Whoa, that's that damn cinnamon
kicking the lid off.
[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
Ooh.
[Digger] Dump all that cream down in there.
This better make the best sipping cream
that's ever been made,
'cause we got a ton of hot cinnamon liquor
that we absolutely cannot sell otherwise.
It's going to make some fine Kool-Aid right here.
We're going to make a lot of good watermelon alcohol
and make a bunch of money.
[indistinct]
[Mike] Every cop that's in Smith County,
they're looking for somebody to take to jail.
[Digger] I bet that's him.
Tell by that stance.
We visibly can see the thief.
We know it's him.
Get on down through here.
[Mark] We don't know it yet,
but this old guy has been caught red-handed
with our stolen whiskey.
Ain't no need looking, old soldier.
There ain't no liquor in that barn.
[man] This is how we make the moonshine!
[blues music playing]
[Mark] Now how do you wanna play this?
How you going to do this?
It's eating at me pretty hard not to just run out
and get the son of a bitch by the throat,
try to figure out where our liquor's at,
but that ain't rightly the way to handle this.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
after capturing security footage of a man
who siphoned $70,000 worth of aged liquor
from their barrel house...
-[Mark] That's him driving up. -A little Ford Ranger.
[Mark] Josh, would you be willing to reach out and see
if you can maybe line up with this guy to buy more?
I'll see what I can do.
[narrator] ...Mark and Digger get a lead
on the thief's whereabouts.
[Digger] Josh gave me an address of the barn
this old boy wanted to meet him at.
Let's find us a place to stake it out...
[Digger] Uh-huh.
[Mark] ...and then if this deal goes down,
we follow him.
Well, I'm right there with you for that.
Digger gets a call from Josh.
He's managed to set up a buy
with the guy selling the whiskey.
So we're going to get there before they do
to where we can pick us out a good spot
and watch this sale go down.
That there's the barn.
We'll back on up in this hole.
[Mark] Oh, yeah, if that's the barn,
we'll be able to see him good from on up here.
So if this guy that shows up to bring his liquor,
if he matches our description,
we're going to follow him
and see if he takes us to where this liquor's hid.
That's our liquor. We want it back.
We don't want some thief going around selling it
and making the money we're supposed to be making.
If this is the same guy in the truck
that shows up here,
at least we're on to something.
We got a better chance of getting our liquor back
-than we ever had. -Yeah.
[Mark] Well...
Josh is here.
I don't know.
I hope we're not grasping at straws here, Puss.
I'm real anxious.
This whole thing hinges on this sale taking place.
So we'll see.
You know, we're going to stay here
as long as it takes.
[tense music playing]
[blues music playing]
[Mike] Yeah, welcome to the Magnolia State, buddy.
Well, I tell you what, I can already feel the difference here.
[Mike] Damn, it's hot, ain't it?
Woo, it's a long little trip, too, man,
but I tell you what, it's all going to be worth it.
[narrator] After encroaching on the territory
of traditional shiner Mark Rogers
and paying a steep price
for breaking the centuries-old moonshiners code...
[gunshot]
He's done messed with the wrong damn one, man.
He just signed his own damn death warrant.
[narrator] ...Mike and his partner Jerry
head to Mississippi
to rethink their strategy for the new season.
[Jerry] Can't believe the way things have gone down already,
but at least this will give us a chance
to kind of get our heads straightened up,
-make a little money. -[Mike] Exactly.
What we got to do is we got to pull the old still out.
But I figured we'd just make
a good straight-up watermelon brandy.
I'm telling you right now, they're going to love it.
We're going to mash in
a bunch of watermelons from Smith County,
home of the Watermelon Festival
and the best watermelons in the world.
We can make a fortune
in a fast, hurried pace, baby.
Well, that's what we need to get our season on track.
And when we go back up there,
we're going to have a pocket full of money.
We fixing to show Mr. Mark Rogers
how the cow eats the cabbage,
-as my granddad used to say. -Yeah, yeah.
[Mike] I promise you,
they're going to get exactly what's coming to them
in due time.
Here we are.
We've got to get this stuff made and sold
and make a lot of money
before we get back up on to North Carolina.
-[all groaning] Let's do it. Let's stretch a minute. -[Jerry] Woo.
Good gosh.
Boy, you know, this air is just plumb sticky down here.
[Mike] It ain't but about 110 out here.
[Jerry blows raspberry]
Enter at your own risk.
That bad, huh?
I've got a big still put up in my shed.
And we can pump out a lot of alcohol.
She's 225 gallons on the foot.
There's Big Barb.
-Big Barbara? -Yep.
Where in the heck did you come up with that name?
I named her after a girlfriend I had.
-Oh. -Her name was Barbara,
and she was just about that tall and big around.
[Jerry snickers]
-Yes, sir. -I ain't even going to say nothing.
Well... [chuckling] ...I mean, it is what it is.
I guess big gals need loving, too.
Yes, sir, man.
Yee-haw.
I think it's pretty smart
that we go straight to getting back into business.
This can save our season,
get us back on top,
where we can get back to North Carolina
and do what we gotta do.
I'd say the only thing we got left to do is
go check out the still site.
Where's it at?
It's back here in the woods at the branch back here.
I've got a still site
where it all began with me
here in the state of Mississippi.
I've got the still.
Everything good?
Yeah.
[Mike] It's close to the water,
maybe 30 minutes to an hour's worth of work,
and everything's gonna be all right.
[clattering]
-Whoa! -Oh [bleep].
-You all right? -What the hell is that?
That's that root on that pine tree.
[Jerry] All right, let's go.
You know, this still site that I have,
it's been used before,
but not in many, many years.
It's completely growed up.
It's thick as hair on a dog's back back here.
But it's not like we're going to be here all season long.
[Jerry] Yeah, without this,
we couldn't make a whole lot of money.
We're going to make money, buddy,
fast and in a hurry down here.
Tell you, we're going to need that for sure.
You know, we've got our burner leveled up.
We got the pot set in place,
the condenser, everything's here.
We're ready to go.
Man, I tell you what?
She's set up level enough to run some liquor.
I'm telling you, baby.
Mississippi does have something good to offer,
-don't it? -Yeah-yeah, man.
-Besides the heat. -Besides the heat.
That being said, come tomorrow morning,
we're gonna load up on some good Smith watermelons
and we're in business, baby.
We're gonna do it before the heat gets here?
Before the heat gets here,
we're gonna get in here and mash 'em in
and make the best liquor
the state of Mississippi's ever seen.
You reckon they care if we pick them watermelons or not?
[Mike laughs]
I don't know about that, but we'll get them.
[blues music playing]
[Kelly] Ah, here we go.
Hopefully, we can get somewhere this time, Amanda.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
after their first run of Cinnamon Bun Moonshine
came out over-spiced,
Amanda and Kelly need to find a way to balance
the cinnamon flavor of their liquor
before alarming Mark and Digger
with another problem.
The bun portion, the buttery notes,
the pastry,
it's totally overwhelmed by the cinnamon.
It was not up to my standard.
I brought every culinary trick I could think of
to try to correct cinnamon in a recipe.
So we're gonna re-distill it right now.
I'm gonna try to bring
any little thing I can think of
to maybe correct the cinnamon or balance it back out
and pray that we can correct the flavor.
So we got brown sugar.
Sweetness is one of the options
that you can use to correct it.
And since the yeast fermented out
all of our sweetness,
what we're left with is that spicy cinnamon,
maybe some brown sugar will make it taste
more like a cinnamon bun.
I really went out on a whim here
by getting these pastries.
Kelly drove all the way to Savannah for me
to get these.
And Mark and Digger had to help us mash these in.
So we're gonna pull out all the stops
to salvage the spirit.
A little bit of vanilla.
Just mix everything up in there
and stick it in the thumper.
[Kelly] Ooh, that's strong vanilla.
Let's fire her off, Amanda.
Keep your hair back.
Let there be light.
Get this show on the road.
[Kelly] You know, this particular thumper
is a two-chamber thumper
that Mark and I built.
Whatever we've put in there, it goes through it twice.
So hopefully it picks up a lot of this flavor.
All right, you ready to cap this baby off?
[Amanda] Yepper.
[Kelly] We're good there?
I know that we have so much on the line here.
I mean, this is like, my last shot
at fixing this spirit.
[Kelly] Daggone, it's already hot up in here.
[Amanda] If this doesn't work, I'm at a loss,
and I really don't know what to do.
[sighs] It's going to be the longest wait ever.
[Kelly] I see some drips.
Spirit Gods, give me cinnamon bun.
Pastry. 'Cause it's a pastry alcohol.
If we can just reduce that cinnamon,
I think all the other flavors are
gonna come out
and really recreate that cinnamon bun.
I know that they're in there.
We just have to find them.
Ready to try this? [sighs]
[Kelly] Uh, maybe.
Oh, my God.
Hmm.
It's actually worse.
Yeah. We did not neutralize that cinnamon.
No, we brought the cinnamon on with it.
On steroids.
What the frick are we going to do with it?
If we can get half of this liquor back...
It'll be more than we have.
Exactly.
We're ahead of the game.
Oh, look, coming yonder.
That truck, that's that white truck, Digger.
That truck that was in our video on our camera?
[Digger] That's it, 100%.
After several minutes
of sitting there being patient,
sure enough, here comes a little white pickup truck
into the picture.
We know the general shape and size of this feller.
When he gets out of that truck,
we'll know if that's him.
[Digger] I believe that's him.
I can tell by that stance.
[Mark] Absolutely, that's him.
-He's a big feller... -Take him down.
[Mark] ...kind of humped over on the top end.
-[Digger] Yep. -Yep, that's him.
He's got something in his hand, Puss.
Is he handing Josh a jar of liquor?
[Digger] Yep.
And a jar of red liquor at that.
[Mark] Believe it or not,
this is where all the stars lined up.
We visibly can see the thief.
We know it's him.
He don't know it yet,
but this old guy has been caught red-handed
with our stolen whiskey.
He's going back to the truck.
[Digger] He's getting a damn box of liquor
out of there.
This guy's at arm length to us.
He's got a box of liquor that he sold to Josh.
Now we're going to follow him to wherever he's going.
[Mark] Looks like the deal's done, Puss.
[Digger] It does, in fact.
He's loaded it up.
Hey, we might have this [bleep].
[Digger] I'll let him get out on the road before I move.
Hopefully he'll lead us to our damn liquor.
[Digger] Let's get on down through here.
Try to catch up with this whiskey thief.
[Mark] Hopefully, he's taking us right to the stash house.
With any luck at all.
Right. There, he is--
He's turning now.
This is come or bleed time.
-Are we going in with him? -Yeah. Hell, yeah.
He don't have no idea
that the two fellers that he stole this liquor from
has just watched him sell some of the stolen liquor.
He feels like he's made a pocketful of money,
and he's going back to wherever he came from.
Yeah, let me let him get ahead a little bit.
[Mark] That's a dead end, Puss. Go up this other way.
Yeah, let's go right here behind this tree line.
Watch him on over the ridge.
I can still see him easing through yonder.
-Go ahead. -He's going to that barn.
Probably where he got the liquor stored.
[Mark] Hell yeah, that liquor's in there.
Let's see what he does here.
Hell, he's hemmed in.
He can't go nowhere.
Let's go up there and confront him.
[Mark] He's got to be confronted,
but I'd rather confront him
once we had possession of the liquor again.
Hell.
I say we let him get going,
clear this gap right down here,
and we skedaddle up there.
If our liquor's in there,
we steal our damn liquor back.
I'm all for it.
[Jerry] Mike, now that we've got the still site set up,
where are we going to get these melons out?
Well, welcome to Smith County, Mississippi,
which is the best county in the world for watermelons.
It's in the middle of the summer,
the watermelon festivals take place,
and when we offer people in Smith County
watermelon shine,
they're going to have to have it.
It's watermelon season.
We're going to mash in a bunch of watermelons,
make a lot of good watermelon alcohol,
get it sold around the watermelon festival,
and make a bunch of money.
It's going to sell like nobody's business today.
That's where we're going to make our money at, huh?
Exactly right.
We want to do at least
a couple of runs while we're here.
We're going to need approximately 150 to 200 watermelons
to make all this possible.
This is it, buddy.
We're making a lot of money fast.
We're coming back to North Carolina,
and we're coming back with a vengeance.
-Long time, brother. -[Shannon] Good morning.
Long time no see, Mike.
-[Mike] How you been? -[Shannon chuckles]
[Mike] A buddy of mine, Mr. Shannon Powell,
one of the best growers in Smith County.
That's some good-looking melons there, Shannon.
-[Shannon] That's a Starbrite. -[Mike] Yes, sir.
And we're friends. We know each other.
You know, we grew up together.
That's the perfect size melon to throw in an ice chest,
-carry on the river way. -Oh, yeah.
Chunk over in a mash barrel somewhere, perhaps.
-You know what I mean? -Open it up, Mike.
Let's bust one open there, Jerry. Try it out.
Looky there.
[Jerry] Holy cow.
[Mike] Get you a piece of that.
Good breakfast, isn't it?
Sweeter than sugar, baby.
[Jerry] Oh, wow. That is delicious.
This is worth coming home for right here, brother.
I guarantee you. Mm-hmm.
So we're looking, Shannon, to get probably 150 to 200.
Well, you're at the right place.
Oh, I know I'm at the right place.
It's just, it's according to
on what I can get 'em for, boom.
[Jerry] What would it cost us a melon?
[Shannon] $4 apiece.
[Mike] Remember now, we're Smith County boys.
We're pals. We're friends.
$4 a melon.
I didn't know times had changed that much. Woo!
[Shannon] Tell you what I'll do.
I've got a patch down here
that is leftover
-from when I had a wind and rain damage... -[Mike] Mm-hmm.
[Shannon] ...in another crop.
How about we do $2?
If they all taste that good,
those will definitely make some good shine.
$2? We can make money on that, I believe.
Deal.
Sounds like a winner,
-and I get to come home and work a little bit. -Good to meet you, Jerry.
So the best deal
that Mr. Shannon Powell can give me is $2 a melon
for 200 melons.
That's 400 bucks.
What's 400 bucks compared to thousands
we gonna put in our pocket?
[Shannon] Jerry, you helping us?
[Jerry] Yeah, I guess so.
Where you want me at?
-[Shannon] You ever pulled watermelon? -I haven't.
It's a blessed day.
[all laughing]
[Mike] Let's get to it.
[Mike] When it comes to picking these watermelons,
you pretty much create an assembly line.
Whoa.
He like to throw me out of that truck.
We just keep that truck and trailer going
and keep the watermelons coming
and stacking continuously until it's done.
It literally takes maybe a half hour
to load 200 watermelons.
Here, Mike. Coming at you.
[Jerry chuckles]
There's a baby watermelon before it turns into this one.
That's pretty cool right there.
Bring them to me. Bring them to me.
Haven't done this in probably 30 years.
[Jerry] Oh.
[Mike] It's what I grew up doing,
chunking these melons like this
back in high school.
It'll make a man out of you, that's for sure!
[Jerry] 200 coming at you, bud.
200, baby.
I'm feeling alive.
Me and Jerry, we got what we wanted
and what we asked for.
We got 200 melons for $2 apiece.
-Mr. Shannon. -[Shannon] Yes. Yes, sir.
I appreciate you, brother.
We are loaded up.
We ready to go.
We on our way to the still site.
We're going to turn them into something good, baby.
Woo-hoo!
[Mark] Yep, there he goes.
[Digger] Yep.
[Mark] Now just sit steady in the boat
till he gets going.
We just creep back down the road.
Well, looks like the coast is clear.
I don't see no movement.
[Mark] I have to tell you, Puss,
I'm a little bit antsy here.
I'm a little bit uneasy.
Get us in there and head it out.
Yeah, I want to be headed out in the right direction.
[Mark] In case we got to leave early
or in a hurry.
[Digger] All right, let's go with it.
It may take us a minute or two to find it.
Pull out on that board.
That's good. That's good.
Oh, hell, yeah.
There's a horsey in here.
[Digger] Yeah, and a saddle.
[Mark] That's some kind of jacuzzi tub or something.
[Digger] We got another tarp over here.
Ah, lookie here.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
[Mark] Hell, yeah.
Damn, I can't believe he still got that much of it.
[Digger] Well, I'm glad he does.
Yeah, there ain't no doubt, we get in here,
we open the lid on a couple of them buckets,
that's our liquor.
That's the liquor.
Well, let's load this [bleep] up and get out of here.
I don't want to get caught stealing our own [bleep] back.
[Mark] At this point, we're trespassing.
[Digger] With some illegal product.
Well, if we get caught
by the po-po at this point,
it ain't ours.
There's somewhere in the neighborhood
of 20 buckets here.
The most important thing right now
is getting our liquor
and getting out of here with it
and taking back what's rightfully ours.
It's giddy-up time.
[Digger] There we go.
Let's get on down the road.
You know, if I wasn't pissed off at this feller
who stole our liquor,
I damn sure am now.
After loading up these 20 buckets
in near 100 degrees,
that didn't do much for my temperament.
So I'm eager to have a little conversation
with this guy.
We've got 100 gallons or better of it back.
Yeah, but that's still 75 that's amiss.
[Mark] I know,
but I never thought we'd ever see any of it again, Puss.
Well, we still got to figure out
what we're going to do about this feller.
I mean, it's absolutely got to be addressed.
I just don't know how.
We got to take inventory here
and see basically how much we got.
[Digger] Well, at least old feller had enough sense
to use clean buckets.
We got the load of liquor in the back of Digger's truck
that we just got back from the thief
that took it from us.
We've got to try to determine
if any of it that is left is
our five-year-old Tennessee whiskey.
[Digger] That's it for the buckets.
What have got?
We've got 20 buckets.
You know, we got back roughly 100 gallons.
It's not all that we had stolen.
We're not made whole yet.
These two could maybe be fives.
[Digger] This and I don't know if it's that blue bucket--
[Mark] Maybe that blue bucket.
[Digger] Looks dark enough.
[Mark] Before this liquor was taken from us,
we had sold our one and only five-year-old barrel
of Tennessee whiskey to Sonny D
for $400 a gallon.
So that barrel ultimately
is the one we would like to have back most.
I think...
[Digger] This one and those three...
...are definitely five-year-olds.
Well, dip us one out there and let's make sure.
Yeah, that's a five-year-old.
Ain't no doubt in my scientific mind.
[Mark] We dip a jar of it out, taste it, look at it.
It's absolutely the five-year-old Tennessee whiskey.
That's it.
Abso-tively.
Posi-tutely.
[Mark] So that's 20 gallons
of the five-year-old that we have.
That's not great.
But, you know, an hour ago, we didn't have any of it.
So 20 gallons is really good.
You know, the 20 gallons remaining here
ought to make me happy,
and it does to a certain extent,
but it still reminds me we got 30 gallon that ain't here.
That's right.
That's $12,000, basically.
Yeah.
Well, the fact that we already had a guy
obligated to buying it for $400 a gallon,
that shows you what it's worth
a true connoisseur
and an appreciative mind of liquor.
Now, that being the case,
we've got to have a little reimbursement here.
We've got to have retribution.
We don't have any choice but to go see this old guy.
We got to get our money back for that missing liquor.
It's just too much money.
I'll call Josh and have him set up another buy,
and we'll just be waiting there
when he goes to load him up some liquor.
-All right. -It's on a dead-end road.
We'll block his ass in.
He won't be able to get out.
We just hope that he don't know it's gone yet.
And when he goes back to get more,
we'll get his ass.
Let's cover it back up and set 'em aside.
So we're going to set up a buy
and try to get our liquor thief caught.
But first, we're going to go to Kelly and Amanda,
see about this baked goods that we made into liquor.
We're going to see what their issue is
and piss on any fires that they might have started.
[Jerry] Looks like we got everything set up.
We got melons fixing to mash in.
Do we have a buyer?
Yeah, I've got one lined up.
We're gonna try to get this stuff sold
down there at the Watermelon Festival.
We ain't got but about six or seven days. We've got to be down there.
-[Jerry] That's gonna put us on a tight crunch. -Yeah, it is.
Yeah, you know, we've got less than a week.
The Watermelon Festival will be here.
We've got these 200 melons.
We don't have any room for error.
We need to get them mashed in as quick as possible,
get them worked off, get it delivered to Brian.
He's a bootlegger.
Let him slip it into the Watermelon Festival
and get it, you know, spread around.
Boy, ain't it nice though, Jerry?
You've got to admit it.
Just set that barrel down, and it's ready to go.
Ain't no scratching. It ain't no blocking. It ain't no rocking.
[laughing] Yeah, baby.
When people come down to the Watermelon Festival,
they're looking for good sweet watermelons.
And if they know there's some good watermelon shine to be had,
they're in there for that too.
So you want to just cut the ends of them off?
In my mind, this is gonna work perfectly.
Well, it should.
We'll see what happens here.
Then we're just gonna set them up end on end.
Set them up on and see it.
[laughs]
I can't wait to see this happen.
When you mash in watermelons,
you want to turn this into a puree.
You wanna get everything you can possibly get.
You wanna leave the rind white when you're through with it.
Oh, damn. I like to broke my damn hand off.
-Oh, damn. -[laughs]
Tore it half in two.
You would think using a machete to chop
these ends off would be the dangerous part.
But this doggone paint stirrer,
it'll twist your wrist off if you don't watch it.
Hit them sidewalls with me. There you go.
Would you just look at it?
Want not, waste not.
You can see plumb through it.
You think that's something-- Look what we got out of one watermelon.
[Jerry] Good Lord mercy.
Like we on to something here.
[Mike] We are on to something in a hurry.
Lemme go get another melon.
I tell you what, this idea is really working good.
I mean, we're chopping off the ends,
running this paint paddle through it,
and it's taking every bit of the red meat
out of the inside of this watermelon
and leaving the rind intact.
-Oh. -[snorts]
Damn, you gonna get it on you, ain't you?
[Jerry] This turned out to be like a food processor on steroids.
I think this is the best, fastest way that we got available.
Hell, I can't hardly reach that doggone high.
Want me to do it?
You ain't much taller.
You know, these watermelons got a lot of juice in them.
This stuff is rolling out like a waterfall.
Oh, that is awesome.
That's working so good.
We've got eight barrels sitting here,
all 25 watermelons going in each barrel.
Then we'll fill each barrel up halfway with pure watermelon juice
and then top the rest of the way off with water.
This is gonna make some fine Kool-Aid right here.
We're gonna take one, five-gallon bucket per barrel of white sugar
and put in here with these watermelons to bring the ABV up.
Now we gotta get a little water on.
A little water.
-[Jerry] And then, the magic dust. -And then, the magic dust.
And, baby, we will be ready to rock and roll.
I'm gonna tell you what.
It's hotter than a nanny goat in a pepper patch
picking six rows at a time down here in Mississippi.
All the way up to the fall time,
it can be 100 degrees or better.
So I'm hoping the heat down here can be our friend
and help this watermelon mash work off really, really fast.
All righty. That's it, buddy.
Heck, yeah.
Let's let her work off and get back to here and run it off.
-What do you think? -[Jerry] Let's get the heck out of here, man.
Whoo! [singing] Good melon shine, baby.
[Kelly] Well, I hear them coming.
[sighs]
Hopefully they have something that will fix our problem.
[grunts]
What's going on over here?
[Digger] Well, Mark and I have got Josh on his way
to try to set up a buy with the liquor thief.
We're gonna check on Kelly and Amanda
and see what kind of problem they've got with the run they're running.
You's been making a little liquor, have you?
Well, we've had a sip or two of it.
You'll know-- You'll know it's the cinnamon bun when you get you a sip of it.
Whoa, there's that damn cinnamon kicking the lid off is what it was.
Hello.
So sure enough, they hand us a jar.
Whoa!
There's cinnamon in there, but the roll got left at the doorway.
[exclaims]
So that's not what we're looking for.
This is unacceptable.
You know, I do like cinnamon, but that's a lot.
What have you done here?
Is this the strip and run?
[Amanda] We stripped it, and I knew right off the bat
-that there was too much cinnamon. -Uh-huh.
So then we re-distilled it, we did a spirit run.
[Kelly] We added some sugar to the pump keg on it
to try to get it to boil through.
That's where all that sweet's coming in.
This is a really, really good base.
I mean, sipping creams are really, really hot right now.
My mind never even went to sipping cream.
Cream would be like icing on a cinnamon bun.
It would just make it taste more like a cinnamon bun
instead of, like, tempering down all the flavor.
I feel like this is definitely our best bet
to salvage the cinnamon roll run,
because we're cutting down that cinnamon
and we're adding flavors that actually taste like pastry in a cinnamon bun.
You guys got stuff to do all that with?
We've got to stop and get some ingredients.
Grab ahold to one there, Hattie boy, and here we'll go.
We've got a lot of time and money invested in this baked goods run.
We can't let this run be unsalvageable.
It's got to be put together where we can make some money off of it.
-[Mark] Let's meet in town, guys. -[Amanda] All right.
-I think that's everything that you asked for, right? -You got everything?
If it ain't, that's all it's gonna get.
[Mark] This is the moment of truth here.
There's been a lot went into this project.
It's just plain cream, non-flavored,
-no nothing, right? -[Amanda] Yes.
All I know is this better make the best sipping cream liquor that's ever been made
'cause we got a ton of hot cinnamon liquor
that we absolutely cannot sell otherwise.
This just has to work for us.
I'm hoping that once we do this,
we can kind of bring out some of that pastry flavor
and the butter back into it.
And maybe once we cut that cinnamon down a little bit,
the other flavors come out.
-[Digger] Oh, yeah, we just got to uncover it... -[Amanda] Yeah.
...and accentuate.
[Amanda] Ultimately, I'd feel super bad if this doesn't work.
We spent a lot of time picking up these pastries,
mashing them all in,
and if I can't bring that through in the final spirit,
I'll feel like a failure.
[Digger] That smells good.
[Mark] Slowly but surely.
[Amanda] In order for us to just get our flavors and ratios dialed in
and make it perfect, we're gonna make a small batch
and just record everything we add to it,
and then we can replicate this made to order.
[Mark] I want to taste it.
I'm pretty excited to see what it tastes like.
[suspenseful music playing]
Oh, that's way better.
-[Digger] That's really good. -That really helps the cinnamon out a lot.
We're still missing something in the roll part, in the bun part.
Right now, we don't really have any sweetness to this.
I think maybe some of that simple syrup
and the vanilla can recreate what an icing tastes like and pastry, too.
So at this point, we've mixed our cream and alcohol together.
It's a perfect blend, and it's really tasting good.
Let's do three ounces.
-[Digger] Three ounces? -[Mark] Three ounces, and two gallons.
-[Amanda] And two gallons. -[Mark] Okay.
All that's left to do is tweak it.
[Digger] What about a touch more vanilla?
With a little bit of flavor adjustments,
I think we're going to be right where we want it to be.
Oh, God, yeah.
That is cinnamon roll sipping cream right there.
-Oh, my God. -[Digger] That's smooth as a baby's butt.
I'm telling you, if that was any better,
I'd want to lay down and drink it.
Tastes exactly like my sister's cinnamon rolls.
[Digger] We've salvaged this run.
To say I'm excited, that's an understatement.
I'll tell you something, guys.
In addition to cinnamon bun sipping cream, you know what this is?
-[Amanda] What? -$100 bills.
That right there is money, honey.
You know, a lot of the best things in the world come about by mistake.
I think the cinnamon roll sipping cream definitely has a future.
-[Amanda] Good job, guys. -[Mark] Uh-huh.
[Amanda] That was teamwork right there.
[Mike] I'd say that mash is probably ready to rock and roll.
[Jerry] I sure hope so. That stuff smells good.
You know, a few days ago, me and Mike mashed in eight barrels of watermelon.
First thing I smelled when I walked in the still site,
like somebody had just sliced it up a fresh watermelon.
Oh, my God. Look at that cap, man.
-[Mike] Yeah, son. -[Jerry hoots]
I'll tell you what, man. I'm excited.
Let's get to digging and pumping this stuff.
-It's ready to rock and roll. -Getting that still.
Yes, sir. All right.
-You ready? -[Jerry] Send her to me.
[Mike] Here we go, baby.
First run of moonshine in Mississippi in a long, long time.
Yee-haw, baby.
Look at that liquid fly.
[Mike] All the liquor coming out the worm,
it's as good as this mash is and these watermelons,
we're off to the races.
First thing in the morning, get it out to our bootlegger.
He can turn this watermelon moonshine over at Watermelon Festival,
get it unloaded, and make us some money.
All right. I'm about empty over here, brother.
I'm nowhere near full. I need another barrel.
All right. Number four coming at you.
Bring it on.
Somebody's going to be doing the watermelon crawl for sure now.
You got that right.
Well, I'll tell you what, bud.
There's some law men around these parts
that'd love to see me go up
-for what we're doing right now. -[Jerry] Oh, really?
[Mike] I'll be thinking about them
-as it's coming out that worm. -[laughs]
Catch me if you can, buddy.
I'm getting down here to the bottom, too.
All right. Go ahead and kill it.
-There we go. -[Jerry grunts]
A night to remember right here, baby.
-[flame whooshes] -Yes, sir.
The smell of singed hair on the forearms.
-Ready to put that cap on? -[Mike] Yes, sir.
If you'll line us up here on the condenser, I'll get this started.
There we go.
It's been a long time since I've made up a whole batch of paste.
And just doing something traditional like this in an old pot still,
making a simple mash, is going to make high premium liquor.
All we can really do is hurry up and wait a little while.
That's for sure. [grunts]
I tell you what, it sure does feel good
to be back home for a little while, man.
I haven't been here in 15 years to run a run.
All we got to do is put this liquid gold in some buckets.
Get it to our buyer.
My bootlegger is a buddy of mine.
If we can get it to him in the morning,
he's going to sell it at the Watermelon Festival down in Mize
where he knows he can get rid of it fast for a high premium price.
We can make a pocket full of money,
head ourselves back up to North Carolina and do what we got to do.
Hey, look yonder. We got liquor, baby.
Yes, sir.
[Jerry] That's what I'm talking about.
[Mike] The first sweet drip.
This alcohol is coming out the worm, hitting that bucket.
You can smell it in the air around here.
Nothing but sweet watermelon shine
coming from the best watermelons on the vine for sure.
I'm excited, man.
It's been a long time a-coming already.
Look how good and clean that is.
Oh, my God.
Sweet taste of home, baby.
[exclaims] Yes.
And it's got a bite to it, my buddy.
It ain't nothing but Smith County watermelons.
I can just smell the good aroma of watermelon.
It's got so much flavor to it for a watermelon brandy.
Just like you was just buried nose deep
in a big old slice of watermelon.
-Is that not delicious? -Man, I'm going to tell you what.
-Did you eat your Wheaties this morning? -I did.
Good. You're going to carry me out of here.
Oh, my God, no. Let's don't do that now. I ain't that tough.
This 200-gallon pot, we should yield at least about 40 gallons per run,
being a total of 80 gallons off of two runs.
About 105 to 110 proof.
Man, we should make thousands of dollars off these two runs.
It's going to be a long night, but it's going to be a good pay.
A dang good pay day, buddy.
[liquor trickling]
Well, I had Josh call him
and set him up another buy of a couple of boxes of liquor.
You know, the thing about it is,
he's going to be surprised this time
because the liquor's been gone.
Exactly.
Today's the day Josh has arranged another buy.
It's time to get this brought to a head.
We're going to settle it one way or the other today.
When we'll roll up on him,
he's got a little bit of explaining to do.
You know, we got 100 gallons back,
but there's still 75 gallons worth of compensation
-missing in there in this equation. -Right.
Yeah. Oh!
What I see coming over that hill.
Uh-huh. Just like clockwork.
Let's go get it.
We know it's a dead-end road, so we're going to follow him back to the barn,
and it looks like it's about to be on like Donkey Kong
because we're going to block him in and have our confrontation.
Dessert before you make us a piece?
Oh, man, yeah. We're going to eat us a piece.
Man, that's sweeter than sugar.
[Jerry] Look here, Mike, I found your cousin.
Huh?
-What have you dumb done? -[laughing]
[Mike laughing]
Boy, you coming up with something all the time, ain't you?
I told you it'd make a good Jack-o-lantern.
[Mike] I love him.
And his head will spin.
Oh, yeah. We got us a disco ball, baby.
[laughing]
[Mike] Oh, that's funny. I don't care who you are.
[Mark] Ain't no need to looking, old soldier.
There ain't no liquor in that barn.
[Digger] That's our liquor. We come and got it back.
We just got a few questions we'd like to ask.
What's your name, sir?
Larry, you know, us three here, we've got a problem.
We got to deal with it.
[Larry]
[Mark] Why did you take it?
[Larry]
[Digger] I faced a little of that myself.
[Mark] Do you have any of the money left
that you got from the liquor you sold?
[Larry]
Well, that's what you got left of it.
Only $1,500 or so there.
[Larry]
[Digger] We kind of need a little something
-to ensure that we're going to get our money. -[Larry]
How many acres sitting right here
that you've got your barn on here?
It looks like what you've got cleared off,
8, 10, 15 acres here, ain't it?
[Mark] Larry, you sign us a deed of trust for this barn and property for $20,000,
and when you pay that $20,000 back,
we'll give you the barn and your property back.
We're going to put Larry on a payment plan.
We're going to take the 15 acres and this barn that he has here,
and he's going to sign it over in a deed of trust to us.
-I hate that you felt you had to stoop to this. -[Larry]
Some folks might say that we're being a little soft here,
letting this man off like this,
but we ain't solving a thing if we make it harder on him.
It's hard on him enough as it is.
He's got a sick wife.
In my world, that's being more human than it is being cold.
[Mark] We'll be back with a deed of trust for you to sign.
-[Larry] -[Mark] This way you can hang on to your property.
We get our money back.
[Larry]
We've all learned a lesson.
I think that Larry is very remorseful.
He wishes he'd never done it.
He can't take it back, but, you know, he can make it right.
I think the old man's shooting straight with us.
I think he legitimately felt that he didn't have an out, Digger.
-[Digger] He didn't. -[Mark] I'm glad it's behind us.
Well, Jerry, we've got it done, brother.
We get this stuff over here to Brian and get him took care of,
and we'll all be happy.
Right where the Watermelon Festival is, it's dry as a powder puff.
No beer, certainly no liquor or moonshine.
[Jerry] There's blue lights up there.
[Mike] Every cop that's in Smith County,
they're looking for somebody to take to jail.
And the hometown people, they know me
and they know what the hell I do.
That's something we don't freaking need right now, man.
You know, me and Jerry, we got 80 gallons of moonshine in one lick.
We've got to get this deal done regardless.
You come over here to have a good time
and mix and mingle with your family, not do a sale like this.
Got to go.
-Ronnie. -What's up, Mike?
My buddy Brian here, the bootlegger,
he can take every bit of this watermelon shine off our hands.
We can sell it all at one lump sum unscathed, and we're gone.
That's Smith County Watermelon's finest right there.
[Brian] Pretty good stuff. Pretty good stuff.
So what you asking? What you got to have?
$115 a gallon, Brian.
$115. In five-gallon buckets.
I got to jar up. Individual jars.
[Jerry] That's the name of this business, man.
I don't know, man. I don't know.
[Mike] Well, what do you think?
I'd do $85.
[scoffs]
-[Jerry] $85 a gallon? -[Brian] Yeah.
[Mike] Yeah, $85 a gallon.
There ain't no way that's happening, that's for sure,
because I'll go right in yonder and sell it myself.
[Brian] All right. Go ahead. I'll walk in there with you.
I want to see you get rid of it that fast. Come on.
[Mike] I don't want to be here in this public
no more than anybody else does
-negotiating on this kind of deal. -[Brian] I understand.
$100 a gallon and we call it.
So you're at $100?
I may squeeze a little buzz, man,
but I'm going to tell you, I've got to get rid of this.
Meet me there about $95 and we'll...
Open your damn tailgate. Let's get it unloaded.
-Give me some cash. -[Brian] Yes, sir.
Brian finally settled with me on $95 a gallon.
That's 7,600 bucks that me and Jerry's made here today.
This can save our season, get us back on top.
You know, after Mark and Huck destroyed our still site
and blowed it to smithereens,
I said, "Hey, let's slip down to Mississippi
and make a fortune real quick."
We're coming back to North Carolina,
and we're coming back with a vengeance.
-[Jerry] We done it. -[Mike] Yes, sir.
Watermelon shine, baby.
Steve, how many cases did you order?
35, like you said.
I said 325.
This is a lot of money.
I know I done mess something up big.
I got to make it right to the restaurant,
and I've got to make it right to my wife.
-[Henry chuckling] -[Tickle] They squishing up good.
Give them a taste, Henry.
[both laughing]
[coughs] That's a good pepper.
[straining] Yeah, good pepper. [laughs]
Mark and I have never made any hot pepper moonshine.
[Mark] These things are insane.
Pepper liquor condensin' it.
Damn. [coughing]
-[coughs] -Hellfire.
We're pepper sprayin' ourself with our own jalapenos.