[Digger] As the weather warms up,
it looks like America is on financially shaky ground
Everybody in Appalachia is feeling
the sting of runaway prices
Now's the time that moonshiners like us
draw back on our shared heritage
for those lessons on how to survive
and still provide our customers
with a good drink.
It's the rise of the shine economy.
[narrator] On this season of Moonshiners...
Woah, yes, it's liquor.
[Mark] I got us some of tha damn expensive corn here.
Raw materials and ingredients, they're going up astronomically.
[Henry] God dang.
Lumber? It's basically the same price as gold right now.
This is uncharted territory right here, Tim.
It's a one of a kind.
[Tim] Nobody even knew it was a still.
I take glass marbles and I put them in the bottom of the pot.
[Mark Rogers] I ain't playe with marbles since I was in school,
and I wasn't in school much.
Where in the hell did this casket with Popcorn in it come from?
That's creepy.
You any kin to old Popcorn?
-That's my dad. -Your daddy?
-Yeah. -Hellfire!
You know, with Solomon being onboard with us
and that being his dad can
potentially set us up to sell a lot of liquor.
[grunting]
I love this big, old still.
It's almost too [bleep] big and massive.
I've been seeing a strange guy walking back up toward the spring.
Well, he acted like he was looking for something specific.
[Daniel] This right here is going to change the ball game, I'm betting.
They're gonna think we selling Kool-Aid, man.
[Henry] I got a call from that fire marshal.
[fire marshal] Josh Owens, does that name ring a bell to you, sir?
[Josh] Oh, no!
They've blown our still up.
Oh, what the hell.
[Henry] We're blocked in. We can't get by.
Who's got us blocked in?
[Daniel] Well, there's only four buckets sitting here.
Richard, this still site's burnt,
and we need to get the hell out of here.
Oh, it's always good to have you around.
-You and your-- -[gunshot]
Oh, [bleep].
Hey, if somethin' don't happen, you ain't working.
[man] This is how we make the moonshine!
[narrator] Two months after a boom moonshine season,
an early spring thaw brings
an unexpected problem to the hills of Appalachia.
Hattie Boy!
[Mark] What you doin', Puss?
Waitin' on you.
[Mark] I got us some of that damn expensive corn here.
[Digger] What did they hit you for?
$25 a bag.
[Digger] The hell, you say.
We paid $10 last year.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
veteran shiners Mark and Digger stock up
for a new season,
but sky-high prices threaten their bottom line.
[Digger] We're gonna have to do something
to alleviate this problem.
I mean, we can't sell liquor for a reasonable fee
if we're paying $25 a bag for corn.
You know, sadly, inflation is at the highest percentage rate
that I can remember.
Raw materials and ingredients that we have to have,
you know, they're going up astronomically.
Price of fuel's up, price of sugar's up.
Copper is knocking on the door of $300 a sheet.
Yeah.
And when copper goes up, so does copper thieving.
All our old still sites, Puss, we've left parts and stills
-and stuff there for-- -Exactly.
You know, even the smallest of these pots, Digger,
is worth hundreds of dollars.
We're going to have to go gather up
what we've got scattered out all over.
-Well, let's go get with it. -All right.
We're wasting time, we'll end up behind the eight ball.
Possession of an unregistered functioning still is a felony,
[car engine starts]
so it was always safer on u
to put a little brush on 'em, throw a tarp over 'em,
and walk off and leave 'em.
I mean, the more time you've got a still in the back of a vehicle,
the more apt you are to get caught.
[Mark] We've got customers
-that can afford to pay more money. -[Digger] Yeah.
[Mark] But the majority of our customers can't.
They're blue-collar working folk.
If we can keep our prices the same without having to go up,
man, that would be a plus.
[Henry] Man, I'm nervous.
I got a call from that fire marshal.
He wants me to come down to the house
where we had that fire here.
Gotta ride down and talk to him,
and see what's going on.
[narrator] In Franklin Count Virginia,
just weeks after a fire broke out at his rental hous
Henry gets a call from the local fire marshal
to meet him at the property
[Henry] We had a fire at the house a while back,
you know, where Josh is living.
[Josh] Henry, the house is on fire!
The house is on fire!
What do I do?
[Henry on phone]
[car engine starts]
[Josh] I'm gonna [bleep] keep my ass from going to jail.
[siren blaring]
[Henry] He took off and, you know, I thought
everything was done.
I thought everything was ove
We done tore the stuff down and hauled it off.
There's nothing there.
All of a sudden, I get a call from a fire marshal.
Oh, no.
Oh, he's here.
Got the camera out, taking pictures.
What the heck is going on here?
[car door opens]
[Henry] I don't know this guy either.
Never saw him before.
Good to see you. What brings you out down this way?
[fire marshal] Oh, you know,
I heard there was a little bit of an incident here.
[Henry] Oh, yeah?
-[fire marshal] Good to see you. -Good to see you.
[fire marshal] Yes, sir.
[Henry] Are you with the, uh,
-fire marshal? -[fire marshal] I'm with the fire marshal's office,
you know, so I figured I'd just come out,
and try to inspect,
and try to figure out what went on here.
-You can tell right here where it got pretty hot. -[Henry] Yeah.
[fire marshal] You got any pictures of the old building
before y'all turned it down?
No. No, no. No way.
-I don't think so. -[fire marshal] Okay. You reckon the County GIS,
I bet you they got something on the house.
I'll see if I can't pull some of that data.
Oh, Josh Owens, does that name ring a bell to you, sir?
[Henry] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know Josh.
[fire marshal] All right. You know where he may be?
-Where we could get ahold of him? -[Henry] No.
He just travels all the time.
It's hard, really, to catch up with him.
[fire marshal] Yeah. All right.
I think... I think my office may be back out here,
but we'll see what's going on,
and I'll try to see if I can't get ahold of Mr. Owens and...
[Henry] You might just holler back at me,
-and I'll be glad to meet you out here. -[fire marshal] Yeah.
-I appreciate you. -[Henry] All right.
[fire marshal] You have a great day, sir.
-[Henry] You too, man. Appreciate you. -[fire marshal] Yep.
I'm gonna give Josh a call, tell him he better lay low.
He can't come back to this house. I know that.
The fire marshal told me he may come back.
He may show up any time.
We can't take a chance of moving Josh back in there.
You know, the site's over with.
We've gotta find another spo
and we got to keep Josh on a low, low-key.
[Mike] Whoo! God almighty. Damn!
It smells like minnow juice.
You ain't took that thing fishing, have you?
[Mike grunting] No!
[Jerry] Well, you said you were gonna want to get these things cleaned
before we actually put them away.
[Mike] I know.
Well, I'll tell you what. All jokes aside, man,
I'm, I'm pretty tickled at our still site.
It's more secluded than we've ever been.
I don't even think a hunter is gonna be able to find us.
Last season, we had some folks come in on us,
and we're trying to eliminate that for this season.
There's going to be a lot of work
getting that place set up. You know what I mean?
Well, you know what they say?
"Where there's a will, there's a way." Right?
Where there's a will, there's a way, brother.
We've got a new site.
It's way back in the woods.
It's in the middle of a laurel thicket.
It's going to take a lot of work to clear it out,
but I'm feeling really good about it,
and I can't wait to get it started.
Well, that one's starting to smell a little better.
Jerry, who's that right there?
[Jerry] I have no idea.
Mike Cockrell.
[Mike] Richard Landry.
[Richard] What's going on, Mike? How are you doing, brother?
Me and Richard, you know, we go pretty far back now.
We competed against each oth on Master Distillers,
and we're both from the Deep South.
We're good friends.
What in the hell are you doing up this way?
Man, I'm just riding.
I love this beautiful scenery. Look where y'all at.
We're in a beautiful place, right?
Look at that. I don't never get to see nothing like that, Mike.
So you're just out on a damn joyride?
That's all I'm doing, man.
I like going out on road trips and stuff,
but I ain't never been found my way to Louisiana.
Well, I mean, Mike told me he took a road trip
from Mississippi, and he wound up here in the mountains.
I live here, though. I've been here for 15 years.
[chuckling] You know what I mean?
Richard lives in Louisiana,
and the price of gas is through the roof right no
I mean, that's a long damn way just to be out joyriding.
[Richard] Look, I got something real good.
You know about that manglier tea.
You from the one-mile marker.
-Yeah. -Let me let you taste something.
[Mike] Let's do it.
[Richard] This is a manglier corn that we did.
-[Mike] Mmm-hmm. -[Richard] Aged it a little bit.
It looks good.
Tastes pretty good, too.
[sniffs]
[exhales]
Well, it smells good, buddy.
That's a good barrel it come out of.
[Mike] I have to give you props.
That's some good-tasting liquor there, Landry.
Is it selling good, or...
[Richard] I cannot make enough of this stuff.
But you know what? I'll be honest with you guys, man.
I'm just sick of dealing with that bayou water.
I'm in an area of the world
where I gotta truck water in to me, man.
This limestone water y'all got down here, man,
it's something totally different.
We got the best water.
Y'all think this look is good?
I can make it better if I had water like you guys got here.
You're wanting to set up shop around here?
I don't want to step on y'all toes.
I'm just trying to make myself better.
[Mike] Richard's got his game on,
and he thinks he can up his game
by coming here and finding better water.
[Jerry] You know, you can't just roll in somewhere
and just automatically just set up camp.
I mean, who are you working with?
Where are you gonna be doing this work at?
[Mike] You got to know somebody.
I'm still working on all that right now.
You need something, you...
you're more than welcome to holler at us.
We'll do everything in the world
we can to help you.
-You know what I mean? -[Richard] All right.
I don't know what the hell Richard wants here.
-[Richard] Y'all take care. -All right, man.
-You have a good one. -[Richard] All right. It's good seeing y'all.
[Mike] But whatever he's doi here, he's got me worried.
That manglier tea, it's good stuff.
And having good water, he might make it better.
As bad as I frigging hate to say it,
we've got competition.
-We've got to up... -Yep, obviously.
...our damn game right now.
We got to up the game.
Hey, look, look.
I got us an ace in the hole.
I got us somebody who I think is gonna be able to help us,
and it'll take care of things.
I'll get him to come by, let you meet him,
see what you think about him.
Well, I've been with you long enough.
I trust you.
[Jerry] We got this, man. Don't worry about it.
You know what? Richard, he knows what the hell he's doing.
[chuckling] He makes damn good liquor.
That can be a little bit worrisome,
but Jerry says he has a guy that can help us out.
You know, anything that we can do to get an edge,
we need it.
[car door closes]
[Mark] Damn, it's growed up a lot
since we've been in here.
[Digger] Yeah, it has.
It's kind of like a still scavenger hunt.
I think you'll find it straight through, yonder,
and turn right.
There's probably a half a dozen or more sites
that we've hid copper, and, uh,
we haven't been to some of 'em in several years.
Puss, it's somewhere right here.
I think at one time
we did write down a little map
and put what still sites what was at.
[Digger] There's that old direction tree.
-[Mark] Yeah, yeah. We're here. -[Digger] We're getting there.
But hell, it would be more of a chore
trying to find them out,
probably, than to go hunt the copper itself.
[Digger] Yeah. Here we go.
[Mark] Let's see what we got under here.
You know, this is the last place
-that we run Big Sloppy and the Twins. -[Digger] Yeah.
[Mark] This is the oldest of the Twins,
I believe, wasn't it?
If we were starting from scratch right now,
cost us a minimum $1,500
to build this still right here.
-[Digger] Yep. -And it'll bring $400 in scrap.
[Digger] In scrap alone!
These stills, you know, when we left 'em in here,
you know, it wasn't a big deal.
I mean, copper was bringing 50, 75 cents a pound.
This is a big chunk of money right here, Puss.
You ain't [bleep].
But now that it's clocking high,
I mean, it's, it's as good as gold out here
sitting in the woods, so we're protecting our investment.
[Mark] All right,
let's get this one put to bed, Puss.
[Digger] All right. Then we'll go get another.
You know, not only are these stills
moneymakers for us...
[Mark] This is one we run
-the hoop burner on as well. -Oh, yeah.
...they're also, you know, artifacts.
That was when you got detained over getting sugar,
-I panicked and I shot a hole in every still we had. -[chuckles]
You know, every one of em's got their own stories to tell.
[Mark] Hellfire!
[Digger] That's the one we run
the popcorn liquor up on the mountain with.
It's not the Roman Empire or the Stonehenge,
but to us, you know, each of these sites tells
part of Mark and Digger's history.
Hellfire! I forgot about this.
[Digger] Yeah, that's back in the half gallon jar days.
See what we got there, baby man.
High proof liquor.
Ooh, that's delicious. Get you a big drink.
Damn.
Whoa!
[coughs]
Oh, that's way too damn high proof to drink,
but take it with us.
[Digger] Yeah, we'll take it with us.
There's enough there to make two gallons.
[Mark] Oh, hell.
Nice to meet you, man. My name's Solomon.
-[Mike] Solomon? -Sutton.
Sutton?
You any kin to old Popcorn?
[Solomon] Yeah. That's my dad.
Your daddy?
[Josh] Oh, my God.
Our whole site's been destroyed.
This can't be [bleep] happening.
[Mark] I tell you, it's a good feeling
to have all this put to bed.
There's $3,000 or $4,000 scrap value right there alone.
[exhales]
[Mark] You let me back out of here,
and let's go check on that Tennessee whiskey site.
[Digger] Now that the still' out of harm's way,
we gotta go get our Tennessee whiskey still site
cleaned up on that English Mountain spring.
[Mark] We're supposed to get after it, hadn't we?
[Digger] Yeah.
[Mark] Boy, look at that water.
-[Digger] It's beautiful. -[Mark] Ain't that incredible?
This water, it's very high in limestone content.
There's nothing above it tha contaminates it with anythin
It is the cornerstone of our Tennessee whiskey.
[Digger] You know, Hattie, we got to figure out
what we're going to do once we deplete
that corn that we got.
[Mark] Yeah.
What do you suggest?
[Digger] Well, looks like we might need to start
growing our own corn, Hattie.
I don't know nothing about farming, Puss.
[Digger] How hard could it be?
I've got the old homeplace where my mama grew up,
her family farm.
You know, it's not huge,
but we can get a acre of corn in there, easy.
I got a guy over there, Jeff.
He, he grows corn every year.
[Mark] I mean, $25 a bag is ridiculous.
We could probably grow it for $4 or $5.
Our pumps are around, down around this bend.
We ought to be hearing
a little bit of that clicking there, Puss.
-You'd think. -Unless it's stopped up, or something.
[Digger] Oh, hell.
This ain't good at all, Hattie.
I know why there ain't no damn clicking.
I see the end of the pipe,
but at the end of that pipe there ain't no ram pump.
Son of a bitch!
And it's cut.
Look right there, that's not pulled loose.
Somebody sawed at it.
Damn it.
If they followed what was going up that hill,
to what was up on top of that hill,
and down in that hollow...
Still sites come and go, but when you lose
the best water source
that you've ever, ever had in your whole career,
you know, that's not replaceable.
Son of a bitch!
Let's get the hell out of here.
I don't want to be here any longer.
Yeah, we can find other water,
and we'll keep making liquor
but this was very, very special water,
and it was...
It was just
imperative for our Tennessee whiskey.
What do we do now, Puss?
[Digger] I'd say we get online,
and fill out some job applications.
[Tickle] Hey, look what we got here, Henry.
[Henry] Well, he finally showed up, didn't he?
Promise you one thing, I put that propane out.
I don't know what happened.
-I had it-- -You're sure about that?
I had everything safe.
[Tickle] Josh pulls up,
and the first words out of his mouth
is "I didn't do it."
Sounds like a guilty man to me.
I promise I put everything out.
I went in the house for a few minutes,
I come back outside, it was blazing.
You don't have to convince us.
You gotta convince the fire marshal.
[Josh] I've been through hel
Come back here to Henry's, finally, after laying low,
find out they're looking for me.
He was on the lease agreement.
They want to talk to you.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to put my name on a lease
if the place is gonna be a liquor still.
That probably wasn't the brightest damn thing
I've ever done in my life.
So my house is gone.
Your house is gone.
But ain't it more suspicious that I don't ever come back?
Can't go back to the house.
You can go back to the house and get caught.
[Paige] Go to jail.
[Henry] That's the way it is, hoss.
Making liquor, you might go to jail.
You may not make it home.
If we go down and get your stills out of the hollow,
we're gonna leave tracks if he comes back,
and he told me he was coming back.
But, you know, the bottom line is
that place is over.
That still site, it is dead.
Yeah, it's dead.
Man, you know, we thought everything
was set for this season.
Had a beautiful place over there,
300 acres of land, Josh living at the house.
Now, all that's went to crap
So I can't go back there.
[Henry] We can't go back there.
We can't go get the stills.
[Tickle] We've got a multitu of problems right here.
We got to find us a new location.
We got to build some more pots.
[Josh] So what are we gonna do now?
Well, we're gonna do what moonshiners have always done.
We're gonna cut our losses, and we're gonna move on.
[Josh] I'm gonna be laying real low for a while
Henry is going on and on and on
about all the [bleep] that I'm in.
The whole time, I'm worried to damn death thinking,
"Are they coming here to get me?
They're what? Where are they at?"
I don't know what's going on.
[Henry] Calm down, hoss. They're not gonna lock you up.
If they do, we'll come and get you out of jail.
[Mark] You never did live over here
on your family farm, did you
No. I did a lot of growing up over there.
[Mark] Oh, really? Well, it don't show.
Is there any type of water on it?
[Digger] Yeah, there's water,
but there ain't enough to suit our purpose.
You know, we lost the best source of water in the world.
We've got to try to find as close a replacement
to that as we can.
But limestone water, it's prolific in East Tennessee.
We got to get busy growing corn
if we're gonna have it in
by the time we're gonna need it.
What's your buddy's name? Jeff?
Jeff Morris is his name.
He raises corn in the summer months,
cattle year-round.
He's a working machine.
I told Jeff to meet us over here this morning.
He's brought with him
several different varieties of corn that we can look at
and see which one is gonna suit our purpose best.
Well, Jeff, we're wanting to grow a little corn
instead of buying corn.
That's the cheapest way to do it.
We know how to cook it and we know how to eat it,
but we don't know nothing about growing.
We need someone that can help us
grow the most productive, flavorful kind of corn
that we can get,
and that's what Jeff's gonna help us with, I hope.
[Jeff] I've got several different varieties.
Now, this is a sweet corn. It's top of the line.
It'll make anything you want to make out of it.
Now, on the other hand, what I've got here,
it's a deep, dark, local grown corn.
-See how you like that. -[Mark] What about that?
I love the look of grain, the shapes,
the different colors, the variations.
[Jeff] This is a Mexican corn.
It is a very beautiful corn once you're growing it.
In my eyes, grain's an artwork.
[Jeff] I've got one more to show you
that is a multicolored corn.
It is called Earth Tones.
This is a very high starch corn.
People have used this in the mountains for years.
I bet that's been here since the pioneers came in.
In my personal opinion,
if you want to go with the heavier starch,
I would go with the Earth Tones.
Well, gents, what do you all think?
Oh, I'm leaning toward this Earth Tone flint.
It sounds like it's got plenty of goody
to make liquor out of it.
We need something with high starch content.
We want the biggest bang for our buck.
I've got plenty of it, but it's not cheap.
What we're seeding in is probably
about a half-acre of corn,
and that should give us
around 60 bushel of corn, maybe a little more.
What are you thinking about here, boss?
[Jeff] Well, you're gonna need a lot of seed,
so it's probably gonna run you
somewhere around 500 bucks for your seed...
Whew! Man!
...plus, about $20 a bag right now for your fertilizer,
and you're gonna have to take into consideration
your diesel and all of that.
So roughly, we're looking at a thousand bucks here,
-by the time it's all said and done. -Exactly. Probably.
Yeah, I mean, it's costly,
but it's gonna save us on the...
On the back end, I promise you.
Let me tell you what I'll do.
I know things is tough,
so
I'd rather have a cut of your liquor there,
a cut of your final product.
Well, we're not above bartering.
-We've been known to barter a lot. -Yeah.
It works out in our favor most of the time.
That's the way we've always done it in these hills.
But we're gonna throw another hitch in here.
Okay.
You gotta prep the ground for us, get it turned up.
That would be no problem.
So, he's going to prep our land for us.
He's going to plow it. He's going to drag it.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here.
How about 5%?
-Nah, I don't feel a bit good about that. -[Mark chuckles]
You're not just buying the corn,
-you're buying the expertise. -I know.
Well, how do you feel about 10% of that end yield?
That'll be fine.
You go ahead and prep the ground for us,
and then we'll come and we'll get it in the ground,
and get started.
Yes, sir.
-[Mark] Jeff, thank you, man. -[Digger] Thank you, buddy.
-[Jeff] Thank you. -You've been more than kind.
[Jeff] Thank you very much.
[Digger] We're gonna let yo do all our negotiating from now on.
[Mark] He's getting there, isn't he?
[Digger] Yeah, he is.
We left Jeff with the task
of plowing up the field, turning the dirt over,
getting it down as deep as he can,
and hopefully, he's got this land prepped,
and we'll get down to business growing corn.
[Jeff] The good news is she's almost done.
The bad news is
it's about as best as I can get it.
New ground, and solid ground.
Well, we didn't expect
a whole lot better, to be honest.
It's called new ground because it's not been farmed
in 50 or more years.
You know, for a year or so, it's very difficult.
You know, it has all the roots from the grass and stuff in it.
[Jeff] It's still gonna have some clods,
but I believe you'll be all right.
It's gonna get plenty of nitrogen...
-Right. -...out here, and plenty of nutrients and--
I promise you it will, because the hog lot was
back there at that back corner at one time,
so it's pretty rich.
It's pretty rich.
[Mark] All right. Let's get busy, Puss.
[Digger] All right. Let's get with it.
[Jeff] I'm gonna do a couple jobs and I'll be back
in a couple hours to check on you.
Jeff's got the ground plowed up and leveled out.
[Mark] Let me have one of them,
and I'll go to the foot of the hill down yonder.
Before we get the corn planted,
we're gonna take our twine, our string,
and we're gonna lay the rows off.
These rows is longer than they look.
[Digger] Yeah, they are.
But we're just gonna do 'em one at a time.
After it's been planted, we'll just move our string over.
[Digger] Once we get the string around,
we're gonna follow it with that little turn plow.
We can take the wheel,
follow the line, you got straight rows.
[Mark] What do you think, Puss?
[Digger] That looks pretty straight to me.
[Mark] Don't you burn the bearings
out of that thing, now.
I'm trying to figure out where the gas goes in.
We take the little layoff plow,
and try to just push it through there to make a furrow...
[Digger] We're kicking sod out of the way,
is all we're doing.
...but this is a new ground, and it's very hard to deal with.
This is taking forever.
Whew! Son of a bitch.
Yeah, this is horse [bleep].
From one end of this field to the other,
it didn't look very long when we started,
but the more we go backwards and forwards,
you know, the longer it gets.
I don't know what in the hell we've got ourself into.
We've been out here all day.
We've only got three rows done.
We'll have a week in laying these furrows off.
I don't know, baby man.
You hear them voices in my head?
[Digger] Yeah. They're saying, "Quit."
[Mark] Yeah. I'm done.
[breathing heavily]
Mark, he's hot, he's sweaty, he's tired,
and I'm riding with him.
My head's a-melting. I'm a-burning up.
You don't look so hot to me.
We're tapping out. We're calling it a day.
I'm beat down like a rented mule.
-I don't know what made us think that we can grow corn. -[Digger] Yeah.
[scoffs] I don't know what we do now.
We just don't show back up.
-Yeah. -[chuckles]
[Digger] You hear what I hear?
[Mark] I don't know what we tell Jeff.
I'm gonna start with, "I'm sorry."
[chuckles]
-Here we go. -[car door opens]
[Jeff] How you doing, fellas?
-[Mark] Well... -[Digger] Well,
you showed up just in time
for our retirement party. [chuckles]
Y'all ain't old enough to retire yet.
-Well, we kind of feel like we are. -[chuckles]
[Mark] We've decided that we ain't farmers.
[Jeff] Well, I know that, but, uh,
I've got a lot invested
in this crop already, gentlemen.
-Oh, yeah. -[Digger] Yeah.
Well...
You wouldn't consider in just going ahead, and...
And planting it for us, would you?
[Jeff] Not on the original investment, I wouldn't.
[Mark] I mean, you've got us
by the short hairs here, and you know it.
What are you thinking?
What I'm thinking of is about another 5%,
and I'll have this planted in the next 30 minutes.
Sold.
-Wait a minute. -What?
You didn't ask me how I felt about it.
Um, uh, I thought I had your proxy. I'm sorry.
-Well... -I mean, what do you think, Hattie?
Sold.
[all chuckle]
We've contracted Jeff
to plant this entire little plot of corn.
For his assistance,
we'll give him 15% of the liquor.
Go get that son of a bitch and get with it.
[Jeff] Only one thing I need you boys to do
is just stay out of my way and I'll get her done.
[Digger and Mark chuckle]
[Jerry] I found just the guy to help us.
I got him coming by here in a little while,
kind of hang out with us a little bit,
-see what you think. -[Mike] You trust him?
-Sure, I do. -Hey, I trust you.
-And if you trust the guy, I don't care. -He's a good hand, I tell you.
You want to screw this together, and I'll hold it?
[Jerry] I think Mike's probably a little
on the concerned side, I mean,
you know, as I would be, not knowing this guy,
but I know he's a hard worker.
I've known him for quite some time.
Also, on top of that, he's got some knowledge
on some things that might just
help us out tremendously.
Can't even walk in there right now, hardly.
Yeah, we definitely need to get in there and get cleaned up.
You're always nervous when somebody wants
to bring somebody else into your still site.
You know, that's like, almost like
letting somebody take your old lady on a date.
You just don't do that.
Well, lookee there! Speak of the devil.
-What are y'all up to? -What's goin' on, man?
Oh, yeah.
Mike, brother.
Nice to meet you, man. My name's Solomon.
-[Mike] Solomon? -Sutton.
[Mike] Sutton?
-Yeah, boy. -Uh-oh.
There was a guy with the Sutton last name.
You any kin to old Popcorn?
[Solomon] Yeah. That's my dad.
Your daddy?
-Yeah. -Hellfire!
I'll tell you what, your dad was known
for making a lot of damn liquor, wasn't he?
A lot.
Well, my dad was Popcorn Sutton.
I was in bed, I says, I'm gonna make some whiskey today.
He ran liquor out here for a long time,
up on Hemp Hill, and all over Maggie Valley.
The biggest question is, can you work?
Do you want to work?
Oh, yeah.
You know, with Solomon being onboard with us,
and that being his dad
can potentially set us up to sell a lot of liquor.
We're gonna try this guy out, see how he works for us.
If he'll work hard and keep his mouth shut at the same time,
I believe we can all be friends.
[Jerry] Like I told you there earlier,
we found a nice, big laurel thicket.
We want to clear up the middle.
We can get set up in there.
[Solomon] That works for me.
I know it's gonna be hard work and stuff,
but moonshine is in my blood, you know?
It's part of my history.
[Mike] Jerry, you want to take this man out
and show him what he's gonna be doing?
-[Jerry] I say, let's do it. -All right.
You got your work boots on?
[Solomon] What's left of 'em.
Yeah, I thought planting this corn would be
a whole lot harder, didn't you?
Ain't nothing to it, are there?
[Digger] Uh-uh.
-[cell phone vibrating] -Hell.
[cell phone vibrating]
Well, hell, there's John
down at English Mountain Spring Water.
Hello, John.
All right.
We got a little more work to do,
but we'll be right there as soon as we can.
All right. We'll see you in a little bit.
What did he say? He wants us to come see him?
He said, "I got something I want to tell y'all."
Damn it. It can't be good news.
The damn ram pump's gone,
John at English Mountain's a-calling us.
This is all connected somehow.
When somebody wants to talk to you
and they don't want to talk on the phone,
it's either bad news or they want to borrow money.
He don't need no money.
[Mark] Dag damn it!
[Mark] I don't know.
Honestly, with that pump being gone,
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, 'cause there ain't no way of knowing who got it.
[Digger] I hope it was a thief that got it.
[Mark] I hope you're right.
I really, really hope you're right.
[Digger] We're headed over here
to see John Burleson,
that owns English Mountain Spring.
He wants to meet with us pretty urgently.
[John] Hey, guys!
-[Digger] Hello, John! -Hey!
We pull up and, uh, John's coming out the door
before I can even put the truck in park
and get my seatbelt off.
Well, you know, it...
It may be something, it may not,
but some of the neighbors had told me they'd been seeing
a vehicle around,
and then they'd been seeing a strange guy,
so I looked at some cameras that...
And saw somebody that I didn't recognize,
but, uh, you know, he was walking back up
toward the spring.
He acted like he was looking for something specific.
I thought it might have been somebody just ginsenging,
or whatever, but he was too nice dressed,
and then I got a eye on the vehicle,
and it was a gray SUV.
A silvery gray SUV. Uh...
Four-door?
-Big back? -Yeah.
-Like a Tahoe type thing?
Yeah. I just felt like you needed to know.
[Digger] A guy wearing brown, big, khaki, BDU-type britches?
Yeah. Yeah.
From what he described, that's law enforcement.
John, thank you so much.
-[John] No problem, guys. -We appreciate that heads-up.
We're going to take heed.
Whoever finds them hoses and that ram pump,
-they're welcome to it. -Yeah.
We have some stuff there,
but honestly, I don't think it's anything that
can incriminate us.
Still, at the end of the day,
you know, we've got to be ever-vigilant.
We've got to be sure of every step that we take.
I say we don't do nothing for a few days.
Let's just lay low, and...
I'd rather have a late start,
if it's to start my tour in the penitentiary.
Dag damn it!
-Well... -I don't usually say this in my older years,
but right now, I sure could use a cold beer.
[Mike] Couldn't see it, though.
[Jerry] Through here.
[Mike] In order to stay totally hidden,
my and Jerry's still site this season,
it's way back in the woods.
It's in the middle of a laurel thicket.
About here is where the trail ends, old Sol,
and the work begins.
We're gonna take Solomon up there to help us clear ou
so me and Jerry can get our stuff packed in.
You see this big old, huge, laurel thicket we got over here?
[Jerry] That's where we're gonna be.
[Solomon] Oh, it's thick, ain't it?
Popcorn Sutton, everybody in these mountains know who he is.
As a matter of fact, people far and wide know who he is.
[Mike] We need a pretty big area,
so we ain't turning around
-and hitting in the damn limbs. -[Solomon] Yeah.
Solomon being Popcorn Sutton's son could be...
It could be very beneficial.
I mean, he's... He's kind of legendary
in this area that we're in.
But not only with just having that name,
there might be tricks of the trade
that he learned from either his dad
or some other family members
that's been in the business for years.
That might help us out a little bit.
[Mike] All right, let's get out of your way,
so you can get your stuff to deal with.
[chain saw revving]
[Solomon] Yeehaw!
Man, don't get all these stumps out,
somebody will break their head off.
[chain saw revving]
Look at how much space we got here already.
I know.
[Jerry] So the most important thing right now we need to do,
is we need to get set up for our water.
You clear us a path right up through yonder.
Right on up through there?
If we can get us a good, flat spot up there,
about, I don't know, 40, 50 yards up through there.
[chain saw revving]
[Jerry] We don't want to make this look like
a highway coming through her
We want to cut as minimal an amount of stuff as we can,
because we want everything to look,
you know, secluded as much as possible.
[Solomon] Damn it.
It's so thick.
It's all you can do to walk through here.
We're getting somewhere.
-[Mike] Getting somewhere. -Slowly but surely.
I'll tell you what, this little cat
knows how to work around a chain saw.
Right here behind this tree, it flattens out pretty good.
Cut a little path out, and now it would be
a good spot to put the water barrel.
[Mike] I believe it's gonna make some good liquor for us
[chain saw revving]
[Solomon] I think this would make a pretty good spot.
I can see the creek right down there.
I think we can go right over there,
get a barrel set up here,
that would be a straight shot right through there,
right over yonder.
[Jerry] Sounds good to me.
[Mike] Yeah.
I just got back to Virginia, and the first thing
that Henry tells me
is the fire marshal's looking for me.
The whole time he's talking, all I can think about is,
"Have they found the still site?"
If they're just asking me questions about a fire,
hell, that ain't no big deal.
We had a fire. [bleep] happens.
But if they're asking me questions about a fire
to find out if I got a still,
now that's a whole 'nother ballgame.
So now I'm headed over to the still site.
Henry told me to lay low,
don't worry about none of that,
but I think it makes more sense
for me to slip in here.
I'm just gonna do a little snooping around,
a little investigating.
Hopefully, everything looks like it's been untouched,
and they're just asking me questions about a fire.
[car door opens]
Let's go.
[car door closes]
[intense music playing]
There it is, right here.
Oh, my God.
Oh, no!
Our whole site's been destroyed.
This can't be [bleep] happening.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my gosh.
It has to be the law.
Argh!
They done blown our [bleep] still site
all the way to smithereens.
There's [bleep] all the way up in the trees.
They blew our still site up.
There ain't no way about it.
I gotta go tell Henry.
[Mark] What the hell is this?
Whoa!
Jesus.
We're looking around, and I hear Mark
give out a little squall.
Where in the hell did this casket
with Popcorn in it come from?
A fan.
[Mark] I ain't never seen that. That's creepy.
He didn't know about little Popcorn, apparently,
and he is quite spooky.
Hey, we're gonna come up here one night, late,
and he'll be walking around here like Chucky.
Hope he ain't got a butcher knife, though.
Tell him bye.
Bye, Popcorn. Close him up.
Damn.
I don't like stuff like that
but Popcorn would have loved that.
[Digger] He'd have put that right in his living room.
[knocking at door]
Henry.
[Henry] Josh?
Yeah.
What's going on, man?
Man, curiosity has been killing me.
[Henry] What are you talking about?
[Josh] Well, you said that guy was looking for me,
I damn got to wondering why are they...
Why are they looking for me?
So I slipped on out there to the still site,
and it's been blew up.
It's destroyed.
There's nothing in place. It's all gone.
The only thing that's there is the barrels and the creek.
Everything's everywhere.
It was the law, for sure.
I'm in trouble.
When we cut those lines, we cut the power lines.
[Josh] Can they prove they're mine?
[Henry] It's a good chance.
The lease agreement's in your name.
It don't look good.
We've lost the house, lost the stills,
and lost the still site.
What are we going to do?
What am I going to do?
Am I going to jail?
Jail is hell.
Yeah, but you know when you get into this business, son,
the chances of going to jail is pretty, pretty high.
You need to lay low for a few weeks.
I've been looking at another site.
We could go there and set up something,
and maybe you could stay there with it.
You're gonna make me go to the woods?
Keep an eye on the damn place,
and we'll kick you a little bit more money out of it.
I think that would be the way to roll.
We got to make some money.
We got customers who want liquor.
We got no liquor.
It's up to you, though.
Think about it tonight.
Let me know in the morning.
So can I crash here tonight, then?
[Henry] If you want to.
Can't do anything else tonight.
We'll think about it a little bit more in the morning.
[Jerry] Help me to blow in it.
[Mike blows]
[Jerry] Blow, blow, blow.
[clangs]
You son of a bitch, you!
[chuckles]
[chuckling] God!
The still site's about 40 feet above our water source,
so we've got a pump to get the water to the still site.
[resounds]
You got pressure in it.
It got the pressure on it, don't it?
In order to stay totally hidden this year,
we got to keep every part of our operation
as quiet as possible.
-Hell, yeah. -Good job.
[Mike] Jerry come up with a siphon vacuum pump
that would continuously give us water, that's 100% solid.
[Jerry] Obviously, it's pretty airtight.
Tell you what, let's see how it works.
[narrator] To quietly pump water up to their still sit
from the creek below,
Mike and Jerry will use a vacuum barrel pump
consisting of a large diameter outlet pip
and a thin inlet pipe connected to a barrel.
It works on the same princip as a siphon.
When the barrel pipe is primed with water,
and the outlet pipe is allowed to flow,
vacuum pressure will draw water up the inlet pipe
to replace what's flowing out of the barrel.
As long as no air is allowe into the system
to break the vacuum,
it will continue to supply water on demand,
silently and without the nee for electricity.
[Mike] I hope what we got here is gonna work.
[grunts]
[water filling]
Why throw it all together
and take it to the woods,
and then find out you've got a screwup?
-[Mike] There you go. -All right.
[Mike] We're gonna test run everything,
make sure everything's gonna perform
here in the shop,
and see if this thing really works.
[Jerry] I believe we're probably good.
[Mike] All right.
Let's bung it off, and well, by God,
we're gonna see what's gonna happen, ain't we?
We got a good site,
perfect place to be closed up and hidden,
but the number one rule of being a moonshiner,
you've got to have good, clean, cold water
or you're not making liquor
Crack her slow.
Just open it up slow.
[water splashing]
[Mike] Is it sucking?
[Jerry] Yeah, it's drawing water into the barrel.
My man!
We've already dropped a barrel on each already.
-Seriously? -Hell, yeah. Look at that.
-[Mike] Hell, yeah, baby! -[Jerry] And down an inch.
It's going, son!
We've got a system now that makes no noise.
Oh, it's just churning in there.
It's steadily flowing, ain't it?
[imitates pumping sound]
You're already six inches down in water already.
We have got the perfect water system for our still site.
That's all the water we need, man.
-[Jerry] That's plenty enoug -[Mike] That's it.
[Mark] Tonight's the birthday party, ain't it, Timmy?
Yep.
How old are you now? Sixty?
I'll be 60.
[Mark] Sixty!
[Digger] You're old.
I never dreamed he'd get that old. Did you?
Me and you both had people betting against us
making it to 30.
[Timmy] I bet my wife.
[Digger chuckles]
[Mark] Oh, hellfire.
You know, I see something out of the corner of my eye,
then over my shoulder, boom.
On the bar, a ram pump from our still site
at English Mountain Spring Water.
A officer brings it in, sets it down,
never utters a word,
and leaves.
God almighty.
I figured he's dogging our ass.
That's David Robertson,
who's a captain with our sheriff's department.
The same David Robertson pulled us over last year.
[siren wails]
[David Robertson] Put your hands on the hood, ther
[Mark] Hands on the hood.
[Robertson] What you hauling in your barrels back here?
[Digger] Nothing. They're empty.
[Robertson] It smells like liquor in there.
[Mark] They'll smell like liquor
the rest of their life.
[David] I got my eye on you boys.
You know, there's one thing I'm sure of.
You don't want a guy that's pissed off,
that wears a badge and a gun,
and gots some nice handcuffs he want to put you in.
He's done his homework.
He ain't setting on his hind end.
I mean, this ain't nothing to put us in jail,
but he knows.
What he brought in, and laid down in front of us,
it's not illegal, it's a ram pump.
But he is tracking us like we're prey right now.
It's getting closer and closer
to being led out of here like this.
I think that it's his mission
to lead Mark and Digger away in handcuffs.
You remember what he told us?
"You boys got to get lucky every time.
I just got to get lucky once."
[narrator] Next time on Moonshiners...
[Mark] He looks like he's going to dig us a lake.
[Digger] Uh-huh.
If that spring's still running,
then we'll be in clover.
Yep, that's Daniel right there.
Me coming here is gonna be good,
not only for Daniel and I,
but for the craft, the moonshine making itself
It's gonna be some awesome, awesome stuff.
I really hope that Richard Landry and I are
able to build a legacy.
[Henry] What is that?
He's got us blocked.
The road is blocked.
Turn your lights off, there's somebody been in here.
Oh, [bleep].