Hey, y'all. Making moonshine's illegal.
You can get hurt, you can go to jail.
Do not try this at home.
[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
[Mark] I'm thinking about my first wife.
She used one of these on me.
[Amanda] It's a lot easier than stomping them with your feet, right?
You ain't getting 'em mashed in with your thumb.
It was definitely a big risk to change the grappa recipe
without running it by Mark and Digger.
There she goes. We got grappa.
If they don't like it, it was all for naught.
-So this water here is the hot springs water, correct? -Yes.
[Big Chuk] This water is the secret ingredient
to recreate this prohibition-style moonshine.
So the plan is is to follow this creek system
to tap into the water.
-I guarantee you there's a family of snakes in there. -[Joe Boy] Son.
[Big Chuk] Tonight, they eating some Big Chuk and Joe Boy.
Something don't look funny to you?
[Mike] Where's the damn still at, man?
Oh, my God, dude.
[Richard] I can't believe this.
We got a damn problem, buddy.
[Digger] This is how we make the moonshine.
[Amanda] What do you think, Kelly?
[Kelly] I think we're looking good.
Well, eat it and see what it tastes like.
Is it real sweet?
[Amanda] They're super sweet now.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
three weeks after Kelly and Amanda
cleaned up a local vineyard
in exchange for a share of the grape harvest...
[Kelly] I'm gonna drive the tractor here and get all this stuff
straightened out that we can.
This is milky spore.
And this stuff is going to kill
all of these Japanese beetles.
[narrator] The two shiners return
with Tennessee kingpins Mark and Digger
to reap the fruits of their labor.
[Mark] What's up, fellows?
By George, I gotta give it to you. Y'all been getting it.
[Kelly] We've been doing our share of it.
Check out these grapes.
[Digger] Yeah, buddy.
-Look under there. -[Mark] Wow.
-Muscadines. -Muscadines.
They've got a really sweet flavor this year.
Yeah. Yeah. Them's outstanding.
[Amanda] So what's good about using these muscadines
is we can basically get two runs out of them.
-We make a little brandy and a little grappa, both. -Exactly.
Brandy is made from fruit juice.
It's distilled wine that you cook in a still
and get the alcohol on 'em. It's got a great flavor.
Grappa is made from the stems
and the grape skins and the pulp from the grape.
Well, there's still sweetness and flavor in those skins and pulp,
better known as the pomace.
So we take that and capitalize off of it.
-[Mark] Hey, guys. What's up, guys? -[Digger] Hey. Hello, Gene.
Good thing Steve and Gene are here.
They're gonna show us the most efficient way to get these off the vines
and get 'em juiced out for us pretty quick.
We've got tarps,
then we've got, like, a boom stick.
We tap the plant with it...
-[Gene] Yeah. -...and then all the sweet, really sweet ones
that are ripe will fall off
-and all the ones that are still working will stay on. -Yeah.
[Mark] You know it's time to pick us some grapes.
They're here, we're here we.
We need 'em. Let's get 'em.
Think we're ready for you.
[Mark] I'm bringing the boom!
Just a big piece of foam rubber
at the end of the PVC pipe
and you simply just whoop the piss out of the vines with it.
I mean, the muscadines just rain down onto the tarps.
I'm thinking about my first wife.
She used one of these, looked a lot like this, on me.
[Amanda] We're literally seeing the fruits of our labor.
No pun intended.
Collecting it really makes you realize
that all of your hard work was for something.
[Digger] I've never imagined we'd have as many grapes
in our hands and what we've got right now.
-There you go, man. -[Mark] That's what we're looking for.
You know, here it is. We've already got a bin full.
And that's close to 1,100 pounds
which is gonna get us over 100 gallons of juice,
and plus the pomace we're gonna capitalize on.
Once we get the juice out of these
and mix it with a certain amount of water and add some sugar to it,
and not take any of the flavor away.
-Amanda, that's your territory, you know. -Yup. Yup.
I put a lot of time and energy into making these grapes perfect
and I'm really proud of how they're turning out.
So with the brandy we're gonna make plus grappa,
hopefully it's a double whammy.
We get two different spirits
that we can turn a nice profit on and make it all worth it.
Well, before they all float off in this rain,
we need to get them up here and get them squashed.
We gotta get naked though.
[Amanda] That's a whole lot of images
I don't need in my mind.
Let's go.
[Jerry] What kind of idea you've got in mind?
It's clear apple pie.
I believe it's time to bring it back 'cause everybody loves it.
Especially this time of the year.
[narrator] In Maggie Valley, North Carolina,
after Jerry invented a copper still
that requires no water for cooling,
the three partners embark on their plan
to use the cutting-edge technology
on Mike's best-selling recipe,
clear apple pie moonshine.
Well, you know apple is always a good-a good seller,
no matter where you go.
[Mike] With the taste of all that good brown sugar, cinnamon.
You know, it's beginning to be fall of the year.
People want to sit back by the fire
drink some apple pie moonshine.
And I plan on taking advantage of that.
So I think that's where the money's at.
-[Mike] Okay. -Bet people will pay big dollars.
If we can get that flavor to hit just right,
-man, this could be a big moneymaker. -It will.
You know, our bread butter is getting ingredients on the cheap.
Clear apple pie has always been a big seller for me,
and if you can make it for a cheap price, it's a win-win.
We're gonna make money off of this run.
[Jerry] Looks like they got an apple or two.
[Mike] Or ten.
[Jerry] They're pretty.
[Mike] What's the price of these things anyway?
-[Richard] Oh, did they put on the price on here? -[Mike] Let me see.
$2.50 a pound.
-[Richard] A pound? -Pound? Is that a bag?
They're $2.50 a pound, for these apples.
Two of these apples will make a pound.
There's no way in God's Earth
I'm gonna pay $2.50 for two apples.
[Jerry] Man, I can't believe the apples have gone up this much.
[Mike] I'm gonna say it's crazy, man.
I don't know if we can save much money this way either.
$40 a daggone bushel?
-[Mike scoffs] -[Richard] Will take at least two boxes to do a barrel.
[Mike] Yeah. Every bit of it.
That's $80 a barrel.
[Richard] Eight barrels...
That's 640 bucks.
-[Mike] Not counting sugar. -No sugar.
-And we ain't bought no sugar. Or yeast. -And yeast.
We gonna have to talk to somebody or do something, man, because
-we can't afford this mess here. -Ain't no way.
Hey, ma'am?
-Yes, can I help you? -Can you help us... Yeah. Can you help us with this?
You have any, like, seconds or cold apples, you know?
We got a project we're working on.
We don't need this kind of...
quality of an apple.
Unfortunately, I don't.
Um, the farmer that owns this,
they own a cider company
and so all of our seconds go to the cider mill.
Well, if they're sending them all to the cider mills,
seems like we might want to just check with cider mills.
Let's go give it a shot. I want to make this apple pie.
So the only thing that we've got left to do
is go to the cider mill
to see if they've got any apples
and a decent price for us. I don't know.
We'll know when we get there.
[Richard] Man, apples went up with the price of gas.
Like they made of gold or something, man.
[Big Chuk] There's a fountain right up yonder.
There's a fountain right down there.
There's water everywhere all over this place.
[narrator] In Garland County, Arkansas,
after discovering a jug of shine
in the secret Prohibition-era tunnels
beneath the city of Hot Springs...
Son of a bitch.
Cuz, that's liquor.
-What? -That's liquor!
[narrator] ...cousins Big Chuk and Joe Boy are on a mission.
To recreate a historic moonshine
made from the area's world famous water.
[Big Chuk] Now we're off to the bathhouses.
So this water is the secret ingredient
to recreate this Prohibition-style moonshine.
This is the same stuff that Al Capone and all the gangsters
used to come down here to little old Arkansas,
to get 'em a dose of it.
If we can figure out how they get the water
from wherever it's at into here,
then we might be on to something.
[narrator] The mineral water that gave Hot Springs, Arkansas its name
has drawn humans to its healing powers for millennia.
By the 1870s,
Hot Springs became a popular destination
for health and recuperation.
As well as a hotbed for illegal gambling.
During early 1920s prohibition,
Al Capone visited the spa town
seeking treatment for a syphilis Infection.
Seeing opportunity, he purchased a dairy outside of town
and transformed it into an illegal distillery.
He cleverly packaged his white whiskey
in clear glass jars that resembled the famed
local-bottled spring water.
With the perfect cover in place,
he bootlegged this Hot Springs moonshine
to every corner of America.
[water splashing]
I hear water running.
I'm uncomfortable. I'm not used to this stuff.
[woman] Come with me.
This lady puts us in a bathtub
full of this water, rich with minerals.
There's something different about this water.
Oh, yeah. That feels amazing, cuz.
Oh, that does.
[Big Chuk] Man, you get in the water,
nice and hot.
And so, to get this water, we need to figure out
a way to find out where it comes in.
You know we're obviously here on a mission.
So this water here is the Hot Spring water.
Yes. Hot Spring thermal mineral water.
[Big Chuk laughing]
Peekaboo!
Don't mind him. He's just my plus one, okay?
On this-On this mission here.
Do you know anything about how the water is brought into this building?
I will get Mike to come on in.
-[Big Chuk] All right. -Mike?
Mike, huh?
-Hey, Mike. How you doing, man? -Hey. How's it going?
So, Mike. I guess what I'm trying to figure out
is where exactly does this water come from?
The hill across the street
is where all 47 springs are grouped up.
It's pumped to us under the hotel.
And then it comes up to the bathhouse here.
Hot Springs Creek
runs under the town here
where all the bathhouses are.
So Mike's telling me Hot Springs Creek is a real thing.
It literally weaves underneath this city.
Is there, like, an entryway somewhere
to this-this little underground system?
Well, there's several entrances.
But it's prohibited
-to try to enter any of those. -[Big Chuk] Mmm.
[Mike 2] And the park rangers,
they're always watching those,
so that no one gets in it.
I think what we do is we find where this underground tunnel system
that goes underneath here.
Eventually, we find the place where the water comes out at.
It's gonna be the same water they're pumping in here.
It's coming out of the springs,
coming out of the same mountains.
So it's gotta be the same water.
-[woman] Mmm-hmm. -Thank y'all so much, it's been wonderful.
But I gotta get out of this water before I have a heat stroke.
-Nice to meet you. -Okay. Nice to meet you.
-[Joe Boy] I'm out. -[woman laughing]
[Digger] That'll make some fine brandy right there.
I'm glad we don't have to count 'em.
[Amanda] Wow. They smell really good.
We've been through the whole harvesting of the muscadine,
which was super fun.
Now we need to learn how to process them.
Come in, Gene. They're your grapes.
-Right. -We're just here to enjoy the bountifulness of them.
-[Mark] What's up, boss man? -[Gene] Mmm.
I know this looks like a lot of grapes
and I hope it helps you guys out.
And we're gonna take all that pomace off your hands still, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly,
-we can't use it for anything. -We can.
What's the process here?
This is about 1,400 pounds.
So I have to use the forklift.
And then it goes into the destemmer crusher.
So we're gonna put them into that
and it's gonna crush 'em Initially.
So what it will basically do is kinda
squeeze it like this,
so the center comes out.
[Mark] This is just the initial breakdown.
-[Gene] Yup. -Okay.
That will be pumped into this press here.
[Amanda] So this machine, that one, is what separates
-all of the juice from the pomace for you. -[Gene] Yes.
So that takes all the skins,
stems, and seeds,
and then all the juice will come out of that,
and then we'll pump that into a tank I've got sterilized already.
Let's go get to juicing. I want to taste some juice.
[Amanda] That's a lot easier than stomping them with your feet, right?
You ain't getting 'em mashed in with your thumb.
[Gene] The juice will flow into this thing fast.
[Digger] Here it comes.
Oh, I'm looking on your tub,
they ain't even started squeezing them yet.
[Amanda] We've put in a lot of work.
From growing the muscadines, harvesting them.
This is tons of muscadines,
and with all this equipment, we're gonna be able to separate
the juice from the pomace.
Brandy is made from the juice.
So it's 100% of the fruit,
fermented to make a brandy.
Grappa, on the other hand,
is made from using the pomace or the leftovers
after making wine.
That's some good muscadine juice right there.
-Cheers, you guys. -Cheers.
There's a successful harvest for you.
[Mark] Look at that. It's almost shame
to do anything to that, ain't it?
I bet that'll run your sugar up.
[Amanda] That's so good.
That muscadine juice, it's out of this world.
It's super, super sweet
and just loads of flavor.
It's just hard to believe something tastes that good without any alcohol in it.
[Amanda] I just know by tasting this,
it's gonna make the best brandy we've ever had.
I'm telling you, there's plenty of flavor left over in that pomace.
[Gene] In here, there's two big rubber discs.
So basically it just kind of squeezes in from both sides.
This juice just keeps coming.
It squeezes them hard.
There's no way that you can crush them,
or get them beat up enough
the way we would have to do it
to get this much juice.
They've got everything figured out here.
[Gene] All right.
Wow.
[Mark] That looks pretty well squashed up to me.
[Digger] We're gonna wrench the sugar and the flesh gonna get...
the little bit of juice left in there.
Make some grappa.
We'll gladly haul this to the dump for you, Gene.
-[Digger] Yep. -[Gene] Yeah.
-"The dump." -[Digger] We're gonna do what we do.
So now, all that remains is for us
to haul our bounty off.
Get it out here to Kelly And Amanda's still site
and let them get busy making some brandy and grappa.
[Mark] Gene, we can't thank you enough, bud.
[Gene] Let's go try some wines now.
[Mark] Well, twist my arm.
[Big Chuk and Joe Boy grunting]
-[Joe Boy] Watch your step. Might be slick. -[both grunting]
Oh. Here we go into the Thunderdome.
Me and Joe Boy are looking to recreate
this Prohibition-style moonshine.
Now this is the same moonshine people like Al Capone,
Lucky Luciano and all of them were drinking during Prohibition.
Not only were they drinking it,
they were coming from all over the world
down here to little old Arkansas to get it.
In order to make this moonshine,
the key ingredient is the water.
Hey, this that same water we just soaked in.
Now, to get the water is a tricky thing
because there's a creek system that rolls all underneath the city here.
-I guarantee you there's a family of snakes in there. -[Joe Boy] Son.
[Big Chuk] Gathered up around the dinner table.
Tonight they eating some Big Chuk and Joe Boy.
So the plan is, is to follow this creek system
far enough upstream that we can get a little ways away from town
and find us a good spot to tap into the water.
Damn, boy.
-It's hard to breathe in here. -[Joe Boy] I know it.
[Big Chuk] Now as easy as that may sound
to go underground in this tunnel
it ain't nothing like that.
[Joe Boy] This is like something off some horror movie.
[Big Chuk] Inside a tunnel, try to take a breath,
feels like you just get a little sip of oxygen.
The rest of it's moisture.
You realize right now
-we are completely underneath Hot Springs. -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
Right over here is the pump.
[Joe Boy] That's the bathhouse right there.
-[Big Chuk] No [bleep]. -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
We've been walking till we get out the end of this thing.
'Cause that's where the water's at,
that's where the money's at.
We gotta get out of here.
I know we can't see five foot in front of us.
Voilà.
[Joe Boy] Finally. I feel cool air.
[Big Chuk] We finally getting out.
Man, I'mma tell you. That's the greatest feeling ever.
You kind of finally feel that fresh air coming in.
You can take you a little bit of a breath.
Oh, thank God. Air.
[Big Chuk] As we walk out,
no longer no city around us.
I can see the creek funneling down into the woods.
So if we can get in there deep enough,
maybe there's a road get down in there or something
where we can access this water and get it out.
[water flowing]
[Joe Boy] Cuz, to be Hot Springs, this water ain't so hot.
[Big Chuk] Well, the small springs that flow into the river are hot,
but they ain't hot enough to change the temperature of the entire river.
[Joe Boy] Ain't we far enough? I mean, for real.
[Big Chuk] So we walked a pretty good ways now.
You can definitely tell nobody's in and out of this place at all.
[Joe Boy] Man, there's plenty of water to pump.
Right there, cuz.
[Big Chuk] That is a good deep pool of water.
And I can see the water here and I know we can get it here.
And-And get in and get out, but then I'm thinking about,
"Do I want to go this trouble every time I need water?"
Well, cuz, as I'm looking around,
I mean...
I don't think nobody's gonna be coming up and down this creek.
So what if we just set up shop right here?
So you're talking about
-building something to bring it out here. -[Big Chuk] Yeah.
We got a little brush line right here.
We got this little pad kind of serves as a little nook.
[Joe Boy] Maybe we build something low profile,
something to get a burner under.
-[Big Chuk] We can bury it up underneath the brush... -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
-[Big Chuk] ...cover it up when we-when we leave. -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
Might be time to think about maybe setting us up a still site.
Run our liquor right there on the spot.
Do what we gotta do, get out of there.
[Joe Boy] We got a game plan. I'mma build a small still.
-Get the hell out of my face. -[Big Chuk] Well, I'mma tell you.
I hope this water does have healing quality
'cause I done rub the damn blister on my ankle
with these raggedy ass boots on.
[Joe Boy] For really though, cuz.
[Mike] I cannot believe they wanted
40 daggone dollars a bushel for them apples back there.
[Jerry] This blows my damn mind, man.
It ain't been that many years ago now,
I remember paying $10 a bushel for 'em.
-And now they're $40 a bushel. -[Richard] Yeah.
[Jerry] Man, what a damn increase.
You know, if we planning on making an apple pie moonshine,
we're gonna need a lot of daggone apples to make that happen.
But, you know, at $2.50 a pound
we could never make a profit.
I need at least 100 pounds of apples per barrel.
That'll be $250 per barrel of mash,
and there's no way that we can make any money on that.
So we called up the cider mill.
We arranged to meet a guy over there
and see if we can't get any apples from him perhaps.
Good God. Look at the apples, man. Whoa!
[Jerry] No wonder there ain't no apples to be found nowhere. They're all here.
-God Almighty. -[Richard] Man, we could get America drunk
with all these apples, man.
-[Mike] I'm telling you. -I think that's what he's working on now.
[all laughing]
[man] We're trying to.
[Mike] This is the most apples I've ever seen
in one place in my whole lifetime.
No wonder we can't get a good price on apples.
They're sitting in this guy's freezer.
[Richard] And how many bins you got in there?
About 1,500 bins.
Fifteen hundred bins.
You know, they've got so many apples in this facility,
I don't see why we can't talk them out of just,
maybe one bin of these apples.
Like, one box is all we'd need.
-That's all we... One Box. -[Richard] Yeah.
[man] Well, I don't think I have any apples to spare.
I wish I could sell them to you but they're all spoken for.
I have to use them all for-for our hard cider.
-Wow. -Yeah.
That's understandable. Yeah, I can see that.
This guy won't sell us one apple.
He don't need the money from us.
He's making cider.
But he does have something interesting he'd like to show us.
All the waste, once we're done, we'll put it into this auger
and it'll go straight out the conveyor.
It's just a byproduct of our process
that we don't tend to use ourselves.
[Mike] They discard this stuff,
which is what they call apple pomace.
It's all the leftover hard skins,
stems, good stuff still yet,
with a good apple flavor to it.
It gets pumped out into a dump truck
and hauled off to hog farms.
So what would you... what would you charge us for a truckload of this stuff?
Honestly, we'd give it away.
If you guys just want some, I think that'd be fine.
[Jerry] Oh, wow.
I want all you can give.
Well, I think we can do that.
[Mike] You know, there's got to be some sugar content
left over in his pomace.
And otherwise, some good flavor left over too.
So what do we need to do? Just back the truck over here?
Yeah. Back on in and we'll get you loaded up.
Let's go load it up.
This could be a game changer for all of us. It's free.
I can come here anytime I want to and get a truckload.
And there's our apple pie.
I just hope we can pull enough flavor out of this stuff,
enough sugar content out of this stuff,
to get the ABV that we're looking for
and the flavor that we need for our clear apple pie.
-[Jerry] Freaking awesome. -[Mike] Oh, yeah.
[Mark] All right, boys and girls.
This is where the fun starts.
We're gonna get in here Kelly and Amanda's still site
and get them busy mashing in for this brandy and grappa.
[Mark] Juice.
Pomace.
This is your ballgame. How do you want us to light up the bat?
Well, we got 200...
That'll it perfectly in that smaller tote.
Just throw the pomace in the big one.
-[Digger] So, you wanna put the pomace in the big one? -[Amanda] Yeah.
I've never made a muscadine brandy
and definitely not a muscadine grappa.
So, it's gonna be really cool to be able to run these back to back
and taste the difference in the spirits that we've made.
[Digger] What's your game plan, Amanda?
-Well, I know you guys have made the grappa before, so. -[Digger] Yeah.
[Amanda] So, we're gonna sugar this in with cane sugar.
-[Amanda] Warm water... -Uh-huh?
[Amanda] ...just enough to really, like, melt the sugar
-and get the yeast working. -[Digger] Yeah.
Just kinda extract that nice flavor out of the solids here.
Since you two kids are the brains,
yuns deal with the pomace
and me and Kelly will deal with the juice.
We let the gifted children do the other work.
[whirring]
Oh, yeah.
[Mark] Brandy is made from straight grape juice.
It's fruity, complex, warm, just feels like a nice hug.
The amount of juice that we have
won't create a very high yield.
But if Amanda and Kelly run it slow,
it should make a top shelf brandy
that'll fetch top dollar.
[Amanda] I think this pomace is gonna make some good stuff.
-I, I've never made grappa before. -[Digger] Oh, yeah.
The hillbilly grappa should have a bold, fiery flavor profile up front
that just punches you right in the back of your tongue.
And then it plays out into that aftertaste of your grapes
or your muscadine or whatever you happen to use.
We'll get this party started.
We got sugar up here?
-Yep, in the back of the truck. -Okay, good then.
Now, traditional grappa
is usually made by just steaming all of the pomace
left over from winemaking.
So, we're gonna do it a little bit different in the backwoods.
We're going to mash it in with water and cane sugar
to give us a more fermentable yield.
This is a ton of flavor but not a lot of sugar.
So, we're sugaring it in, adding the water
so it's liquid enough to ferment it.
This should make some really good grappa.
So, this is the sleeping beauty yeast
-Because it's been hibernating in a crystallized form... -Yeah. Yeah.
...for well over a 100 years.
One of the things I love about the sleeping beauty yeast is it's story.
It was basically found in a bottle of wine from 1895.
It was opened one year at a party
of prestigious people and a scientist was present.
There was little sediment left in the bottom of the bottle.
So, he asked to take the sediment and test it
and see what it was.
Because it was in its crystalline form this whole time,
it was able to come back to life.
Hence the name sleeping beauty yeast.
All right, that's good. Time for the brandy.
The juice from the muscadines is really what we've worked so hard for.
It's a beautiful purple color.
It has all the flavor packed right in there.
And it's at 18% sugar right now,
so it's gonna make some awesome brandy for us.
[Mark] Well, if this liquor is as good as I think it's gonna be,
it'll damn sure be a money maker.
And in order to mash it in, we're gonna create a wine
like they would at the vineyard.
Um, so it has all the sugar it needs,
so we basically just need to pitch yeast into it
let it work off.
And the magic sleeping beauty yeast.
[Mark] You know, we got both the mashes done,
the brandy and the grappa.
So, from this point on, it's in Amanda and Kelly's capable hands.
Oh, I'm gonna tell you guys.
We've got grappa, we got brandy.
I mean, I can't see something good not coming
out of at least one of these.
[Mike] Oh, yeah.
Go get some water for our pomace.
Now, we got a daggone truckload of free apple pomace,
we're gonna make some clear apple pie.
The only thing we need to do now is go get it mashed in.
But now we gotta have water at the still site
before we mash this in.
The only downfall we have right now
is our still site don't have water.
[Richard] What kinda moonshiners are we? [chuckles softly]
[Mike] It makes me think twice about myself.
We just built a brand new still
with a brand new air cool condenser that works great.
But we still gotta ship water up here to mash in with.
So, me and Richard,
we're gonna go up and fetch some barrels.
That's just extra work, that's all.
[Richard] Something don't look funny to you?
[Mike] What the hell?
Where the hell is the still at?
Well, I mean, what...
Where's the damn still at, man?
You can see where somebody's dumped the bastard.
Oh, my God, dude.
We got a damn problem, buddy.
[Richard] I can't believe this.
How you gonna tell me somebody's come in here and stole the--
Look, every damn thing else is still sitting here.
You know, this is brand new still.
We've all put a lot of money,
sweat, blood and tears
and effort into building this thing,
upwards of $20,000 in materials and labor.
We gotta tell Jerry, man.
You know, this is the cornerstone to our business.
If we don't have it, we don't have nothing.
That's just bad damn news.
[Mike] It's gone, son.
[Jerry] I can't believe this [bleep], man.
Our still, it's gone.
We gotta try to find out where the still is
and try our best to get it back.
Yeah, I mean, look, this ground's still muddy.
[Mike] Yeah, it's muddy.
[Jerry] When we left this thing the last time,
there was spent mash still left in the pot.
And the only thing we can see
is where they've opened the valves up
and just let this stuff drain.
It ain't been long.
So, it's only been a day or two
since this thing's been taken.
I know one thing's for sure.
We gotta find this thing.
And I'm gonna tell you right now.
Just like in the crime scenes, man.
First 48 hours is crucial.
We got to hit the ground now.
If they're after money,
where's the first place they're gonna take it to?
[both] Scrap yards.
[Jerry] That's-- That's where we need to go then.
You know, the price for copper's sky high.
You could scrap this thing,
cut it up in little bitty pieces overnight,
scrap it out,
and make a pocket full of money
and be done with it.
-Let's go. -[Richard groans]
[Jerry] I'll tell you what, this still,
it's a thing of beauty.
It's probably worth over 20 grand
and that's not even counting our labor.
And to have this thing sit in the middle of a scrapyard somewhere,
it really breaks my heart to even think about that.
[Mike] I'd like to get my hands on that damn prick.
[Jerry] I got a sock of dimes ready and waiting.
[Big Chuk] Morning, sunshine.
In the back of my truck,
I got some damn Arkansas gold, baby.
-[Joe Boy] What? You got it? -Yeah.
Today, we're gonna build two small all copper sub pots
so we can run this prohibition style peach corn liquor.
The spot we found is about a mile or two down the Hot Springs Creek.
And you know, we could build one big old pot,
but that'd be awkward and heavy to tote.
[car door opens]
I brought you your canvas.
[Joe Boy] Wow.
[Big Chuk] The idea is they're gonna be small, made out of all copper.
So, they're gonna be light weight.
We'll be able to throw it on our shoulder.
I know it seems like a lot of work
to build two stills versus one,
but if we can get down this creek and get to work,
we'll be able to recreate this peach corn prohibition style moonshine.
So, it'll all be worth it.
[Joe Boy] So, we're building two square stills?
I mean, yeah.
So, imagine this.
-Right? Together. -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
Narrow it down like that.
[Joe Boy] That's perfect.
Cut out a hole for a cap, put some sidewalls in it.
Same thing with another sheet.
-Damn, that sounds simple enough. -Wham.
They fit right here side by side.
-They're about the size of a sheet of plywood. -Yeah.
So, obviously when you shrink it down to half,
you're gonna cut your capacity in half as far as volume.
But we're gonna build two identical still sets.
And the way they're shaped wide and low to the ground like that,
our burners pretty much cover the entire bottom of the surface.
Ao we're gonna be able to heat it up
and make liquor run twice as fast
as what it would with a big still.
[Joe Boy] Hey, that's pretty good though.
-[Big Chuk] We're gonna use this whole sheet, right? -[Joe Boy] Yeah.
Pull tight.
All right, right there.
[Big Chuk] Man, I mean, to be honest with you,
Like, I know Joe Boy can build about anything he puts his hands on.
But to see this still kinda come together like that
and look as pretty as it does to me anyway,
it's pretty awesome feeling
knowing that you're able to now create stills.
Before, you know, that's something we either had to outsource
or get advice on.
And now we're in the business of making 'em ourselves.
-All right, cuz, you ready to flip this thing up? -Yeah.
-All right. -Oh, yeah, boy.
-It's light. -[Big Chuk] Yeah, bubba.
Kinda weighs about 30 to 40...
-Look at it taking shape, boss. -[Big Chuk laughs]
It's like a little bitty miniature submarine still,
but it's all copper, there's no wood.
It's lightweight.
Man, I'm really loving this.
[singing] ♪ I've been high and I've been low ♪
[both singing] ♪ I've been to places you don't wanna go ♪
Look here, Jack, we got a hole cut, man.
So, the first still's done, and it looks good to me, man.
Looks like a little old army tank sitting there.
-That's it. -Badass, dude.
Let me take a picture of it.
Now all we got left to do is create his identical twin
and get down the creek and get to work.
[Joe Boy] Man, I'm ready to eat, dude.
-Let's take a break. -[Big Chuk laughs]
[Kelly] I hope all this work has paid off.
Hopefully we'll have some muscadine wine.
Let's check it out.
[Amanda] So, this is our wine.
Remember, we didn't put any sugar in this one.
Yeah, that worked up.
So, this is a true brandy.
-Yeah, check the other one. -[Amanda] Yeah.
Very rarely do we get to actually make
two completely different runs of liquor
off of the same exact ingredient.
Wow, look at the color in that.
This is mostly just the water and the grape fumes.
This one will have a lot more alcohol content.
I expect that this is gonna be wildly different than the brandy,
but I'm really excited to see how different it's gonna be
and what kinda grappa we can make with these muscadines.
What do you want to run first?
-I say we do the brandy. -[Kelly] Okay.
You know, we made a pretty sweet deal on all this mash.
We've got a lot of labor in it.
So, the key to it is now having a good return.
[Amanda] Whoo.
[Kelly] You know, we're gonna work our butts off today.
We're gonna do two runs back to back,
we're gonna end up with what we end up with,
but we hope it's a really good turnout today.
I'm just glad you're excited about something.
-[Amanda] I'm always excited whenever we start a run. -[laughs]
Haven't you noticed this?
I think this is gonna be a really top shelf brandy.
But it's crucial that we get it perfect.
Because if we can't nail it on this run,
then all of this work and all this time that we've spent
is for nothing.
Before you know it, Kelly,
we're gonna have muscadine brandy.
Yeah, that's hot.
Oh, here we go.
[Amanda] Oh, yep. We got muscadine brandy, Kelly.
We need to turn that heat down a little bit, what do you think?
-Um, does it need to run a lot slower? -Yeah.
[Amanda] So, we're gonna make this heads cut now.
I'm gonna throw this off.
When we make a brandy,
it's definitely a higher-end type of product.
We're gonna get less volume
because we're not sugaring this in at all.
[Kelly] All right, I'm gonna swap 'em out,
dump this one in.
It's more of a quality over quantity type of spirit.
So, I'm just really interested
to see what this brandy's gonna taste like
when it comes out of the still.
[sniffs]
That brandy, man.
I really love that brandy.
That is super sweet, really, really fruity.
It's the best brandy that I've ever had.
I would have to agree with you there.
[Kelly] Now we're off to grappa.
We finally start making money,
we finally start getting along together,
and look what happened.
[Jerry] You know, not only am I thinking about the daggone still,
but it's like, the rest of our season...
-[Mike] Oh, I know. -I mean, that's like, we're, we're shot in the foot.
We got so much money and time and labor tied into that thing
and just got it working like, like we wanted,
like, perfectly.
I'm gonna tell you what this still here is.
It's one of the most well thought up stills that I've ever done.
Um, and it's been, been, been very beneficial to us.
And for this thing to be just gone,
it's, like, heartbreaking.
It's, like, you know, one of my kids got kidnapped.
[Mike] Then some bastard comes in there and steals it from us.
[Jerry] And some conniving piece of crap.
The worst thing in the world I can't stand is a damn thief, I mean...
[sighs]
That just makes me wanna cut a man's throat sometimes.
[Mike] Mmm-hmm.
Well, I hope, like, pray tell, we can find something out.
Now, we're headed to the nearest scrapyard we can find.
Whoever stole the still,
if they took it to a scrapyard to sell it,
this may be where it's at.
Mmm-mmm.
Chances are whoever,
if they did bring it over here,
is cut it up into one inch squares.
And there won't be no evidence of it.
Oh, hell, I don't know if it's a moonshine still or not,
or just a big pile of copper pieces.
[Jerry] I'm about to puke is what I'm about to do.
-[Mike] Right, let's go check 'em out. -[car beeps]
Oh.
[Jerry] What's happening?
[man speaking]
[Jerry] All right.
Well, we got a serious issue and we're hoping you can help.
[man 2 speaking]
[Jerry laughs] Well, you're the first one I wanted to check with anyway.
[Mike] Hey, man. I'm gonna go ahead and cut to the chase.
You wouldn't happen to laid your eyes
on the damn liquor still nowhere, have you?
Amanda, what kinda liquor are you trying to make with this?
Well, muscadine shine.
Probably what we'll wind up calling it.
[Mark] Muscadine shine.
-It's got a nice ring to it. -That's what I thought.
After tasting the wine, I knew I had to make it shine, right?
After tasting the wine,
you know that you had to make shine.
-Pretty much. [laughs] -[Mark] Yeah.
[Mark] You're a poet and didn't know it,
but your feet gave you away, 'cause they're long fellers.
[Steve and Amanda laugh]
You making fun of my feet now?
-[Mark] I am not. -[Amanda and Steve laugh]
I'm making an observation of your feet.
As tall as you are, you need the good size feet.
[laughs]
[Amanda] You hit a soft spot.
-[Mark] What? The top of my head? -[Amanda] Yeah.
[Mike] You wouldn't happen to laid your eyes
on the damn liquor still nowhere, have you?
[man 2] I have.
We've got some, uh, pieces of copper.
[man] Tubing and stuff like that.
Yeah, moving a lot of tubing. About 117 foot of tubing.
[Mike] These pieces are cut up in sheets?
Maybe, have you seen anything like that?
Yeah, man, we could definitely show you what we've got.
-[Richard] If y'all don't mind. -That's right. Yeah, man.
You know, there's a lot of copper thieves in this country
that don't know nothing about moonshine.
They'll steal your still.
Anything they can take that's of copper
and they cut up little pieces,
they're gonna do so
so they can make pocket change.
-Yep. -Yeah, we figured if--
[man speaking]
So, yeah, let him show you that cheap stuff over there.
-[Jerry] All right. -All right.
[man] Oh, man, that looks pretty well...
That's most of what we get, like, guttering and stuff...
[Jerry] Yeah.
[Mike] Well, they ain't none of our stuff here.
[Jerry] You don't even have the volume of stuff that would've been off of it.
-[man 2] Yeah. -Fill up, fill up the...
[man 2] I mean, like I say,
that would've ran a red flag up right off a batch.
It would if they brought a complete still in here for sure.
There's nobody coming here with a big pile of copper.
They've only brought in a few little coal pieces.
They haven't seen anything that resembles a moonshine still.
So, that still's not here.
We'll probably won't never find it,
won't never find out who's got it or whatever.
But I hope we do.
I mean, this is real life, you know?
Stuff like this happens every day,
people get stole from all the time.
For what reason?
I mean, it costs more money to build the damn thing
than it ever would give you if you took it to a scrap yard.
Jerry's on the phone, spreading the word,
trying to get us some help.
Personally I'm feeling, you know, gut-wrenched.
Sick, you know?
Sick on my stomach over the whole damn deal, you know?
'Cause that's our livelihood, you know?
We, we put money and time and effort
and sweat, blood and tears in the-- into this thing.
And then just some thug comes in the wood for real
and steal from you,
and it's all gone in the blink of an eye,
But if I ever find that bastard,
I'll jerk his arm off and beat him half of death with it.
I promise you.
It's gotta be around here somewhere.
Well, my buddy just put the word out.
So, I mean, if anything's gonna happen,
I mean, we should know something very soon.
I hope so.
[Amanda] Let there be grappa.
It's gonna be running any minute now.
What a good money making day.
[Kelly] I hope so.
We did a brandy with all of that amazing muscadine juice
which came out phenomenal, all on its own.
We didn't have to do anything fancy to it.
Now, the grappa,
to make it a little bit more interesting,
I felt like it needed a little bit of help.
There she goes. We got grappa.
I figured, let's add some citrus.
So, I took a ton of just the zest of an orange
and a lot of really good local honey
and we incorporate that into the thumper
to make an infused grappa.
-It's a little hot. -It's still a little hot.
It was definitely a big risk to change the grappa recipe
without running it by Mark and Digger.
I was simply just trying to take our grappa,
make it different than the brandy,
and more palatable for our customers.
Grappa taste test, take one.
-[Kelly] Well? -Not bad.
I didn't think-- Look at the legs on it.
Look at it run down the sides of the jar.
Pretty fruity.
I think I like the brandy better.
But I like the grappa a lot more than I thought I would.
You can still taste that it's a muscadine grappa,
but it's accented with orange and honey.
I'm happy with it.
[Kelly] I don't like the brandy as good as the grappa.
[Amanda] Both these spirits on their own are delicious.
I can't wait to show these to Mark and Digger,
but if they don't like it,
I don't get their seal of approval on this,
you know, it was all for naught.
The pressure is definitely on right now.
[Digger] Hot dog.
-We have our grappa and our brandy. -[Digger] Uh-huh?
I always get Nervous whenever I bring something new to Mark and Digger.
See what they say.
This is our grappa that we made.
So, we did a little something different
-with the distillation. -[Mark] Hmm.
To me, the most memorable thing about grappa
is it's fiery, right?
So, I thought, like,
how can we incorporate some good flavor and some sweetness to it?
I put a ton of orange zest and honey in the thumper.
So, honey citrus grappa.
So, I hit that nose on that thing
and I'm just absolutely floorboarded.
Hell, my mouth's already watering.
I'm wanting to taste this.
I wanted it to pack punch like a good grappa should.
Well, you damn sure got your wish on that.
[Amanda] A little bit of honey on the finish...
-It's, it's... -...because who doesn't like honey.
It's way more complex than what we did.
Usually, it's just a fiery grape
is what you get with a grappa.
And this, it starts out really, really pleasant
with a high proof taste,
then it goes into the citrus, the honey.
And I'm just, I'm astounded.
After tasting that,
I think your experimentation's over.
It's citrus and honey.
Instead of fighting each other,
these flavors complement each other.
I think it's outstanding.
Congratulations, Amanda.
Thank you.
Kelly and I totally crushed it with this grappa.
And all that's left now is to get the review on our brandy.
That's probably as a mellow of a brandy as I've ever tasted.
It's damn smack-your-lips delicious.
It's sweet, it's got the right flavor to it.
It feels good, it tastes good.
[Amanda] Tried to bring something different...
-[Digger] Well... -...off the same ingredients.
Right, off the same fruit.
Two totally different flavors.
I mean, this one's as complex as the liquor can get.
And this one here is just flavors.
[Mark] You know what?
Now I know one thing.
I know when we're gone,
you keep saying where's the next distillers gonna come from?
These two right here.
Damn, guys, I'm so proud of you.
-[Digger] It's gonna be just fine. -[Amanda] Aw.
Don't cry, Amanda. [laughs]
I pour my heart and soul into everything I make.
But to make them proud,
it makes me really proud.
-Thank you. -[Digger] Now, you say you've got a couple of vessels
that needs to be tempered and jarred up?
-[Amanda] Yep. -[Kelly] Yeah.
We got work to do.
[Mark] Well, you guys go on and get busy.
We're gonna sit here and look at this just a little longer.
-And I'm gonna play this banjo. -[Kelly] All right.
Amanda and Kelly has did their job extremely well.
[laughs] Let's go get some work done.
-[Mark] Thanks, guys. -[Kelly] Y'all enjoy that.
So, now it's just a matter of getting it jarred up,
getting it in the customer's hand and,
and getting paid for it.
They did do a fine job.
I'm telling you, I'm so proud of 'em.
Yeah, that's Amanda and Kelly.