[Tickle] Anyone attempting to make moonshine
risks serious life-threatening injury
or time in prison.
So don't try this at home.
[narrator] This time on the season finale of Moonshiners...
[Ramsey] Mountain Legacy Corn Whiskey.
We want to do something
that will chisel our name
in the same stone
as some of the best whiskey makers in the world.
[Digger] Whoo! We're making the finest run of liquor
that the backwoods has ever seen.
I just ain't got no words for this.
$90 a gallon.
$90 a gallon?
My back's against the wall right here with my restaurant.
If I don't get the cash money
to open this place back up,
we're sunk.
There's cops all over the place here.
They say hiding in plain sight is the way to go,
but this could go down in a bad way real fast.
See that filling in there?
King cake moonshine.
That's dollar bills to me.
That's Mardi Gras in a jar.
We're gonna be able to really make some money with this.
[Mike] Jerry.
[Jerry] Where the hell's the liquor at?
[Mike] There's only one other damn person
who's got the key to this lock,
and that's Richard Landry.
It's adding up.
[Mike] This is how we make the moonshine.
We'll have to commemorate old Cowboy.
He was really good to us.
[Ramsey] He was real good to us.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
after receiving news
their longtime friend, Cowboy, was killed in a car accident,
Mark and Digger await the return
of a full barrel of their aged Tennessee whiskey
they'd entrusted to his care.
Our old buddy, Cowboy Coward...
We think you're the only one that may be able to help us.
[Digger] ...he was the old mountain man in Deliverance that
put the line on old Ned Beatty.
You sure got a purty mouth, boy.
[Digger] Also, he was pretty much
the gatekeeper at the old Maggie Valley ghost town property.
We got some barrels we're want to take up there and let 'em age.
We're gonna try to set it somewhere where it'd wobble.
Right there, Puss.
That right there is the motion of the ocean, boys.
It is.
-It ought to be primo damn liquor. -I'd say it probably...
-Been there over two years, ain't it? -It has.
Well, we've got one barrel up there left.
The way the liquor reacts with the barometric pressure,
the wind, it would move it around.
You know, this all combined
to increase
that aging process
that it's likened upon like a 15 to 20-year liquor.
And that's why we've sent Daniel up there
to get that last barrel.
I mean, Daniel, they've had to sneak in there 'cause...
We ain't got no access.
-Doesn't' have no poor little Cowboy to let him in. -No.
[Ramsey] Hey.
I see something covered up, Puss.
It looks like the shape of a barrel.
[whistles]
[speaking indistinctly]
I take it from the fact we didn't get no phone calls,
there wasn't no issues.
Tater and I were lucky.
They haven't hired anybody yet
to do Cowboy's job,
so we were able to, uh,
just sneak in and get the barrel and get out,
but it sure was a lot of work.
[Ramsey] Oh. Help.
You know, we get the barrel unloaded off of Daniel's truck.
The idea just presents itself.
We really, really need to do a toast to Cowboy.
All right. I can't wait.
[Digger] Oh, yeah.
Get your little nose and hear that, Hattie.
Did its job, didn't it?
Yep. Stick her down in there.
Let's straighten it out so it don't curl back up
and you're sucking iron instead of liquor.
You know, we're siphoning it off a little at a time.
I mean, I'm just seeing
a parade of faces go through my mind,
and it's old-timers.
In this moonshine world, they're legends.
Hattie boy,
there's one thing about it.
This is some fine liquor before it went in the barrel,
but there wouldn't be a drop of it coming out of this barrel
if it hadn't been for old Cowboy.
-[Daniel] Nope. Definitely not. -Nope.
Cowboy, here's to you, old-timer.
-Thank you so much. -Yep.
We appreciate you.
Oh, damn.
The flavor is complex.
It's rich.
You get the oaky finish notes.
It just makes it an exceptional whiskey.
That's a drink worthy of toasting
-that little fella with. -It sure is.
Hattie boy, this really got me a-thinking.
These moonshine legends, they left a legacy behind.
They did. They were good men.
I don't know that we've done that yet.
You saying let's do something to cement our legacy.
We're gonna have to do something.
[Ramsey] Put our name in the ranks of Jim Tom Hedrick
and Popcorn Sutton.
We want people to say good things about us.
With a drink in their hand, hopefully.
-[Ramsey] Yeah. -[chuckles]
At the end of the day, everything we do,
it's all about these mountains behind us.
It's the folks that forged the way through these mountains.
You know, the guys that really had more at stake than we did.
We can go get jobs if we need to.
But when these boys were hammering out the liquor
in the '40s, '50s, and '60s,
there were no jobs here to be had much.
They did what it took to survive.
Well, we wanted to make a liquor
that reflects
the legacy of these old men
and their families in these mountains.
It's our history. It's our culture.
When somebody tastes this liquor,
we want them to know that they're tasting
Appalachian legacy in a jar.
I think we need to earmark
something that's gonna be just that.
I agree very much.
We want to do something
that will chisel our name
in the same stone
as some of the best whiskey makers in the world.
You get to figuring it.
I'll damn sure put it in motion.
[Tickle] I've got to do something.
I've really got to make this sale happen.
[narrator] In Franklin County, Virginia,
after being forced to close down
and re-staff his restaurant,
Tickle is determined to sell the moonshine he made
to raise the funds to reopen.
We wound up making this apple and carrot brandy,
and we were really hoping to get top dollar for this stuff,
you know, it's the middle of winter.
Brandies are not around.
And I set up a sale with this guy,
but the sale got blown.
Listen, man, we've been here, what, ten minutes?
I don't want to sit here any longer.
[Tickle] That's the damn law, man.
[bleep] I shouldn't have been here to start with.
So I talked to this guy again,
and he's like, "If you can bring it to my bar,
I'm still willing to buy this from you."
Where he told me to come, it's right over here.
Oh, my God.
He didn't tell me his place of business
was right beside the police department.
They're everywhere.
They're like fleas on a dough.
This is either the dumbest sale I've ever made
or the most genius.
[man] Hello there.
-Look, well, we finally get to meet up, huh? -[man] Indeed.
[Tickle] Is there a place we can talk a little more private?
-[man] Let's go out back. -All right, sounds good.
Some place you got here, I swear I believe I actually
parked between two police cars,
and I got shine out there in the truck.
[man] I got to be honest with you.
Trying to do a deal with you guys
and get some product is...
I didn't expect it to be this tough.
He's upset with us.
He's the one that didn't show up there.
He was late.
Well, I'll tell you what. I mean,
just because of everything I've been through,
what it's gonna take to make this happen is $90 a gallon.
$90 a gallon?
I've really got to get
top price for this brandy because my back's
against the wall right here with my restaurant.
If I don't get the cash money to open this place back up,
Carol and I, we're sunk.
[man] It's gonna take $90 to...
-[Tickle] So you're $90 or nothing, huh? -$90 or nothing.
Well, looks like you get nothing is what it looks like.
-[man] All right. -All right.
Mike called me and told me he's got some new ingredients,
something from Louisiana.
He said I'm gonna like it, so,
I'm gonna go over here and see what they're talking about.
[narrator] In Maggie Valley, North Carolina,
after a disagreement
about the future of their partnership
resulted in Richard
storming out of Mike and Jerry's workshop...
Next season, get your own still.
Man, I don't like feeling like I'm ganged on right here.
It's just business. It's nothing personal.
I'm gonna just go ahead on and do what I got to do, man.
Prove myself again.
[narrator] ...the Louisiana native reluctantly returns
to do his part in one last run.
It just feels to me they're gonna edge me out of this
some kind of way, like, they're gonna push me out.
But I gave my word.
I said I was gonna finish out this season,
and that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna finish off this season strong.
And next season,
we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
We'll figure that out next season.
But for right now,
we're gonna finish this out strong as we possibly can.
That's a lot of boxes of something you got in your truck.
We have got some king cakes, guys.
-Mardi Gras. -You already know.
It's a Mardi Gras-style cake
that we all eat down south.
We're gonna make alcohol out of these things, baby.
King cake moonshine
in a clear jar, that's dollar bills to me.
-Some family friends of ours... -[Richard] Mm-hmm.
[Mike] ...got one of the biggest king cake companies.
They had a couple hundred left over.
I got 200 king cakes for like
250 bucks.
We're talking about $2,000 worth of cakes here.
I can't pass that up.
I can triple my money in a jar.
Like, what all's in there?
Some caramel, pecan praline,
a little cream cheese in it.
-Holy cow. -[Richard] You see that filling in there right there?
I'm gonna tell you what. I can see it.
If we can get that taste right there in a jar,
we're gonna be set.
If we can make liquor
that tastes like these cakes, it'll be a sure-fire hit.
But we can't mash them in as is.
These cakes have a lot of things in them,
such as the oils and the cream cheese.
We got to get those out or this mash will spoil.
And I've got a great idea how to do that.
So what I'm thinking we could do
is actually take a barrel and we just go down the edge.
On the bottom, we just drill us a bunch of holes,
-like a lot of holes here. -[Mike] Yep.
[Jerry] And come up here, a bunch of holes here.
And then what we do is just have, like, a car inner tube.
And then we just lay the air to it
where it's actually blowing up into the mash.
Whoosh all them juices out of these holes right here.
If we take a regular screen
and we try to filter this king cake out through this screen,
all it's gonna do is clog up on us.
We're not gonna get all the good sweet juice out of it that we need.
There we go.
[Jerry] So, basically, the idea I've got
is to get a PVC pipe
and put a lot of small inner tubes on it
to make, like, a full cylinder bladder from top to bottom.
The whole idea of this bladder being inside this tank is to
basically add air pressure to it,
and it can squeeze from the inside out,
pressing all the juice through the barrel
and getting all of our good sweet liquid out the outside of it.
All right, fellas, moment of truth.
Hope it don't blow out.
[indistinct chatter]
It's not gonna blow.
Here, you hold this son of...
[mumbling]
That there's fixing to have a damn coronary, son.
-[shouts] -[screams] Oh [bleep]
[all laughing]
Oh, boy.
[Jerry] It's gonna work.
This sucker's gonna squirt like Niagara Falls.
[Ramsey] What are you doing, Puss?
We're gonna try our best
to make us a legacy whiskey that's
traditional Appalachia in a jar.
We need to really make
the most top-shelf corn whiskey
we can ever make.
We want to make it an unaged liquor
that you taste the raw product,
locally sourced ingredients.
We're looking at doing limited runs,
one, maybe two a year.
We want people to know we're competing
with the folks that make
the $2,000 bottles of liquor.
I've got a grain bill I'm throwing around in my head.
White corn, about 80 pounds per barrel,
-and about... -That's plenty.
...20-pound of malted six-row barley.
Just plain old-fashioned backwoods liquor
when somebody couldn't afford no sugar.
We feel like that this recipe that we're gonna use
for our legacy liquor,
that encompasses all the struggles
and all the successes
that our predecessors in this craft had to endure.
They didn't have it as good as we did.
They didn't have sugar that would boost their volume.
But their liquor was better.
So that's the era we're going back to.
Can we make it a little higher proof?
I'd like to make it
-somewhere around 120 proof. -[Digger] Yeah.
You can go a little higher on proof when you're all grain.
It don't get as fiery.
In the backwoods liquor business,
100 proof is the benchmark.
But we feel that the quality of the ingredients
that we're gonna use,
it should drink like 90 proof.
Mark and Digger's Mountain Legacy Liquor.
This recipe showcases
what we've been taught over the years.
It may be the greatest recipe we've had so far.
[Ramsey] You've been awake all night thinking about this, ain't you?
[Digger] Well, I wasn't thinking about much at all
when I was drinking all that liquor.
[Ramsey chuckles]
[Mike] There we go.
Ooh. That is moist.
[Jerry] You know, now that we've got our press,
it's time to get these king cakes tore up.
You get them broke down real fine
where our water can get into them
and break everything down like it needs to.
I hadn't done this
since my very first birthday party.
That's the only time your mom let you do it, right?
Yeah.
We're tearing all these king cakes apart.
We put them in our pot. We've got the pecan,
the glaze that's on the sugars.
Man, we got so many flavors in here.
This is fixing to be finger-licking good.
[Jerry] Let's get some water to it.
I cannot wait to get some heat going to them
and boil them out
and get the good squeezings out of these king cakes.
-[Jerry] Ready? -[Mike] Let's have it.
There we go, rock and roll.
Heating this king cake up,
all the oils are coming to the top.
[Richard] You can see the oil, like, right on the side.
See that there oil on there?
[Mike] That way, we're left with
everything that we want to use
as far as fermentation goes, which is the sugars,
the flavors,
everything that we need to put in the moonshine
and leave the oils behind.
Let's get us a layer of holes.
We're using rice holes to trap all of the fats
and the solids.
Everything that we don't need
we leave it behind
inside of that drum.
Then we'll press
and get all the sugars and stuff that we need
for fermentation.
Now that we've got it all ready to go, we're capping it off.
[Mike] Easy, easy.
[Jerry] As we start to add the air to it,
we can tell things are starting to happen.
[Mike] It's nice crying, ain't it?
Oh, yeah, I've got some juices coming out over here.
[Mike] That stuff's pouring out of here, Richard, look.
You can't ask for nothing no better than that.
The tubes start expanding.
It starts squeezing out the sides.
-Pure syrup, ain't it? -Pure syrup.
[Richard] Look how much is coming out of there, man.
It's bringing it out of the thousands of holes that we've got in this tank.
It's dripping.
This is a success.
We're filling up buckets.
You know, we're at the end
of our run here of cooking this stuff down.
That's a lot of good juice right there.
All we've got to do is pitch the yeast
so our mash can work off.
It's time to get some money in our pockets.
[Jerry grunts]
[Mike] Let's get these things to the still site.
Tickle.
[Tickle] What do you know, Henry? I've got
something I need to show you, Henry.
[Henry] Oh, yeah? What'd you bring me?
A strawberry pie from Tickle Table or something?
No, unfortunately, no.
That's not what I brought you.
[Henry] Hey, I love gifts.
No. That's not the liquor we hauled the other night, is it?
It's the exact same liquor.
I mean, I've got
to get my restaurant back open and running,
and right here sits the money for it.
When Josh was out of town, we hired Perry
to supply us with loads of shine.
[Perry] I just brought you, like, 20 just for this time.
[Tickle] All right, that'll do.
Right on it, Perry. I got you covered right here.
A lot of times, if he's running a little bit low,
there's a good chance he'll take this whole load.
We do that a lot.
If the guys in the mountain run out of liquor,
they call us up, we try to accommodate them.
And if we run out of liquor down here,
they try their damnedest to accommodate us.
It's like a river that flows both directions.
One moonshiner will help supply the other one one day,
and the next day, that moonshiner
might help supply the other one.
-[Perry speaking over phone] -Hey. Listen, man.
We've got some brandy, some damn good brandy,
and we had a buyer, and the buyer fell through.
And we need some money, and we need it quick.
[Perry speaking]
Okay, man.
Perry manages some guys in a wrestling team.
He sells some liquor
at his wrestling matches.
[Perry speaking]
-All right, buddy. Appreciate you. -[Perry] All right.
Sounds like that'll work for me.
As long as we can get rid of this stuff
and I can get back opened up, I don't care how we do it.
[Digger] Let's go look this over a spot or two.
There we go.
It looks kind of pretty right here.
[Ramsey] I'll tell you what, Puss.
It's been a minute since me and you got together
to make another run of liquor, ain't it?
Me and Mark are back to my old farm here.
I've got a good limestone spring on it.
-Right in here. -This would be an outstanding spot.
We've got our ingredients.
We're gonna mash in
this all-grain legacy whiskey that we're gonna make.
[Digger] It's a known fact that limestone water makes
the best liquor on the planet.
If you'll turn some gas on,
I'll maybe light that fire.
[Ramsey] Okay.
Oh, that looks good.
Everything we put in our liquor,
we source right here in our state of Tennessee.
We do go to great extent
to find the best corn.
[Ramsey] I'll let you adjust the grind the way you like it.
Digger likes what he calls
a coarse grit grain.
Let her go and see what she do.
When it comes to corn,
especially because corn has
so much sugar, if you get it too fine, it'll clump up.
Then you've got a corn cake.
If it's too thick, you can't cook all the carbs out of it.
You have to pay attention to your grind
or you're not gonna get
good flavor out of your grain.
Then we'll move on to that malted barley.
[Ramsey] You know, by cooking this corn longer
and at a hotter temperature,
this is part of the game changer
that's gonna create this legacy whiskey.
We want to cook out the starches.
The more of them that you cook out,
the more fermentable goody
that you get out of the corn, that creates sugar.
And then that gives the yeast something
to enjoy and turn into alcohol.
Ain't it been good out here?
Just me and you, like the old days.
I'll be honest with you,
I feel a tiny bit kind of revitalized.
You know, Mark and I, we've made a lot
of liquor out of a lot of different things.
But we've come to realize now,
with this recipe, simpler is better.
That's cooking. Look how thick
-it's getting now. -[Ramsey] Yeah, I know it.
So we've eliminated the sugar.
We're back to all grain.
And that gives us more flavor.
It's the purest form of liquor,
and it's the way our predecessors started this craft.
[Ramsey] Let's grind that barley.
Now, this is six-row.
What's the difference in two-row and six-row?
[Digger] There's six rows of grain on each side of the six-row.
-[Ramsey] Okay. -[Digger] Now, two-row,
-there's just two sprouting out. -Okay.
But the thing about six-row barley,
it's got ten times more amylase content in it,
so its diastatic power's higher.
-Okay. -So we're getting
more of what we need to help break this grain down in six-row.
-[Ramsey] Hence more flavor. -[Digger] Yep.
The flavor we're gonna get just because of that little bitty tiny sprout,
that's what's gonna set this liquor apart.
-That's why we need six-row. -Okay.
Now, does this grind about the same grind?
[Digger] It'll be a little bit finer than corn.
If everything works out right, Hattie,
this 20% to 80% ratio,
that's gonna balance it out just fine.
-Right. -Now, this ought to start with corn,
have barley, that nice earthy note in there
in the middle, and then finish off sweet again.
If that's what we get,
then that's what's gonna make this 120 proof liquor
drink like 90 proof.
That and the fact we're gonna charcoal filter it.
All right. Where are we at after dumping?
[Digger] 143 and just a little bit of change.
That's good enough to be dumping that barley in there.
It's very important to add the barley
at the right temperature.
If you add it too hot,
it will kill the natural enzymes
that's on the malted barley.
-That's just smelling so good, ain't it? -Oh, I'm telling you.
And we're making, hopefully,
the finest run of liquor
that the backwoods has ever seen.
It's right. It's the right temperature.
-It's still pretty warm. -It is warm.
It's bathwater warm.
This legacy liquor, the grain bill in it,
hopefully, will secure us
a seat at the table with the greats.
So now that the mash has cooled down,
the enzymes have broke the sugars
down into smaller chains,
it's down to about 90 degrees,
we're gonna put just regular old bread yeast in here
because that's all our predecessors
would have had access to.
That ought to be pretty good.
That ought to do her.
It works just fine,
and it does have a unique flavor.
-Taste that. -Boy, it's soured, ain't it?
Now all we gotta do is let Mother Nature do her work,
produce us a little alcohol, and we'll come
cook it out of the mash in a few days.
I kind of feel a little revitalized, I promise you.
Mountain Legacy Corn Whiskey, Puss.
-Here we go. -How we doing?
Ah, making it with my best buddy on the whole damn planet.
How could it be any better?
[Mike] Oh, my God.
Whoo!
This king cake moonshine,
I mean, this is the embodiment of Louisiana.
I'm ready to pump it over and get it going, baby.
[Richard] It's fun. It's a tradition.
It's heritage.
It's a party all going in one jar.
I mean, that's what I'm excited about.
Play it to it, son.
[Jerry] It's coming your way.
-It smells like a bakery next to a brewery. -It does.
Two things great right together.
We are pumping mash now, baby.
Pecan praline brown sugar moonshine.
You know what "comment ça va" means?
-[Richard] Comment ça va? -I'm afraid to even ask.
[Richard] CÇa va bien.
[Mike] Comment ça va is "How you doing?"
I'll tell you what. Hanging out with you guys, I'm gonna have to
buy me a whole new dictionary.
[both laugh]
-What language is that? -[Mike] Cajun French.
Where we come from,
the Acadians,
they got expelled from Nova Scotia for
not wanting to pledge allegiance to the queen.
They wound up in South Louisiana.
They bought all these traditions we jumping on right now,
Mardi Gras, king cake, and all that stuff.
So the way the Acadians bought crawfish
and all their culture to Louisiana,
we're bringing some king cakes to North Carolina.
Bringing the king cakes up.
I grew up in Louisiana, so I know the nostalgia
associated with Mardi Gras.
And Mardi Gras is real, real serious where I come from.
So to be able to do something like a king cake moonshine
in a jar,
it's serious to me.
Baby, turn that gauge to it.
What's another one they say, Richard, down south?
Laissez le bon temps rouler.
[Mike] Laissez le bon temps rouler, baby.
Let the good times roll.
[Richard] And they about to roll.
[Mike exclaiming] Yeah!
My God, they both lit.
Yee-haw!
Tell you what, I can't wait
to see them dribbly drip drips.
That's the drip.
We got a drip right there in that jar, baby.
Look at that top one. It's dripping like crazy.
They're all starting to move, ain't they?
[Jerry] This still, the way it was designed,
to be kind of a more of an air-cooled still.
[Mike] Get rid of these old heads.
We don't have no other thumpers to go through,
so we're not gonna strip any flavors out.
And I don't mind sitting here watching these drips.
I know every drip is a nickel or a penny or something.
With a mash like this,
our drip's almost dollars, man.
-He ain't never lying. -[Richard] Mm-hmm.
This is gonna be good flavor,
and we're gonna get a lot out of it.
Looks like we got full jars, guys.
[Jerry] About right time to start taking them down
-and dumping them. -[Mike] Yeah, you right, baby.
[Jerry] We go ahead and make our first dump, just to
kind of get the little bit of higher proof stuff off of it.
We go to make the second dump.
I wanted to try this. I was really excited
to see if these flavors came out.
I'm gonna taste this one.
Jerry, how'd we all do, son?
Well...
I'm gonna tell you...
-that [bleep] is good. -[Mike] Is it good?
[Richard laughing]
[Mike] The pecan is straight up and forward
in this alcohol.
That's Mardi Gras in a jar.
It's got a cream-based taste to it
without even being creamy.
All the way down to the sprinkles that
was on top of the king cake is coming through this jar.
Man, I'm so tickled with it.
I can't wait to get it out there on the market,
get it sold.
But can we sell that taste
to somebody here that's never had the experience?
I sure do hope so.
All right, guys. That's about our fifth bucket right there.
Get her capped off.
We'll be ready to go out and put it on the market.
[Tickle] All right.
[Henry] A lot of people here.
Being as we couldn't get rid of this liquor...
Perry said he's gonna have a lot of people here
that are looking to buy some moonshine.
[Henry] Wow.
[people cheering]
There's an actual wrestling match going on.
I mean, ring setup, everything.
-That's our man right there. -[Henry] That's our man right there.
Stands out a little bit, huh?
Perry and Henry go way back.
So instead of Perry buying this from us wholesale,
he's gonna let us sell
to the customers for top price,
and hopefully give me the money that I need
to open the doors back up
on mine and my wife's restaurant.
I got a place, a loading dock
where we can pull around back and unload it.
Yeah, I got it back there in the back right now.
All right. That's where you need to be anyway.
-All right. -All right.
[Tickle] To be honest,
I'm a little nervous to see how this is gonna turn out.
I'm skeptical coming up here
trying to sell this shine right here
at a public event like this,
especially right here where we're at.
They say hiding in plain sight is the way to go.
[Henry] Where we gonna unload the stuff at, right here?
[Perry] Right in here.
But needless to say, this could go down,
and it could go down in a bad way real fast.
[Henry] Let's roll with it.
This guy Jeff, he knows a lot of people,
and he don't mind potentially paying
a high price for good alcohol.
So I'm gonna meet him right now
and see if I can pitch this king cake recipe to him
and see if he want to take a bite on it.
I sure hope I can get him for this, $150 a gallon.
What's up, Jeff?
[Jeff] How you been, brother?
[Mike] Oh, man. Just hanging in there.
-[Jeff] Good to see you. Good to see you. -[Mike] You too, brother.
-You too, man. -[Jeff] So what do you got for me?
[Mike] You ever heard of a king cake?
[Jeff] Never heard of king cake.
[Mike] You ever heard of Mardi Gras?
[Jeff] Oh, yeah. I've seen that on TV.
[Mike] Yeah. And king cake goes hand in hand with Mardi Gras time.
We put those king cakes in a mason jar.
Take yourself and see what you think of it.
[Jeff] Very different, but it has a great taste.
[Mike] It's good, ain't it?
[Jeff] What's the price on this king cake?
[Mike] We've got to have $150 a gallon.
[Jeff] I tell you,
a hundred's about all I can spend on it.
Up this way,
a lot of people up here ain't even heard about Mardi Gras.
He loves it.
He said, "But, man, this is Maggie Valley.
I don't even know what a king cake is.
Nobody else is gonna know what a king cake is."
Is there one favor you can do for me?
[Jeff] Absolutely.
[Mike] Put the word out for me?
[Jeff] Absolutely.
[Mike] Maybe you find somebody
that might be interested in it, give me a shout.
[Jeff] I will. I'll call you.
-[Mike] I appreciate you. -[Jeff] Thank you.
[Mike] All right. Thank you, brother.
You know, I've been out all day long trying
to sell this daggum king cake alcohol.
For the high price that we need,
I've got to go back to the shop,
tell the guys that
old Mike has failed today.
He offered a hundred bucks.
He said, "Around here, this stuff won't fly. Nobody knows what it is."
We can't sell that for $100 a gallon.
I know this liquor is special.
Not everyone can get this.
We have the only king cake moonshine
probably in the world.
This is something that we cannot just give away.
He is gonna put the word out for us.
I guess my spirit's broken.
I don't know what else to do.
I trust Jeff. Jeff's a great guy.
I think we'll just give it a couple of days,
and let's see if maybe the word gets out.
I'm so ready to get rid of this stuff
and make us some money, man. You just don't know.
[Tickle] It's been a long drive up here.
I need to get top dollar for this brandy.
I don't have the money I need
to open my restaurant, and I've got to make it now.
I've been trying to sell this brandy twice,
and it hadn't worked out.
I've got to get the money from this sale.
Our plan is, being as
we don't know these buyers,
Perry is gonna let them know to go with Henry.
Come on over here, big dog.
[Tickle] Henry's gonna bring them to a back room
where Josh and I are located.
We've got some good brandy right here,
Buck-25 a gallon.
[Tickle] About six gallons?
-[man 1] Yeah. -All right. All right.
At buck-25 a gallon, that's, um,
that's about 750 bucks. Are you good for that?
-[man 1 speaking] -[Tickle] All right.
Perry, things are going great, man.
Going real good.
Just wait right in here, and I'll be right back.
I got what you're after right here.
Introduce you to somebody.
[wrestler grunts]
[Tickle] How's it going there, boss man?
All right. Look. How many gallons you want?
-What you can get in there? -[man 2 speaking]
That looks like four.
[Tickle] We'll see what we can do.
[Perry] Hey, buddy.
I got something for you.
-Hey, buddy. -[man 3] Yeah.
[Perry] I got something for you. Come on.
[Henry] You know, it's been a great day today,
but the best part of it all is
we made a lot of money,
and it's gonna really help my buddy Tickle out.
I'll tell you what. If that don't say
there's enough money right yonder,
I don't guess nothing does.
I've got the money that I need
to open the doors back on my restaurant.
I appreciate y'all doing this for me.
That's what family's for, brothers are for,
-buddies are for. Whatever. -100%.
And not to mention,
we got to see a little bit of good wrestling.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Yeah!
This was all I could do
not to jump in there and jump on the dude myself.
[bell ringing]
God!
Just smash the [bleep] out of somebody.
[grunts]
[man] That's it, man!
[line ringing]
[man over phone] Talk to me.
[Richard] I got three words for you.
King cake moonshine.
I got 30 gallons of that stuff, Paul.
[Paul] That's a lot.
I'm trying to get about
150 a gallon.
[Paul] Man, when you can get down here with that?
One phone call.
He said, "Bring it to me."
I'm about to shoot to New Orleans real quick,
and I'm making a move.
I'll let 'em know that when I get back.
[Mike] I tell you what, man.
We've got to get over there to the stash house,
get this alcohol loaded up,
get it over to Jeff and his buddy
to get it sold for that $110 a gallon.
I think that's the best we'll get.
[Jerry] No doubt, man.
We got good news.
Jeff actually gave me a call back.
He's got a guy that's very interested
in our king cake moonshine.
Me and Jerry's just gonna load this liquor up,
get it over there,
and make a sale with Jeff and his friend.
[Jerry] I'll tell you what, couldn't have come at a better time, man.
[Mike] Jerry.
[Jerry] Where the hell's the liquor at?
[Mike] We walk in the door,
all the stash is gone.
There's only one other damn person that's got the key
to this lock, and that's Richard Landry.
Maybe Richard did this
'cause we were so at each other's throats last year.
We want your asses out of here.
Well, we ain't trying to go nowhere.
[Mike] I guarantee you
every bit of their damn liquor is in that frigging building.
Let's tear this son of a gun down.
[Mike exclaims]
Adiós, Richard and Craig.
Well, the way I see it, one plus one,
it's equaling up to Richard.
We don't want to think this dude has stole from us,
but maybe he's out there just trying to get revenge.
It's adding up.
[Ramsey] Boy, it smells good, Puss.
-[Digger] I'm telling you. -[Ramsey] Oh, yeah.
Mountain Legacy Corn Whiskey.
You know, Digger and I, we're really excited today.
We're down here. We're checking
the mash for the all grain legacy whiskey.
I'm telling you one thing.
There's some damn alcohol in it, too.
It's got plenty of alcohol.
Hell, it's loaded up.
I love it. I love it.
If we get what we're looking for out of this legacy liquor,
this will secure me and Mark
a seat at the table with the greats of this craft.
Woo!
You know, it's going on,
God, over a year
that me and Mark built a mash,
just me and Mark.
And honest to Pete,
I'd rather never make another run of liquor again than have to
make a run of liquor without my best friend, Mark Wayne Ramsey.
Are we gonna charge that thump keg
with anything or just let it run?
[Ramsey] We can put a little of that mash in it if you want to.
-It can't hurt. -[Ramsey] No.
Let me get us a bucket full.
On these bottom-fired still pots,
we can't take the chance of scorching the grain.
So we just put some grain
and a little bit of the liquid mash
in the thump keg...
[Digger] That's what we're looking for.
[Ramsey] That's what we want.
...and just infuse it. So all the steam
that comes over from the pot
going in the thump keg, it'll pick up
the grain notes even more.
[Digger] Yeah, that'd be plenty right there.
And there's plenty of grain in there.
Yeah, we want to give this every chance in the world
to be the best corn whiskey that's ever been.
I just have to tell you,
my heart's beating in my chest.
I can't wait to run this liquor.
What in the name of sense are you doing now?
Well, I'm gonna put me and you a podcast together.
Do you even know how to do a podcast?
[Digger] Maybe.
These is all round. That's a rectangle.
There ain't no hole on there that
-that plugs into. -No.
Well, your education was worth every damn penny.
[Ramsey] It is, ain't it?
Break one nine, good buddy of mine,
you got a Smokey in a plain white wrapper. [mimics radio static]
[Digger] Hmm.
[Ramsey] There's some kind of cord.
[Digger] That's for a printer.
Well, you know, I really thought
that I had a notion what I was doing,
but then when I looked at all this...
How about if we just box this back up
and let's just tend to making liquor?
The restaurant's been shut down for a little while.
I got the sign painted over, honey.
It now just says, "The Tickles Restaurant."
But now that we got this money
from selling this apple carrot brandy,
we're opening back up and we've got
a whole entire new crew now.
-Is this y'all's first time here? -Yeah, yeah.
[Tickle] It is.
Well, I've got some guests, my tables aren't full.
I've got to find a way to get people
into this restaurant
so this restaurant can start making money.
Did you see the Burger Challenge on there?
To get people in the door,
you've got to have some sort of attraction.
Well, we have the Tickles Burger Challenge.
So I hear somebody here is gonna do the Burger Challenge.
It's the big guy?
That's kind of what I was thinking.
Let me size you up here.
Let's see what you got going on.
-Well... -[all laughing]
Okay, down.
The rules for this Burger Challenge are simple.
You've got one hour
to eat everything.
If you win this Burger Challenge,
you get to eat all this food for free.
And also, you get your picture
on my wall of champions.
But you have to swallow it all.
We have got the first person to accept
the Tickles Burger Challenge.
I'm going live because I've gotta do everything I can
to cause a buzz, to draw attention
to the Tickles Table Restaurant.
We got 180 people right now rooting you on.
There's a lot of people watching.
I'm also seeing shares go through the roof.
This is really creating a stir.
This right here is exactly what the Tickles Table needs.
He's done slowed down a little bit,
but I believe in him.
He's got this.
How many pounds is that meal?
All right.
-That was it. -[Tickle] That was it?
Unfortunately, Mason did not finish the challenge.
Everybody, let's give Mason a round of applause.
Fine job, Mason.
Mason, he got me a lot of publicity
on my reopening day.
This is not only just gonna be a restaurant,
this place is a destination now.
[Richard] So I don't know what's gonna happen right here.
And we're gonna let the chips fall where they may.
I mean, that's about all I can do with this situation.
All right. Let's see what they got.
[Mike] Oh, my God, look what's got
the damn nerve to walk up in this shop.
-[Richard] What's going on, gentlemen? -Richard Landry.
Yeah.
What's happening?
Where the hell you been?
I've been taking care of business, man.
Look, when I left here,
I could barely make it drizzle.
Now I can make it rain.
Where in the hell did you get that wad of cash from?
-What is that? -$4,300.
That's what $145 a gallon looks like.
So I got this deal done,
and I took this long ride down and long ride back.
I went to New Orleans, baby.
When I slapped that wad of cash on the table,
you should have seen Mike and Jerry's eyes.
I like seeing 'em like that.
And why in the hell
did you not discuss this with me and Jerry?
Man, y'all said, "Prove yourself."
[Mike] I was worried that you was getting us back
for what happened last year, man.
Oh, y'all know that ain't happening. [bleep]
I don't know what to say, man.
For the first time,
I'm glad that Richard Landry got in the stash house.
[all laughing]
[Mike] You know what I mean?
My hat's off to Richard Landry.
He's got us all feeling very good,
very confident, and positive
for our run-in for next season.
-Let's have a drink to celebrate, what do you say? -Heck yeah.
I ain't gonna say no to that.
If we could just get out of our own way for a few minutes,
we probably could work together.
But for next season,
I'm just gonna keep all my options open.
-[Mike] Yeah, baby. -Let's get out of here.
Oh. We got a little drip.
-Here we go. -[Digger] It's heating up.
It starts running off a little bit.
We've pitched just a little bit of heads.
There's the first of it coming.
Hot dog. Here we come.
Mountain Legacy Corn Whiskey.
[Ramsey] Yeah, boy.
You know, Puss, one of these days, years from now,
I hope there's some really, really good
up and coming young distillers out there.
And, you know, I hope we've influenced them
the way some of the old timers
-influenced me and you. -Yeah.
You know, one of the funniest fellas
we ever got to have any dealings with was Jim Tom.
I'm pretty good on this rye whiskey.
Oh, I know, you're the best.
We're fortunate enough back in the day,
we saved us up some Jim Tom rye,
and we have some popcorn Sutton corn liquor put up.
How about that?
[Ramsey] You know, occasionally, we'll twist the lid off
of one of the jars,
and just the smelling and the tasting of it,
it brings back a memory
of each of those fellas.
Careful. [bleep] Watch it.
Whoo!
Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, come on out.
I'm-a craving whiskey with my spout.
I'm gonna drink a drink and sit right down.
Imagine I'm in Texas with my gal.
[chuckles]
[Ramsey] We've got damn near two gallon of liquor.
I'm a saying this ought to be dead in the hearts.
Well, I'm gonna give you
the benefit of the first taste.
I tell you, I just ain't got no words for this.
I mean, there's corn,
and there's that bread note
that that barley brings in.
Then it finishes corn again.
But it's frigging sweet on the finish.
It's not pretentious.
It's not trying to be something that it's not.
It's just Appalachia in a jar.
The best you can get it.
This truly, truly is our legacy.
All I can think about is
calling every team we've got working right now.
Tell them to meet us, and we're fixing to grind up
all the white corn and the malted barley
we can get our hands on,
and they go to producing this.
Wouldn't it be sad
to limit it to just a select group?
If it's this good,
you want to share good stuff with good people.
Let's go call the guys.
[Digger] My hope and dream is that people that drink this,
I want them to want the next step of it,
because my plan is to ramp up production
and barrel up as much of it as we can.
And we're hoping that it'll be
some of the best bourbon that's ever been,
and be able to compete with these
$1,500, $2,000 jars of liquor.
Hattie boy,
I feel like I've run my first run of liquor all over again.
[Ramsey] Kind of like the first time you kissed a girl.
-[Digger] I believe it's a little better than that. -[both laugh]