didn't know that, or I wouldn't have bothered you.
Okay, not a problem, brother.
To say that we were relieved is such an understatement.
Jeff's a hoot.
You had me freaking out, Beaz.
[Killer Beaz] I'm sure, man, sorry.
I wish I would've remembered to tell you about Jeff.
I was like, I gotta find cover and concealment
somewhere over here in that draw
so I could get a better vantage point
to see where he was coming in from.
-Your training. -Yeah, I'm sorry if it seemed like
I skedaddled out that way, but...
I thought it was great.
[laughs]
Joe is hyper-alert at all times.
He's very security-oriented,
and he proves to be more of an asset every day.
Oh, look at this.
Beaz, we're running baby.
My first liquor in the woods.
We're running the rye apple,
and I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous.
[Joe] We can go ahead and toss these heads.
Mark and Digger have entrusted Joe and I
into running what is potentially a new version
of their most popular liquor.
-Hey, Beaz. -Yeah, man?
-I think this one is about to run here. I mean... -Oh, really?
-[Joe] Whoo-wee, -[Killer Beaz] Well, I can smell it standing right here.
-I know, right? [laughs] -It is coming out big time.
-[Joe] Heck yeah, baby! -[Killer Beaz] Yeah!
Sir, would you do the honors?
I shall indeed, my friend.
Oh, yeah.
We have three different stills, all different sizes.
[Joe] Just being safe.
They run at different rates,
so it's kinda like goat roping...
[Joe] Oh, running over here.
...or cat rustling
being on top of each and every catch pan.
[Joe] Check out that stream.
That's the flow you get when you got a giant of a pot.
Oh, smell that.
Holy Jiminy.
The nose on it is amazing.
[exclaims]
The entire still site smells awesome.
You hear that? That's the sound of money
going in your bank account.
[Joe] This is the moment of truth.
I think we're pretty deep into the hearts here.
Age before beauty, my friend.
-Whew. -[laughs]
Mmm.
That's great. That's amazing.
-[laughing] -Oh, wow.
There's so many layers.
It hits you with the fruitiness up front,
the malted rye gives you that earthy note,
and then you get that brown sugar savoryness
at the back of the taste buds,
and it's really, really, really good.
-Bro, that's the real McCoy right there, buddy. -[Joe] Yeah.
But this is a completely different taste profile
than Mark and Digger's apple rye.
I think it tastes good,
but I'm really hoping that digger likes it.
It's, like, a smoother mouth feel too, isn't it?
Mmm-hmm, although my mouth is numb.
[both laugh]
[Mike] This contraption we come up with,
it better by God work.
[Jerry] It's gonna work.
[Mike] I'm freezing my ass off.
Today me and Jerry, we're gonna mash in,
and we're bringing our water wheel system
out here to the still site, which will help us
keep our mash warm through the winter
while we're not even here.
All right, I'mma fire up, Jerry.
-[both exclaim] -[Mike] Light got my damn eyebrows!
Feels good this cold morning, don't it?
-[Mike] Oh, man. -[Jerry] Let's set this wheel up.
[Mike] We're trying to beat out Richard and Craig,
and so we gotta get this thing fixed here today,
make it work right so we can leave the woods
and depend on this system to keep our mash
at a certain temperature rate.
We're in business, baby!
-[Jerry] That'll work. -[Mike] Yee-haw!
That ought to keep our battery charged, shouldn't it?
Hell yeah, it will.
All right, let's get this mash made.
All right, give me some corn.
[Mike] Don't let it by God burn.
-Kinda corny, ain't it? -Kinda corny.
You know, Richard and Craig, they kinda killed mine and Jerry's season.
That's gonna make a good mash, son.
Yeah, buddy.
So our only choice is to keep making liquor through the winter.
So we're mashing in the old timey basic corn recipe.
We just boil the corn down, let it work off,
and have that good corn flavored moonshine
which everybody loved.
And hey, it sells very well.
Oh, let's get these grits dumped in there.
-Ready? -Well, I reckon.
[Jerry] Ooh, it's sticking in there.
-All right. -[Jerry] Get the sugar in there.
[Mike] There we go.
-All right. -[Jerry] Give her a stir, my friend, give her a stir.
[Mike] Get the old sugar stirred in.
Lay it in there, bud.
Well, let's top it off with water,
you wanna make this thing work.
[Jerry] All right, so what we're gonna do here,
check this thermal probe, make sure it goes to this tube right.
You got a thermostat in it?
Well, this way it can actually breathe...
-Mmm-hmm. -...and we can keep an eye on the temperature
-all at the same time. -Hell yeah.
-It come right on that. -[Jerry] Nice.
This is gonna tell us when to kick on and kick off.
[Jerry] Mmm-hmm, just set this to the side right here.
All right, Jerry.
That is plugged in.
[Jerry] Let's get our burner.
-[Mike] Check. -[Jerry] All right, here let's turn it sideways.
Actually, unplug that thing.
[Mike] This is the igniter.
Okay, right there, right there. Perfect.
-[Mike] Cool, cool. -[Jerry] Give this a test drive,
see if this thing will fire up now.
We got power.
-[Mike] We got power. -It should be fixing to come on.
So this is... The threshold's below 60?
[Mike] Mmm-hmm.
Is it supposed to be sparking right now?
[Jerry] It should be sparking right now.
[Mike] Man, it ain't sparking.
[Jerry] I don't know what the hell's going on, man.
[Mike] Could it be the ground?
No, we got the ground.
Well, Jerry, do you know what's wrong with it?
[Jerry] Dude, I can't... I don't understand it.
You know what that means?
-[Jerry] What does that mean? -That means I definitely
don't know what the hell's wrong with this thing.
All these wires and gadgets going on,
all I know is we gotta get this damn mash warm.
I know, I know. We gotta get it warm.
We got mash in the barrel we can't do nothing with.
We gotta get this thing going, or our mash is gonna go to crap.
[Mike] Well, I wish there was more I could do to help you,
but right now all I see is a bumbled up damn mess.
[Digger] Y'all made it all right, I see.
We did, the run went really well.
Joe did great, man.
Hey, I didn't cherry pick him because of his gorgeous hair.
-[laughing] -[Killer Beaz] Well, you were spot on, dude.
You were spot on.
-So check that out, my friend. -Ooh.
Look at how clear that is.
Well, that's good liquor right there.
You tampered it and everything.
-Yeah. -Yeah, yeah.
This is our love and labor in a jar.
Hmm.
Man, that's got a nose a whole lot different
than our regular rye apple.
-[Killer Beaz] Yeah, it does. -[Joe] But it's layered.
[Digger] Well, I'm gonna be honest, man.
This right here, it's a lot different
than our original recipe...
...and it ain't anything like I expected.
[Digger] Back in the Popcorn days,
he always wanted automobile gasoline.
We fussed propane, propane, propane.
It's safer, it's easier.
So it was, like, white gas?
-[Digger] No, it was automobile gasoline. -Gasoline.
[Digger] And it did burn more efficiently,
but it was dangerous as hell.
Hence the still houses burning down.
It was never the still that blew up,
-it was always the fuel source. -It was always the fuel.
Yeah. The only fuel that I played with in the army
-was, uh, jet fuel. -Yeah.
But the most dangerous thing we had to do with that
-was burn [bleep]. So... -Yeah.
-[laughs] -Yeah, latrine duty.
[Joe] Yeah, latrine duty.
We made up a song.
-[laughs] -[singing] We burn the poo so you don't have to!
[all laughing]
[Digger] Man, that's got a nose a whole lot different.
Well, I'm gonna be honest, man.
This right here, it's a lot different than our original recipe...
...and it ain't anything like I expected.
It's a damn sight better than I expected.
-God. -Why do you do that?
-You had... -[Killer Beaz] Jeez.
You did the same thing on the Master Distiller show.
-[Killer Beaz] Oh, my God. -I look at you and... [laughs]
-Poker face. -God!
These guys knocked it out of the park.
I mean, first and foremost, you know, you get that
really sharp sweetness in those apples,
and then you can pick up on that rye,
that rye is like smelling fresh ground black pepper.
The brown sugar, I think it gives it
that nice little crisp rum note.
Mmm-hmm.
This has floorboarded me even,
and I thought that the rye apple
was as good as it could get.
I think we've discovered our newest...
...rye apple recipe.
I'm glad you like it, digger.
Can you get more of that Amish brown sugar?
I got my buddy up there, he's my hookup.
We can take care of it.
Let's go up to the bar, and we'll talk about it.
[Joe] Let's do it, brother. Yeah, definitely.
I don't understand it. Of course it's damn raining.
Cold, miserable.
You reckon there's something shorting out some damn where or something?
I mean, there shouldn't be.
[sighs] Let's at least get our yeast pitched
so that stuff is at least started working off.
Then we can figure this out.
I tell you what, me and Mike's got for most of it,
we got the water wheel set up,
we got all the components hooked up,
the burner and everything.
But it just simply is not coming on,
and I can't really figure out why.
I mean, we've had this thing in the shop
and it worked beautifully.
[Mike] Maybe it'll give us some damn alcohol
if this contraption don't work.
But I hope it works.
All right.
Tell you what, let me try one more thing
-before we take off. -[Mike] What you gonna try?
[Jerry] It looks like to me we're not getting
very much voltage on this, this thing's awful dim.
And that's gotta mean, we don't have enough power.
I think our battery might just be dead.
Why the hell ain't it charged up?
Well, dude, we've had it in the shop testing everything.
[Mike] We're out in the middle of the woods.
We gotta have damn battery power.
Dude,
what do you think that's for?
To charge our battery.
If this powers up, then we'll know that was our problem.
-We'll be off to the races. -Man, I'mma tell you,
I'm about tired of fooling with this [bleep], Jerry Benson.
-[Jerry] Yeah, I know. -[Mike] I'm over it, man.
[Jerry] This is gonna work, man, I'm telling you.
-It's gonna work. -[Mike] Well, by God, it better start.
I'm thinking we're spinning our damn wheels here.
All right.
I wonder how long it'll take for enough power
to get in here to make this work.
Well, we know this thing's making, like, 14, 16 volts of power.
It should be pretty much instantaneously.
-Okay. -Let's give it a try and see.
Might as well, we got the wheel working. [bleep]
Here, we got power.
-It's nice and bright. -I see that.
-Let's see what we got. -Moment of truth.
Come on, baby. Come on.
There it is baby! Whoo!
-We got flame. -Hot water.
Lo and behold, as soon as we hooked this battery up,
poof, we got flame.
It's gonna stay and heat the mash up.
We're in business, we're good to go.
We can walk out of here,
not have to worry about our mash getting too cold.
Put that in both hands, palms of your hands.
See how the temperature's going up?
Soon as that thing hits 80 degrees,
that flame should drop out instantly.
-80 degrees. -[Mike] Boo yeah!
You're such a smart little gentleman.
So all we gotta do is button up all the controls and stuff,
-make sure nothing gets wet. -Tuck it away.
[Jerry] Let's get that put back on,
get our water barrel set on here,
and we are out of here.
[Mike] Cool beans.
This is a big deal to us.
You know, me and Jerry, we lost a lot of damn sales
this year to Richard and Craig.
But this is gonna turn it around
and put Richard and Craig out of business.
[Jerry] All right, here we go.
[Mike] All right, baby!
-Yeah! -We got her, baby!
Jerry, every time I'm just about ready to give up on your ass,
- you follow through, man. - [Jerry laughing]
Man, cold as hell yesterday night,
pouring down rain today.
But that shouldn't be a big problem,
we're inside a building,
-heated. -Heated, yeah.
Most people would call a rainy day a bad day,
this is a good day for us.
[phone ringing]
It's Mr. Kelly.
Hey, Mr. Kelly, how you doing?
[Kelly over phone] Well, you know, my buddy that we made the deal with,
or y'all made the deal with...
- [Craig] Right. -[Kelly] ...his wife called, raising Cane.
He told me she just walked in the garage this morning,
saw all these mash barrels, didn't know what it was.
She started questioning him, and he threw my name in there,
and she wants that crap gone from her garage within two hours,
and she's threatening to call the law.
And I am so sorry.
If I had known there was anything going on,
I wouldn't have got you in with them.
He didn't talk to his wife, man?
We told him we'd cut him in on the deal.
[Kelly] I don't know what to tell you guys.
I mean, I'm sorry.
I'd have never seen this one coming.
We were planning to get set up over there
for the whole winter, man.
[Kelly] I... It sucks, and I'm sorry that
I steered you wrong on this one.
We're gonna get out here, and we're gonna get the mash barrels out of there.
Making a U-turn right now, we're on our way to go get it.
[Kelly] All right, I'll see you guys.
[Craig] All right, bye-bye.
The hell are we gonna do now, man.
Man, this mash needs a few more days.
I mean, it ain't even close to being finished with.
[Craig] At least three or four.
We got more than just this problem,
having to clear these mash barrels out in a few hours.
The other problem is we don't have anywhere to go with them.
But right now the main thing is
getting this mash out of this woman's garage.
Then we'll figure out what the hell we're gonna do later.
Gotta treat it like we don't have much time.
No, we gotta get up out of here quick, man.
[Richard] This is a big problem for me, this is dangerous.
We're not from here, I don't have any resources right now.
I just don't know what we're gonna do.