[tense music playing]
[narrator] On this episode of Moonshiners.
[Solomon] Get ready to run?
Oh, yeah,
it taste pretty damn good.
We've got Popcorn Sutton's son.
He may be an ace-in-the-hol for me and Jerry.
[Jerry] Sol, I got a question for you.
Have you ever been taught about heads?
This is the old J.W. Dant house.
This man was Richie Rich in Kentucky in 1836.
There was a 16-year-old named J.W. Dant.
[Wally] They stacked logs on top of one another.
[Tim] J.W. Dant pound it out,
ran that copper tubing up through it.
What the heck was so good about this whiskey
that make it spread like wildfire?
You need to calm the hell down.
I need to calm down. What are you talking about?
Don't make me roll your old ass down that hill.
[bottle clatters]
[man] This is how we make a Moonshine.
[man] That's a big boy, isn't it.
I think we need to drag this thing like a sled in there.
What are you, a bullock?
[Josh] We got handles on it.
[narrator] In the Blue Ridge Mountains
after a close call with an intruder
near their thousand gallon still,
Tickle, Josh, and the Laws
must devise a way to camouflage
their oversized operation.
I feel like climbing a rock wall.
You can climb up a rock wall.
This thousand gallon pot,
it is the biggest pot we have ever made liquor in.
I can totally see the still laid out right here.
The top keg over there, the worm over there.
And where do you think you might be sleeping?
See, he won't talk about that yet.
[Josh] The still is 10-foot long.
-You'll sleep on top of it? -I'll just sleep on the still.
It'd be nice and warm.
I've been going through a lot of [bleep] I lost my house,
I've had to move out of there.
With the Law probably looking for me
and a fire marshal, definitely looking for me,
I'm gonna have to lay low.
I've got to stay out here in the woods
until the coast is clear.
I'm gonna start digging.
This thousand gallon still is massive.
The top end needs to come down just a touch.
So we've got to get it camo-ed real good.
We found a little embankment drops down
about five or six feet that's gonna be perfect.
So, we're gonna go down and dig back in
to that embankment. And by doing that,
we'll be able to camo this thing in a whole lot easier
by using the natural hillside that's there.
[Josh] We've got to hide this good.
I've got to be hiding good.
[Henry] We're gonna spend
a little extra time on this site.
Our buddy Josh is gonna be standing by.
We do not want him going to jail.
All right.
[Tickle] How's that, Henry?
[Henry] Here, let me get my damn seat.
How about you, what you want? Hit me with that block?
Y'all are doing a great job.
[Tickle] Last blocks right here, Henry.
Do you wanna go six?
I think he's gonna take six.
[Josh] That's exactly right.
-[Henry] You think so, Josh? -[Josh] Yeah.
Look, if anybody has done thought about it, it is Josh,
because he's sure ain't working.
All right. Put these blocks
because they're still on here on top of the ramp.
[Josh] I'm a team player.
I bust my ass. I'm on the run.
I've paid my dues. I've been going through hell.
I'm out here. I got a couple beers,
and by God, I'm going to enjoy it.
[Henry] Hey, can you get another shovel?
-[Josh laughs] -Where are you going?
He said something about a shovel.
[Tickle] Yeah, I see that.
[Henry] Josh got a lot going on right now.
He doesn't have anywhere to live.
He's on the run. That's stressful, you know,
physically and mentally draining.
But the bottom line is we better get a grip
because we got work to do.
[Kenny speaking]
[man laughs]
[banjo music playing]
For all my hard work, Tim,
we finally take a little vacation to the Bourbon Trail.
Well, I don't know about the Bourbon Trail
but we are in the Bourbon Country, Kentucky.
I know it keeps drawing you back.
-[Tim] Yeah. -[Howard] You've been away from me
but you always come back.
So why are we here?
[Tim] I've been doing some research, Howard.
I'm looking for different distillation methods.
One particular method that stands out,
they created a still out of a log,
you know, a tree.
I thought that was kind of like
a folklore, you know, a folktale,
something that people just talked about
back in the day, drinking out of stump trees.
When I researched log distilling,
everything points to the Dant family of Kentucky.
I never heard of the Dants before.
Well, in this region of Kentucky,
the Dants is pretty popular.
[narrator] In early 19th Century of Kentucky,
copper stills were unaffordable
for small time distillers.
However, in 1836,
an ingenious 16-year old named J.W. Dant
figured out a workaround
and changed the landscape of distilling forever,
when he built a steam-heated still
made from hollowed out logs
using copper only for the piping.
People in the region loved his liquor
and it became so popular
it was sold as far south as New Orleans
making J.W. a wealthy man.
By 1870, he had become
one of the most successful distillers
in the region and kicked of
a family legacy that's still intact today.
I want to know what the heck was so good
about this whiskey that make it spread like wildfire.
[Howard] Oh, there it is, Log Still Distillery, baby.
[Tim] Oh, we need to find Wally Dant.
-[Howard] Wally Dant. -Wally Dant.
Wally Dant and Charles Dant
are direct descendants of J.W. Dant.
They don't distill in logs anymore.
But I wanna see if they kno anything about the design.
Further, I wanna see if I can get my hands
on this recipe, so I can see for myself
if it's really that good.
Looks like a band playing.
[Howard] This is my type of celebrate here, Tim.
-Charles Dant? -Hey, how are you doing?
Tim Smith.
-Nice to meet you, Tim. -Howard.
Howard. Very nice to meet you, my friend.
-How's it going? -Well, we actually
are looking for Wally Dant.
[Charles] He's right down the hill here. Come on.
[Tim] Wally is here.
He's just getting in to the.
to the game here.
He's getting into the party.
Well, you got nice place here.
Uh, we're trying.
We came like 500 miles to Kentucky to meet Wally,
and they got like a party going on.
It's too loud.
We've got to find somewhere where we can talk.
Welcome. I mean, here we've got our tasting room.
Y'all came in and saw that water tower up here, right?
-Amazing. -Yeah.
[Wally] You know, that was original
to the property.
My great grandfather built that.
I do love the water tower,
but we're here to learn about log.
Yeah, I guess... I guess that's the subject
why we drove 500 miles.
[Howard] Yeah, that's the meat of it.
We actually got a picture over here for you.
-Well, let's see what that is. -Oh, let's check that out.
[Wally] So, here, you could see
they stacked logs on top of one another.
J.W. Dant pound it out,
ran that copper tubing up through it.
He didn't use fire, obviously. It's wood.
No. That's right.
Actually, what they did was they built a fire
and they heated up rocks,
and they transferred those over into a pot
and they got that steam
and they actually funneled that into the logs
to heat these things up.
You know, the big reason I'm here,
I'm researching and we're gonna recreate
J.W. Dant's whiskey today.
I mean, some of it is this picture.
-I need that. -[Howard] It is very helpful.
Uh, and then, also, I mean,
I really have to get down to a recipe, too.
If you're doing something like that,
we're all behind you.
We do have the mash bills
that were used here on property.
So, whether it was my great grandfather
or my great, great, great grandfather,
we've got their mash bills.
Oh.
If you really want history,
we got something I think we wanna show you tomorrow
that will knock your socks off.
Me and Howard we'll be spending the night.
[Wally] We'll, see you in the morning.
-Salud. -Cheers to a good night, gentlemen.
[man] We may have to bump that back down a little bit or something.
-Here you go. -Here you go. I did it.
You ate your Wheaties this morning, didn't you?
Hell, yeah.
[narrator] In Haywood County North Carolina,
facing new competition in their own backyard,
Mike and Jerry play a wild card
to raise their profile.
[Mike] The partnership with Solomon Sutton,
I mean, it could be exactly what we need.
We got competition out there this season.
Richard Landry is here
from Louisiana to try to run liq.
Y'all think this liquor is good?
I can make it better
if I have water
like you guys got here.
So you're wanting
to set up shop
around here somewhere probably?
Me and Jerry are damn excited.
Popcorn Sutton is a legend around these parts.
When people find out that Solomon Sutton,
his son, is running liquor with us,
it's bound to sell.
[Jerry] I think that barrel is in a...
in a fine place right there.
I'll tell you what, me and Mike are gonna start
getting all this pipe routed and stuff,
how about we're gonna carry it to the side beside.
And get us that... The power cord,
and a water hose,
and generator, and a water pump.
We'll put it in the creek down here
and we'll pump this barrel full.
Sounds like a game plan.
[Jerry] We'll see you in a bit.
One good thing about this PVC
-that I got, it will bend. -[Mike] Oh, yeah.
You know, Jerry, come up with a vacuum pump system
that'll be totally solid. It worked at the shop.
It should work here.
-Get that part in? -[Mike] Uh-huh.
[Jerry] That's good. Zip it.
But it's still pretty much a gamble.
We got a long way to pull water up from the creek,
you know, to make it then create that suction.
[Jerry] Fish me a pipe right through these bushes
down here on the ground.
You know, it took us a little bit of time
to get this thing built.
We're not, you know, so much behind schedule.
[Jerry grunts] Ready?
Dang.
But time is money here.
You got to get this thing pumping,
so we can go to making some money.
Here we go. Pretty solid.
-Here we go, fellas. -[Mike] All right, bro.
The next steps that we got to do here at the still site
is to get these pipes run down to the creek
and hook our pump up to prime the tank with
to get water in there and get all the air out.
Well, it's a straight down right here.
It's like a ski slope.
[Solomon] Okay, Mike, start feeding me the PVC!
[Mike] Deep in the country.
We're in the water.
[Jerry] Yeah.
Well, I feel running another part of the barrel.
I'll get this generator fired up.
We're ready to pump some water.
[motor whirring]
It's tough to get the water uphill
in any circumstances.
[Solomon] It might take a second
-to pump all that up. -Oh, that's right.
But once we get this thing primed
and get it started,
I feel like we'll be in good shape.
Oh, we're getting water in here.
-[Mike] We got it coming. -It's coming.
The water is going into the barrel fine,
but we got to get it full enough
and it's got to be airtight
if it's gonna create a vacuu
and give us a continuous flow of water.
Put that junker off.
All right, Mike, I believe we're about ready.
[Mike] All right.
Here tells the tail.
We got water.
-Are you pulling water? -[Jerry] All right.
We got water rolling in.
[Mike] Good day, old man. We're good to go!
This thing is working properly.
It's pulling the vacuum and its feeding water
to the still site at the same time.
We've got a continuous flow of water
that's 100 percent solid.
Hell, yeah.
I've seen a lot, a lot of ways
of getting waters to the still site,
but I've never seen nobody physically
soften it up the side of a cliff,
and then pump it to the still site with no power.
-We have water. -Let's go put
our big heads together
and see if we can come up
-with something to be able to put in here. -[Jerry] Let's do it.
Me and J has got to build a still
to get to the still site.
Start making us some money.
♪ We've got water At the still site now ♪
[Solomon] That's a nice little song
you got there, bud.
[Mike] Hell, yeah.
I'm going to Nashville.
[rock music playing]
Now, I know Josh,
he really is a team player at heart,
but this right here,
this isn't being a team player.
[Henry] Now, see what Kenny is doing right there?
Here's what you call improvising.
We don't have two shovels,
that's what we do right there to get the job done.
[Kenny speaking]
I don't have half ass nothing.
When's the last time you ever seen me
half assed anything?
[Kenny] You better calm your damn nerves.
I don't know, it sure sounded like it.
-[Kenny] Well, you not. -[Josh] It did.
Well, you're gonna have to back off a little bit.
I'm down here swinging and you're standing there
drinking a damn cold beer.
I'm easygoing not until you push my button.
And then, when it does, you don't step over the line.
You know what I'm saying here?
You know, you come over down here and dig it.
Josh normally isn't one to run his mouth to me or Kenny.
What's wrong with you?
[Henry] I've never saw him like this before.
I'm beginning to think the pressure of him
being on the run is starting to get to him.
[Josh] Don't make me roll your old ass down that hill.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kenny] What's wrong with you?
I'm trying to hack and you won't listen.
[Josh] You're the one all excited.
You didn't even seen goddamn excited.
What did I do?
[Kenny] You don't know until you get
the embankment tubing in better shape.
-Oh, oh, really? -[Kenny] Yeah.
So you're just gonna tell me to dig?
I ain't telling you a damn thing.
Do what you want.
[Henry] You know, I can understand Josh being under pressure,
but we got the still site we gotta be taken care of,
so he needs to calm down.
-Do you want the beer? -No. I don't want a damn beer.
[Henry] All right. Let's set the still, boys.
[Tickle] I agree with Henry. Let's set the still.
What's wrong with you?
I don't know.
If I did, I wouldn't be down here.
-You want a beer? -[Kenny] No.
[Tickle] Let's go boys.
Now, I tell you what,
I have often said that Josh and Kenny get along
because I didn't know if it was birds
of a feather or maniac to maniac.
[Josh] I need to drink beer with him.
I know for sure now, it's maniac to maniac.
All right, buddy. Be careful.
[Kenny] You're looking good, looking good.
[Josh] That's something--
[Henry] She's in there.
That looks pretty even.
Ah, damn, perfectly level.
-[Tickle] I love it. -Perfectly level.
[Tickle] I love it.
You know, Josh, he's used to living out in the woods.
He's used to toughing things out.
It's perfect level.
But knowing in the back of your mind
that they're there, they're coming,
that's the stressful part.
That's the part he's got to learn to overcome.
I don't know how the [bleep] did we do that the first time.
[Henry] Experience, man, experience.
[Tickle] That's amazing.
[sirens wailing]
[dramatic music playing]
-[Howard] All I see is corn. -[Tim] Yeah.
I mean, no good stories start with,
"Come on down here to the field in the woods.
Let me show you something."
I mean, they don't end well, usually.
Not that I don't think I've seen.
[Tim] I see a truck coming.
Wally, he invited us to come out to a cornfield.
There they are.
Fellas, we thought you sent us on a wild goose chase,
maybe wrong cornfield.
He's gonna show us something special.
Charles, you wanna make our way through?
Let's do it.
-And where are we going? -[Tim] Into the dusty woods.
I think we're going somewhere we might not be coming back from.
[Howard] Well, that's a house over there, it looked like.
[Wally] It ain't been occupied a long time, that's for certain.
This is the old J.W. Dant house.
[Tim] This man was Richie Rich
-for his time, wasn't he? -[Wally] That's right.
-He was one of the-- -[Tim] Back in the 1800s,
1900s you have a house this big?
This house is huge.
J.W. must have made a ton of money.
His liquor must have been something special
if this is the result.
What was in that stuff?
Once he saturated Marion and Nelson County,
he built a raft, floated down to Louisiana,
sold his product, and then walked back
600 miles to the Indian country.
-He had to move a lot. -So, he was trying
to reach out to more customers outside the region?
Yeah.
To hop in a raft with barrels of bourbon,
float the river all the way to New Orleans,
by God, and then walk 600 miles back,
this is one fellow I wouldn't mess with.
Yeah, you can come on in.
Is there a log still in there or anything?
I don't know what's in there.
So, this is original,
the stuff that's still in here?
[Wally] Oh, hell, yes, it is.
[Tim] Hey, the light's back here.
He must not have paid the power bill lately.
[Howard] So, this old fireplace here
is where he did all the cooking?
This is where the kitchen was, yup.
Could you imagine that man sitting around the table,
eating his dinner, tasting something that tastes
really good on his plate and he's like,
hmm, that's a good flavor for bourbon.
Probably an old ground hog or something.
-Mmm-hmm. -[laughter]
[Wally] We've got some old bottles
and stuff that we found over time.
You know, if you look at this, its old ceramic bottle, right?
So, prior to good old glass bottles,
they used to put it in ceramic.
[Howard] The handwriting here, it's good.
It's so beautiful.
I mean, I almost don't wanna hold it, it's so old.
[Wally] Yeah.
Well, I guess the next question is,
do you have any kind of recipe
of what they was making in the very beginning?
Well, what we do know, all right?
We've got his yeast recipes, right?
So yeast for distillers was gold to have.
And I've got a picture of it, actually,
his handwritten notes, all right?
I've got jug yeast, got night yeast and day yeast.
Wally breaks out, you know, like a recipe.
It's not the recipe of what goes into the mash.
This is actually what goes in to make the yeast
to cultivate, to go into the mash, to make the product.
I think this is actually gonna make the big difference.
We've got to go back and make that.
-[Wally] Absolutely. -No, that was...
that was really be like the next test,
then, I guess, getting something locally.
That way, we've got that yeast strain
-that's growing here... -Right.
from the grains.
You know, one of our farmers
grew some rye last year for us.
-Okay. -Oh. So, you can put us
in touch with this gentleman, right?
This property is right next to our distillery.
We're gonna get these local grains
so we can propagate the authentic,
original local yeast.
Then, we'll get the mashing in,
get it in a log still and run in
some of J.W. Dant's original liquor.
[dramatic music playing]
-What's up, buddy? -What's happening, champ?
Well, I was actually just cleaning
this whole pot out here.
We got to put a little water in this boiler.
[Mike] It's cleaning itself, ain't it?
[Jerry] Well, I've been thinking
-we're gonna need a new still for the season, right? -Yeah.
Huge thing.
You're talking about just cooking alcohol with steam.
What I'm thinking is take some copper
-and create a tank out of it. -Mmm-hmm.
[Jerry] Lay it on its side, and then we put cores,
you know, all around the bottom.
We'll be able to mash right in our pot.
Well, the steam make no scorch nothing.
-No. -Hell, let's put this damn thing together.
[narrator] To evenly heat their fermented mash
without scorching it,
Mike and Jerry will build a steam pipe still.
As water is heated in a separate boiler,
it turns to steam,
which will then travel through 24 individual copper pipes
lining the interior of the pot.
The setup provides even hea
without the need for a direct burner.
The result?
Smooth scorch-free liquor every run.
[rock music playing]
[Jerry] Roll gold right there, son.
-That is for damn sure. -Roll gold.
This copper has just gotten outrageous.
Eleven and five, it's where it need to be.
It's getting hard to get and it's very expensive.
If we're not gonna start this cutting without measuring,
make a mistake, that means we're gonna have
to go back and buy more materials.
And that's just something that we ain't got time
or money to be doing right now.
It won't be long.
We'll be putting some tubes through here, won't we?
It is... It is rolled right here,
we'll be off to the races.
I tell you what, man, with 25 tubes,
you know that's gonna heat up in a hurry.
It's gonna get hot quick.
You know, this idea I've came up with
a little bit more on the complicated side
as far as the build, but it's really gonna
make things move a lot quicker in the woods.
Ain't nothing like a hair on a biscuit, brother.
Most of the times with your stills,
you can't heat them too fast because if you do,
you're gonna worry about scorching your mash.
But running thing through it
we're gonna be able to heat the mash a lot quicker
and really evenly throughout the whole entire pot.
We're gonna be able to make a much smoother,
much more powerful alcohol.
All right.
Twenty-two more to go and we'll be set.
[rock music playing]
My God, that's it right there on the bottom, brother.
[Jerry] I tell you what, man, I'm pretty dadgum
satisfied with that.
Me and Mike's finally got the heat exchanger done.
We're going to piece two sheets of copper together,
actually, to make a tube out of it,
and then slide the heat exchanger into it.
We're all but home free now.
Snug as a bug in a damn, damn rug.
[Jerry] You know something I thought about?
If we ever got busted,
they wouldn't tear up our damn stills.
[Mike] Hell no.
They'd have to carry over some kind of damn museum
or something because they wouldn't know
if I wanna make like that again.
So damn won't.
When it comes to building stills,
me and Jerry are unlike anybody else
in the moonshine world.
Boo-yah, boy.
We are the type of people that walks out on the lam.
We like to build something cool,
something new, something nea
Sure, we're going to the woo
to make alcohol and to put money in our pockets.
But there's nobody else out there
doing what me and Jerry does
[Jerry] We're better to take it neck of the woods, man.
Yes, sir.
Porthole, thermostat, air ventilation.
We got a heat exchanger right here in the end.
[Mike] A whole nine yards.
Yeah, buddy.
That little gentleman's heavy, son.
Thank God for a handle.
[man] That rigged camo went up?
[Henry] Man, the paint it's gonna take
to camo this great big pot,
it'll probably be 15 pounds heavier
by the time we get done.
[Josh] I've just been holding my breath, about to pass out.
Take a look at it from back here.
It's huge.
I don't know if it's really blending in that good.
[Josh] There's a lot on the line right here.
If I got to hide out and I got to stay out here
in the woods, it's really important
that we get this still totally camouflaged.
[Henry] But it's so big.
You can't help but see the damn thing.
It is massive.
Well, we're gonna have to come up
with something different, ain't we?
Brushing it in like we normally do,
we had to take that down
and put it back up every time we leave.
Yeah. Good job.
What if we take it and make a wall
that's movable and just move the wall?
A wall?
A wall on a bush.
You will move the whole wall or--
[Tickle] Some kind of way.
Why don't we just leave it?
It can't be locked in like that.
I got... You got to be able to see that man coming up.
Yeah. If you can't see, you go in prison.
-[Henry] At least you can't-- -Simple as that.
If you get raids and the jumpman comes in,
you got to be able to see him.
You just can't put up a wall where you can't see out.
We need to get it where we can move it easily.
If we get some pulleys,
we can help counteract the weight.
[Kenny] What are these pulleys for?
We're gonna build a wall
and then we're just gonna pick it up out of our way.
I truthfully think y'all know already that, huh?
I swear to God, y'all are so high,
it ain't even making sense.
They're talking about building this, like,
curtain thing and cranking it up in the air
and, you know, making some camouflage
we can lower down when I leave the still site.
We put a pulley up top.
I just don't understand.
[Henry] This will be your main one.
This will be the bottom of your wall.
To mount the pulleys on these things,
drop a string down.
And then when you pull that rope,
this comes right up and comes right here.
Y'all wanna build some curtains in the wood?
That's what you're telling me?
Camo.
This is gonna be a bunch of whole [bleep]
put the mental picture together
with what they're talking about.
You're gonna have ropes and pulleys
and [bleep] hanging all over the place.
How the hell you're gonna ever camouflage that?
Josh, me and you, we're the same age,
probably been moonshining about the same amount of time.
I'm gonna go with the voice of experience right here.
And that's Henry and Kenny right here.
If I don't stand my ground and I just go along with it,
as soon as it's done, y'all find out it's ridiculous
and I'll say, "Well, I tried to tell you."
You're gonna say, "Why didn't you say something, son?"
Well, I'm saying something.
Josh is getting worked up for no reason at all.
The bottom line is we want the still site
and Josh to be as safe as possible.
Well, let's just see
if this is something we can do or not.
-Just go home. -[man] I know, I know I just--
Leave you all with this cockamamie idea
and drink a lot of beer.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tim] Old Finney farm.
This is where Charles said to come in.
We got some silos, so...
Oh, we got a hell of a silo system, it looks like.
Howard and I, we're gonna recreate
J.W. Dant's log and still whiskey.
We actually have a recipe in making
a type of yeast that they was using.
The yeast is where it's at.
The yeast is what's so speci
about this Dant whiskey.
All right. Surprise, surprise.
And in order for me to make this type of yeast
that they made during their period of time,
we need barley, rye, and we need corn.
-Are you Clint? -Yes, sir.
-Tim Smith. -Pleasure.
Even though I've got all these ingredients back in Virginia,
I've got to get the ingredients
from this area so I can recreate that type of yeast.
We're trying to recreate the log style stilling.
We've got down to where we need
the yeast that we can get from the grains.
Come on in here.
I've got some corn ready to go into a bag.
The type of yeast you use in making whiskey
is one of the biggest factors
on how the final product turns out.
[Clint] I'll get you a bag of corn.
[Tim] I think the yeast is gonna be
the most important part of the mash beer.
[Howard] That's quick.
It's going to allow us to faithfully
recreate Dant's original whiskey.
So this should be good milling.
[Tim] Wild yeast pretty muc exists on everything
in environment, even in the grains.
[Howard] That's why they call it Corn-tucky.
[laughs]
Now, with this Kentucky grai
we've got the native yeast
that J.W. Dant was using.
[sealer whirring]
[Howard] Holy cow.
[Clint] Don't get your finger caught in it.
Yeah. No joke.
Hey, this guy has got what we need.
I mean, he's got corn, he's got rye,
and he had barley growing right here.
So, you can't get no more local than that.
Let's put it right in the truck, Howard.
No worry. I got you.
[Tim] Right now, we've got a history,
we've got a story, we've learned the process.
We've got our three yeast ingredients in the truck.
You know, me and Howard, all we got to do now
is get on the road, get back to Virginia
and go to work, making some yeast,
mashing in, making the still
distilling it, and making some Dant whiskey.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mike] First mash in for the season right here.
[Jerry] Corn liquor.
You're ready to put the corn pot, ain't you?
I'm ready to get the dadgum ball rolling this season, son.
Yeah. This is the start of the season.
Me and Jerry, we're gonna mash in a corn run.
I know we're doing this right here for the first run
but I don't know about you, man,
I can't... I can't afford them grains all year long.
No.
[Mike] Because of the inflation,
everything that's happened in the world,
ingredients that we need is out the road from process.
I'm glad we had a little bit
of that leftover from last year.
We had some corn left over from last year.
We figured, let's go ahead and do that
for the first run of the season,
get some money in our pockets and move on down the road.
All right. I'm gonna dump a little corny corn to it.
[Jerry] You know it'll be hot.
Well hell, let's get... Let's get it hot.
Every time we do this,
it's always a different process.
It don't matter.
It's all going in the same hole, I promise you.
Have you ever got in the car before?
Yeah, several times.
Which door do you get in?
I... Driver side.
Every once in a while, I climb through the back seat.
Well, that don't surprise me in the damn least.
[Mike chuckles]
[Mike] She's rolling, baby.
Set her down, down, down.
Now we're doing the steeping, baby.
-By God, keep stirring it. -[Jerry] Oh, I will.
[Mike] I don't wanna let it stick.
It ain't sticking. I got it.
[Mike] There you go, man. All right.
I tell you what, this is gonna be a good run.
I already feel it.
Yeah, boy.
We got to start this damn season off with a bang, son.
I'm glad you said that.
You know, I've been thinking about something,
you know, we brought old Sollie.
I mean, he should be a one hell of a liquor maker.
Yeah.
You know, if he's gonna be a...
be a part of this,
we let him try this first run, you know.
He knows as much as his ancestors do.
Now, that's gonna do nothing but help us.
All right.
Well, hey, we'll bring him in here.
I wanna see what he's made of.
Popcorn Sutton's son, he may have a trick
up his sleeve that we don't know nothing about.
He's gonna run a recipe that's yellow cracked corn.
-Sugar and water. -[Mike] Sugar and water.
And yeast.
I would say this would be the perfect
little recipe for Solomon to try to run.
Oh, Tommy run right here.
I got it swelled up, ain't it?
Popcorn Sutton's a damn legend for his corn liquor.
Solomon is Popcorn's son,
so I'm thinking this should be fairly easy.
There we go.
Well, it smells like good corn liquor, don't it?
[Jerry] It sure does. Pot's good and hot,
melting that stuff down real good.
[Mike] It is melting.
I haven't had some good corn liquor in a while.
I'd like to try some of it.
Ain't nothing wrong with doing a good
old fashioned run every once in a while.
[Jerry] Yeah.
We know plenty old-timers here drink it, won't we?
And grab our magic dust to it.
Magic dust right here, brother.
I'll tell you what, I'm excited to see
how this whole thing will work out for us.
Yeah, me and you, both.
We've got the first run.
The corn run, mashed in.
-[Jerry] You got it? -[Mike] I got at it.
We're gonna bring Solomon in here
and see if some of his old daddy's tricks
rubbed off on him.
-[Jerry] Good job. -[Mike] Yeah.
Let's get out of here.
Start of the season, baby.
[banjo music playing]
[Josh] I ain't trying to be negative.
I just needed to get away from this right here
because I already knew what don't work.
I do rigging for a living.
I know Josh is really feeling pressure,
but he's gonna have to get a grip
and he's gonna get it fast.
We've got work to do.
I've been trying to chew on something.
Tell me if you think this will work or not.
We got all this mountain laurel
that goes all the way around the creek.
What if we cut a bunch of mountain laurel
way up the creek make up there where it's out of sight,
nobody's gonna notice any difference.
What if we make that mountain laurel
like a... Like a gate almost?
I mean, in a worse that it won't work.
-[Henry] Well, it sounds good. -[Tickle] Yeah.
-Let's do it. -It sounds good, Josh.
You know, Josh is the one
who's going to be staying there.
I think we need to concentrate
on what makes him happy,
should make the rest of us happy
because he's the one taking the highest risk here.
Josh has got a pretty good idea.
We're gonna take a lot of this mountain laurel
and we're gonna put it on ropes.
[Josh] Put a screw in that tree right there.
[Tickle] All right.
Tie all the limbs together inside.
But hopefully they'll all stay together
and be able to drag it right out of the way.
By using a rope, we're able to not only camo
the still site in, but able to take it down.
All right. Let me see that rope.
Now while we're working we have a much better view
around the still site where if the laws comes in,
we'll have a much better chance to getting away.
There we go.
We're gonna see what it's gonna look like.
Don't they look good.
[Tickle] They look good as I can get it.
We keep going with it, I think this is actually
-gonna do what we want. -[Henry] Me, too.
It don't have to be completely,
completely solid.
Actually, that's thick enough.
[Tickle] Fine idea there, Josh.
I'm right here in a good spot.
Now come back with an idea.
[Henry] What do you think?
I think it's almost time to try it.
[Henry] Oh, yeah. Let's unhook it.
We're taking it down.
Hold it tight, keep them tight.
-Now just-- -[Josh] Now it just fell right over.
[Tickle] Hey, we can just leave it lying there.
[Josh] Yeah.
We've got this thing put together
that Josh came up with.
-I could see. -Uh-huh.
That's my main concern, so I can see something
coming through there.
That worked good.
And he's unbelievable.
[Josh] If you didn't know that pot was there,
you'd never walk by there and say it was there.
[Henry] You can't see anything.
It blends in perfect.
Exactly what I was hoping it would do.
Josh looked like he's feeling a whole lot better.
I just hope he can keep it together
because we got a lot of money to make.
[country music playing]
[Howard] Rye, corn, and barley.
This is gonna make the yeast.
That's what they say.
So, Howard and I, we spent some time in Kentucky
learning about log distilling
and a little bit about the Dant family history.
We do have a written down recipe
of a spontaneous yeast
from J.W. Dant himself.
We picked up some corn, some barley,
and some rye grown in Kentucky.
Those grains is gonna bring us that yeast
that they was using in that particular region.
Okay. Get one bucket.
I can't read cursive, Tim.
-You can't read cursive? -No, everything...
You know, what is that?
Which?
[Howard] it looks like it says legal.
-[Tim] Nope. -That's L-E-G-A-L.
Howard, listen, take six gallon
of boiling hot water.
I've never made no yeast in my life.
I usually just take a pack, open it up,
pour it in, and I'm done.
I mean, this is something I've never seen before.
I'm kinda curious to see if it's even gonna work.
[narrator] Wild yeast is present on everything
in the environment, including grains.
To make J.W. Dant's original recipe,
they need to propagate or gr
enough of the local wild yea
to ferment their mash.
This is accomplished
by cooking a portion of the grains.
Then, once the mixture is cooled,
the remainder of the grains
which are covered in the wild yeast
are added to the pot where they will multiply.
The yeast is what's so special about this Dant recipe.
-Oh, look at it rye, baby. -Mmm-hmm.
So, what did... What I tell you was?
-A quart. -Uh, a quart, a quart of rye.
A quart.
So we're gonna actually try to follow
this recipe word for word
from how J.W. Dant written it down.
All right. There's one quart.
And I think this is actually gonna make
the big difference in the mash bill.
This is a yeast.
We just gotta make it so we can cultivate it.
So we're gonna have corn and rye mixed right here.
What temperature is that?
[Howard] one-six-three.
[Tim] Get your stirring stick ready.
[Howard] My stirring stick stays ready, Tim.
[Tim] Stir it, Howard.
[Howard] Oh, you wanna stir it as you go?
[Tim] I don't want a lump in that.
[Howard] We should automate this process, Tim.
[Tim] What do you mean automate it?
I mean, we should get, like, a robotic arm
who'll just sits here and does this for us.
I got you to do that.
The step by step recipe to make this yeast,
this was something
that was handed down through generations.
[Howard] So, this is the malt and barley.
[Tim] This is the malt and barley.
They stopped using it because it's very hard.
It's difficult to keep this going.
[Howard] This is gonna get like pancake mix up here.
A little thick on there.
After we hit 148,
it killed all that live yeast in there.
Once it cools down, son,
we add a bit of the ground Kentucky grain,
which has the native yeast in it
and this will start the propagation.
It says ready for use in 18 or 20 hours.
[country music playing]
[Mike] This is gonna feel damn weird,
letting old Solomon do this instead of us.
[Jerry] It is gonna be weird.
You know, this season we got some competition in town.
We got Richard Landry
trying to sell liquor in our territory.
Get ready to run?
Oh, yeah. Taste pretty damn good.
But we've got Popcorn Sutton's son.
He maybe an ace-in-the-hole for me and Jerry.
We're deciding to let Solomo
run our first run on our new still that we have.
You know, I'm sure he's got tricks up his sleeves.
Magic touches from, you know, his family.
Something that'll work for u so we can stay
above the competition this season.
[Solomon] Boy, it sure ain't simple
like it used to be, is it?
I don't use all this fancy [bleep]
Take your time. We ain't no hurry.
Just get it together and fire it up.
[Solomon] How do you all lock this thing?
You can tell right off the bat he not real comfortable
or real knowledgeable about the still that we've got.
There's something that goes
between that part and that part there.
I'm guessing it's gonna be this hose right here.
[Mike] He's used to the old style of stills.
Probably what he learned on.
Mmm-hmm.
Why do you all have to build this fancy contraption?
Does this make your process faster or something?
[Mike] It helps. It heat--
There's multiple thing it does.
It heats really fast.
You can mash inside the pot.
It don't scorch it.
He's been taught the old way,
which is nothing wrong with that.
Fire in the hole.
But we need him to be able to step up
and do what me and Jerry does
on an everyday basis all his own,
all by his self.
This thing is a whole lot faster to put together.
[Mike] Yeah, buddy.
[Solomon] It's just like three fittings and it's done.
Now, you don't have to worry about 53 fittings again.
Making this, and putting center blocks on it
so it don't go to the moon or anything.
Right? None of that no more.
Well, fellas, we got steam coming out.
[Mike] We sure do.
There you go.
You know you got to do things a little bit different
to make things a little bit better,
a little bit faster.
There's more competition out there
in these days than it used to be.
If you're gonna stay in the Moonshine business,
you've got to change with the times
or you will go broke.
That's kind of nice and all to have to train
for all that mashing to the still
-and all of that. -[Mike] Solomon--
That saves a lot of time, too.
Hey, you might wanna pay attention.
[Solomon] Oh, she's running.
You've got liquor, brother.
What's it smell like?
Smells like a good corn liquor.
[Mike] Yeah, buddy.
You must have done a pretty good mash.
You got a little spitting going on there.
Do you wanna take my pecker and stick in there?
A what?
My pecker.
[Solomon] Yeah.
Put that pecker in.
It's good luck sticking your pecker in it.
[Solomon] Oh, God.
[Mike] It helped out son, didn't it?
[Solomon] Yeah.
[Jerry] Looks like you got you first jar.
[Solomon] Yeah, buddy.
He's catching the first jar
which is the heads, and he turns around
and pours it right over into a fresh catch bucket.
Why the hell did he just do that
instead of just pitching the heads off?
[Jerry] Sol, I got a question for you.
What's that?
Have you ever been taught about heads?
[country music playing]
You about ready to have a damn joke now?
Why did the golfer bring two pair of pants to the range?
I don't know.
In case he got a hole in one.
[laughter]
Why does the duck have feathers?
To cover his butt-quack.
His butt-quack.
[laughter]
Why did the Oreo go to the dentist?
Oh, I don't know.
He lost his filling.
[laughter]
Solomon, you got any jokes?
On the top of mind, I don't.
I'm usually full of them, though.
Yeah. You're full of something all right.
[laughs]
My teachers always told me I'm procrastinating too much.
I told him you just wait.
[laughter]
Let's get out of here.
He's catching the heads and he turns around
and pours it right over into a fresh catch bucket.
[Jerry] Sol, I've got a question for you.
What's that?
Have you ever been told about heads?
[Solomon] Well, they in that bucket.
If Jerry would have never said a word
he would have poured that second jar on top of them heads.
Pitch them damn heads up through there.
There you go.
Me and Jerry figured, you know,
with him having the last name Sutton,
he would know what he was doing
on running liquor.
[Jerry] It looks good and clear.
But the real test is to...
Is to see it for your own eyes.
And the first rule is to pitch your heads.
Proof it out for us now, Sol.
Tell us what you think we got.
[Solomon] Uh...
About 140, right?
I'd say 145, 150, even.
That's close.
Here's the real test of it there.
That's got damn good corn notes to it.
You know, this liquor came out pretty damn good.
You're close right there to 10 gallon of liquor.
I think we're done, son.
But it's just simply because of our still and our mash.
Just let it run out in that jar and finish off it?
That's right, yup, and kill your fire.
[Solomon] Yeah.
You know, Solomon's a good kid.
I love him to death.
-Shut her down. -[Jerry] Shut her down.
We're good to go.
But he's not gonna be touching our still for a while.
He just don't have the experience
that we thought he had.
[Jerry] Let's get this thing covered back up.
[Mike] Get it covered back up.
[Solomon] Yeah, buddy.
You know, he put methanol into the jars.
We wanna beat our competition, not kill our customers.
[Solomon] Well, let me know if y'all need me
-any time soon or anything. -[Mike] We will.
Me and Jerry might gonna bring you back in for something.
[tense music playing]
[Tim] Now, let's check that yeast.
[Howard] It should be doing
what it's supposed to do by now.
-Yeah. -[Tim] Oh, God.
That's yeast.
[Howard] Yeah.
Mmm-hmm.
Yeah.
Howard and I, we're recreating
J.W. Dant's original log still whiskey.
We obtained a yeast we need
by propagating it from his recipe,
and now we're gonna mash it.
We're just gonna make a small batch.
We're gonna have rye, barley, and corn.
Mmm-hmm.
We've got the barley and we've got corn,
but we don't have enough rye.
We've got to get some more rye.
The rye we need is in the field,
ready to be harvested,
and we're gonna get that right now.
That's the rye field right there.
So we got plenty of rye.
[Tim] Field of dreams, old boy.
[Howard] Let's go right down and then see what happens.
[Tim] Cut down some damn rye here.
We're doing all of this just to make a small batch.
They did this as a way of life.
They was doing this every day,
cutting this stuff by hand and harvesting it.
This is a lot of work just to get the seeds.
[Howard] I'm gonna keep thrashing,
so the cows come home.
All this thrashing to get this little bit
of rye in here, all this cutting.
If I had to do this every da
just to make alcohol, I'd be sober.
-You reckon that work? -[Howard] I think it work.
I mean, that's as fresh as you can get.
Yeah.
That's what I'm talking about.
-[Tim] Yes, yes. -Oh.
Oh, I can say I've done it.
And I can also say for certain
that I don't wanna do it again.
We did enough hard work just to get the grain
and get it back to where we wanna work it.
All we gotta do is grind it up, the rye,
the barley, the corn,
maybe an hour and we're done
Hit that button and turn this thing on.
Well, we got this mash bill from the Dant family.
It's pretty simple mash bil
because we're using the same grains as I do,
as in climax Moonshine is barley, rye, and corn.
But this is gonna be something special.
We've got spontaneous yeast
with the same grains that came from Kentucky.
This is gonna be a total different mash bill
that I've ever did.
The yeast is what's so special about this Dant recipe.
[upbeat music playing]
We've got a lot to do.
We haven't even found a log yet,
but we've got to hustle to build this log still
before this mash works off.
Let's go to the sawmill and get a piece of wood.