Whoa!
One spirit commands high prices in the backwoods.
Got a little peach on the nose.
Yet it's rarely found on liquor store shelves.
It's freaking me out.
Authentic peach brandy is dry, not sweet.
It did look just like what a good peach brandy mash should look like.
Once, more popular in the old south than whiskey.
I'm just going to offer you a litt advice. Just be careful and don't overdo it.
You can overdo this real easy.
Its seasonal ingredients are too costly for mass production.
When so we start drinking?
But after decades in the shadows, distillers are reviving
this colonial spirit.
And bringing lost recipes back to life.
It don't matter what they put in it.
It better taste like peach brandy.
Across the country, a handful of amateur distillers
are heirs to a centuries old tradition.
Some operate on the legal side,
others practice their craft beyond the reach of the law.
Now they'll face off to earn their place
in america's liquor making legacy.
Gotta switch strategies now, after digger's advice.
Judged by three legendary moonshiners,
it's really, really complex.
And the master of backwoods brandy.
We're kind of oldschool.
Our peach brandy don't have all that extra in it.
They'll go head to head in a series of challenges.
Everyones still got their fingers?
-To determine... -Ooh, that bucket's hot.
...Who has what it takes...
If you make it less than a hundred proof,
the spirit will come after you.
...To be named...
Can add a little bit of funk to it.
...Master distiller.
-Well, now... -That's impressive, right there.
Moonshine
roaming man
fellas, I want to welcome y'all to master distiller.
My friend mark ramsey. Tim smith. Of course, I'm digger.
You're here to make us a little peach brandy.
True, peach brandy is a dry, oak-finished spirit
that dates back to america's first settlers.
Traditional hard cider ingredients,
apples and pears, only flourished in the north,
so resourceful southern colonists
used the peaches that had been planted by spanish explorers
a century earlier.
The new peach cider called mabi turned quickly in the warm climate.
To make it last, they distilled it in copper pot stills,
storing the resulting high proof alcohol in oak casks.
Aged peach brandy became a favorite in colonial cocktails
such as kentucky's original mint julep.
And by the seventeen eighties
it was worth more than any american spirit.
But the high price was its downfall.
Grain-based whiskey was cheaper to distill.
And the spent mash doubled as livestock feed.
By prohibition, heritage peach brandy recipes
survived only in backwoods stills.
With few distillers daring to resurrect this iconic american spirit.
If we name you master distiller,
you're going to win a limited run of your liquor
in sugarland's distilling company.
Now all of y'all are equal standing here.
You get the same stills.
You get same house smashed peach base.
So only thing that's going to differ you at the end of the day is,
what skills you bring.
When it's said and done, winner of this round,
first barrel picked choice goes to you.
You will pick your barrel for aging, you leave.
Just bear in mind what we base our decision on is the appearance,
and the marketability of your liquor.
So we want to see your best.
You got four hours to run this mash, bring us your finest jar.
And your time starts... Now.
Like the southern clonists before them,
the distillers will transform the turn cider mash
into clear, high-proof peach brandy
that will be oak-aged in the second elimination round.
Doug's the only one who's got a strainer.
Ain't nobody else is using a strainer.
Tyler's got a straining bag down inside the neck of his case.
They're putting their solids down in there.
They are putting everything in there.
That's better for taste but, boy, it makes it
easier to scorch.
How much volume to put in that thumper? I've never used a thumper.
I kind of put through in two buckets.
Warning buckets.
Tyler, he works in a legal distillery.
More than likely he's probably got a bigger set up than this.
Oh, yeah, he's used to flipping switches.
Flipping switches and things just going.
Kalamazoo
my name tyler glasser and I'm from kalamazoo, michigan.
Right now, I'm currently the head distiller at a small craft distillery
called green door distilling company.
Got an art history degree and want to design,
so I'm very creative person.
After art school, I bartended for ten years.
And that's where I channeled my creativity at the time,
creating craft cocktails, and then, distilling was just one step deeper.
If it'll ferment, I'll probably try to run it through a still.
Distilling is kind of a multi generational thing
passed down from family to family.
Recipes like that, I had to create my own peach brandy and stuff.
I'm kind of starting with a blank slate.
I think winning master distiller
would just be an incredible boost
to my validation as a young craft distiller.
And make sure I belong in the same room as all of these awesome distillers.
And if that fills up with peaches,
he's not going to be able to get it out.
Got myself in trouble here.
You bust that you know you're in a pickle then, don't ya?
And if you get your arm stuck in there, we may have to call somebody else.
Oh, christ! It's a birdie.
There you go, you worked it out of there.
Kind of like birthing a baby, wasn't it?
Kinda like pulling a calf.
Smell pretty good.
Well, leo, he owns a brewery.
My name is leo sawadogo. I live in beautiful montclair, new jersey.
I'm the head brewere to my brewery and the founder
alongside my wife.
I learned to brew for my mom.
She's the one that taught me everything about brewing.
I was born and raised in the city called ouagadougou
in a country called burkina fasso. That's in west africa.
Brewing in burkina is being handled by women.
My plan is to go back to west africa and help this women
and teach them how to make alcohol.
Because alcohol is more valuable.
Not only for drinking, but you can do so many different things
with alcohol.
Beer making and moonshine making
not much difference.
Anything that go wrong.
Any beer flavor that I don't like I'd more distill.
That's what I'm talking about.
My recipe of prach brandy is, I put my heart and soul into that recipe.
Winning the title of master distiller
would prove to me that I really have a good product.
It would allow me to open a distillery.
Doug, he's a retired mechanic, so he may have the skills to work on it
if something needs to be.
But he's a mechanic. We know he's got the patience for it.
Man, you're sweating!
My name's doug taylor, and I'm from the east side of cincinnati.
I was a mechanic for about forty years.
I actually ride with the ayola's mc out of cincinnati.
And my nickname in the club is actually shiner.
And them guys, they love every bit of my moonshine I bring to them.
My skills as a mechanic has actually added into me for designing my own still.
Now this is the hospital.
I call my still at home the hospital.
One of the reasons for that is, you take a couple of drinks
and it will cure anything that you got.
My great uncle used to make some of the best liquor in town.
I'm going to give it my best, and, hopefully,
my family tradition will come out and show.
Whoa!
-There you go. -Alright.
A friend of mine told me. Says, "you ain't a moonshiner, if you ain't got coon pecker."
and he gave you one?
-Yeah. -That's cool.
Such a good friend.
Now we're having a party.
I just feel like I'm feeling a lot of heat
I'm making sure, my gaskets are on all thw way.
Oh, you'll feel heat from the copper.
Just the copper.
You'll feel the heat coming off the copper.
Then flames come around the still.
I'm used to using a six hundred-gallon hybrid still.
Never a little, tiny, full copper still.
Direct heat.
I gotta go on pretty full bore down there.
I got that gas going.
It's hot. I'll turn it down when it gets one thirty.
These stills are brand new to them,
they're not what they've got at home, I'm sure.
Probably could distill it pretty fast, I think, in a thumper.
-Let's get up, pretty quick. -Yeah.
I've never distilled with a copper still.
Everything is totally different.
I was walking into a new territory for me.
I think I'm starting to feel something.
Oh, that's your water?
Yeah, this one's kinda hard to get adjusted?
I've never run on a copper still, I always use stainless.
But a stainless takes a lot longer to heat up,
so it's going to be a big trial for me.
Copper, though, more expensive than stainless steel,
has been the preferred material
for making stills for centuries.
During fermentation, the yeast and the mash produces alcohol
along with better-tasting sulfur.
When the mash is distilled, the sulfur reacts with copper
to produce copper sulphate,
which sticks to the still
removing it from the alcohol vapors
to produce a smoother-tasting final product.
It's a waiting game.
But because copper conducts heat at a rate
twenty times greater than stainless steel,
proper temperature control is essential to prevent scorching.
Well, we got liquor flowing.
Keeping that hot.
It shouldn't be hot like that.
You know, for how quickly run--
I mean, down here, it's okay.
But, I mean, right in here, she's pretty hot.
These small stills are different animals.
They're more panicky, ain't they?
They leave way less room for error.
Very touchy. Very sensitive still.
Oh, yeah. That's some big bubbles in there
if you make it less than a hundred proof,
the spirit will come after you.
You're running pretty fast.
Are there, like, seven-eight jars in here?
When do we start drinking?
The fact that the peer pressure here,
they're running a race against each other.
They're in a race against the clock.
I'm on my twelveth jar.
Boys, are you seeing all of them jars?
I'm good. I'm just antsy.
Just turned his still wide up and just ran.
What the hell's going on?
I was going a little too fast.
About an hour in, when I was already...
Probably had a jar or two.
[bleep] that's, like, 150.
[narrator] a brewer, a legal distiller,
and a motorcycling moonshiner
are finishing a house run of peach brandy.
-[tyler] is that the good stuff, leo? -[leo] that's excellent stuff.
[narrator] the one with the best jar of the dry,
high-proof raw spirit will win first pick of equipment
to rapidly age their brandy
and complete the colonial classic.
[digger] I hope that all this tastin', tastin', tastin',
has not confused his palate.
[mark] and alcohol will cloud good judgment.
Oh, I think we got her here.
It's all good and clear.
[digger] don't get into that too much.
It blows my mind.
You get to a point, I wouldn't be able to determine
which one I really wanted to bring forward.
You know, I know they're nervous,
and time's getting short,
but there's such a thing as messing with it too much.
Hope you don't pick up the wrong jar.
[mark] we've had it happening...
More than once.
-All righty, sir. -Doug.
All right. Good. Thank you.
Here comes tyler.
That's the one, huh?
Here comes leo.
-That it, leo? -Liquid of the goddess.
-Yeah? -Yes.
All righty, buddy.
Tim, pour some liquor.
-Let's get to it. -All right. Well, this is leo.
-That's leo? -Yeah.
Good, clear jar.
[mark] now, they didn't none of them temper with any water, did they?
[tim] no. I don't think none of them did.
[mark] I don't think they did either.
[digger] got a good brandy nose on him.
[tim] what the hell?
Different smell than I'm used to.
I think it just has a mean bite to it.
I think he's got some of his heads in.
The first one's never gonna be totally perfect.
[tim] over there, he's got a table full of jars.
I think he's got the wrong jar.
That'd make a bulldog break his chain.
-Movin' on. -[tim] mr. Tyler here.
[tyler] it's so many out there,
I had 12 different jars.
Hope it's not too harsh.
It's not unpleasant, but I can tell the way
-it flashes across my tongue, it's hot. -I mean, it's warming.
Movin' on.
Think doug is gonna make a difference?
I hope he does.
[tim] I gave you a little bit more there.
I hope it's good.
It's gonna be kinda interesting to see what the judges think.
Still fiery.
And it's got peach on the back end,
there's a aftertaste.
I think it's good.
All right, I'ma go fetch 'em.
Gentlemen, welcome back.
[mark] before we send you off
to the barrelhouse to choose your wood
with tickle,
I'ma gonna tell you the order that we've decided
to rate your liquor.
Leo, very clear.
Good high-proof.
Taste on yours was a little bit harsh.
It's a little fiery
going down the goozle.
[digger] you made some fine brandy.
Unfortunately, I think it's over there.
[leo] I try it, and it was smooth,
and I thought probably I brought the wrong jar.
I was thinking, "I see that jar's still there."
I'm gonna find it.
And, hopefully, the judges like it.
[mark] tyler,
yours was just a little less fiery.
It still had plenty of fire in it.
Doug,
yours, by far, nice, nice, clear jar.
And the taste, it's good.
Doug, you're gonna get the first pick of the wood.
Tyler, you'll go second. Leo, you'll go third.
You pick your tools that you need to disassemble
and toast the wood that's in your barrel.
Take your jars that you have, age it up,
and let's, let's move forward.
Tickle!
-Did you call me? -Yeah, man.
You know where that barrelhouse is?
Yeah. You know what? I can't think of a better place to get wood
to age brandy than a barrelhouse.
-Yep. -[steve] y'all ready?
-Ready. -Y'all come on with me.
This is gonna be fun.
[narrator] rapid aging is a technique used
by backwoods shiners
to speed up the barrel aging process.
Instead of putting the liquor into charred oak barrels,
they put charred oak chips into the liquor itself.
As the liquor soaks into the oak chips,
the caramelized sugars in the wood impart sweetness,
and the carbon in the charred wood
filters out sulfites and fusel oils.
The effect is similar to barrel aging,
except the much greater surface area of the oak chips
speeds up the process,
resulting in a peach brandy with a smooth, savory flavor
and rich brown color in just a matter of days.
Using barrels and tools from the stillhouse,
distillers will make their own oak pieces to rapidly age
their distillate from the first round.
Gentlemen, we got oak barrels. We have goggles.
We have everything that you will need in there.
Doug, you're up first.
You have five minutes.
[doug] I'm hoping with some of the woods that I'm gonna use...
Then I'm gonna reblend a few of my chars,
that I'll be able to take that
and see if we can't get a better flavor for the judges.
-[steve] hey, damn, doug's coming out already. -[leo] he did it.
You got everything you needed in one minute?
I think I've got everything I need.
That means, tyler... It's your turn.
Tyler, you have three minutes.
[tyler] this next challenge, I am definitely gonna try
to bring them something better.
The wood is very forgiving.
We all know that in the whiskey world.
The wood hides a lot of mistakes,
but I'm hoping I can at least create something better.
Hope he leave me something.
-[steve] yeah, he's in there for a while. -Yeah.
-He might not have left you anything, leo. -[laughs]
-okay, I think I got it. -[steve] all right, tyler.
-He might have left you something, leo. -He might.
-All right. You know what that means, leo. -[leo] yes.
That means you've got three minutes.
[leo] there's multiple way of rapid aging.
You wanna have the flavor
and all the sugar that the wood have,
in order to taste perfect.
[steve] all right, leo!
See... You believe you got everything you need?
I got everything.
[steve] okay, gentlemen, let's go do this.
I'm ready to taste some of this stuff.
[digger] y'all are gonna make you some chips to aid your liquor with.
You're gonna have two hours to disassemble these barrels,
get it in the fashion you want,
that's gonna be small enough to go into your jars
to rapid age this liquor.
Instead of them putting the liquor in the barrel,
they're just gonna put the barrel in the liquor.
[digger] but what we expect to come to our table
is some fine, rapid-aged peach brandy.
Your two hours is gonna start now.
[mark] he's about to make some headway there, doug.
[leo] my plan is to find a great jar,
and then finally, put it to age,
and bring it back to the judge.
Everyone still got their fingers?
[steve] we definitely got some charring going on over here.
[tim] yeah, well, he's doing it right. He got the little sticks.
-[steve] the more surface area you got right there... -Yeah, yeah.
...That's charred, the faster it's gonna char
and the better job it's gonna do.
[doug] aging my moonshine, yeah, that's one of the things I do know.
Been doing that for a little while now,
and it turns out pretty good.
They don't need a horrible amount of charring on 'em.
[digger] when you char wood really, really bad,
and don't rinse it, put it in the liquor.
What you end up with is something that...
You know how a house fire smells after you get it extinguished,
and it stinks?
That's what that liquor tastes like.
I'm gonna toast and char the chips,
try to get somewhere in the middle ground.
Get those good oak notes from the char,
but also those toasty kind of mellower notes
to get a good-tasting char.
[tyler] ooh, that bucket's hot.
I'm just hoping I can create something that's better
than what I started with,
that I can use that oak and that wood
to at least hide some of those early mistakes.
Tyler, where you at with your, brother?
I'm pretty happy with how this is probably gonna go,
but I'm gonna do another jar with, like,
-really heavy char on it... -Uh-huh.
...And maybe one with toasted,
that I might kind of come in the middle and make something...
You, uh, rinsing your chips for a little bit
before you put it in the liquor you wanna keep?
I have not been.
You, uh, rinsing your chips?
I have not been.
[narrator] a craft distiller,
a seasoned shiner, and a brewer-turned-liquor maker
are all gauging their best jars
of their house-made peach brandy.
You might wanna consider that.
Okay.
It'll save you a lot of heartache in the end.
I've gotta switch strategies now, after digger's advice.
I never rapid aged before at the distillery or anything,
so it's a whole new ballpark.
I've often said if you don't learn something making a run of liquor,
did I really make that run of liquor?
[leo] that smell, it's incredible.
What I'm doing, instead of doing one jar, I'm doing the second one
just in case I back the first one out.
-How you feeling back there, leo? -I feel great
good deal.
I'm just gonna offer you a little advice.
It's not that alligator char that really mellows the liquor and gives it the flavor.
-It's that toast of the natural sugars. -[leo] right, exactly.
The sap in the tree that give it the color.
-That's right. -Just be careful and don't overdo it.
'cause you can overdo this real easy.
[doug] hopefully this right here will be the jar.
[man] yeah, you look like you've already got some good color over there.
Then I took a few pieces out.
Put a few of those just regular ones in it too.
[tyler] so okay, I'm not going to keep looking at your jars.
It's freaking me out.
Usually all's you need is about enough wood
for the palm of your hand to put into a jar.
In that case, that's reassuring.
[digger] all right, gentlemen.
Time's up. Set those jars down.
It's time to leave everything else up to mother nature.
But we're going to let that sit overnight.
Come back here early in the morning, let y'all strain your liquor out,
get it in a jar, bring it to us.
[digger] welcome back, men.
You ran your liquor and put your little oak on it.
You gonna tamper that liquor down a little bit and blend you another bottle.
We don't care how dark or how light it is.
Today someone will be eliminated.
You only got 30 minutes,
but use that time wisely.
Your time starts now.
[jeremy] for the final blend, distillers must present a flavorful aged spirit
that best matches a traditional colonial-style peach brandy
at a minimum of 80 proof.
I'm gonna go back to this jar
and try to get to the color and the taste that the judges probably want.
I think I can redeem myself.
Leo has two, doug has two.
-And tyler over there has four. - [man] tyler's got four.
My plan is to re assess all of my jars
and to create a lower proof, getting it down to, like 90
just to get a little more smoothness coming through.
Looks like he's blending now, and filtering at the same time.
Well, I'm going to tell you something about filtering, especially in peach brandy.
Now moonshine, you could do this, but in peach brandy you'll filter your flavor out.
Ten minutes, ticked off the clock, boys. You got 20 minutes.
I'm looking at doug's, man. It looks good from here.
Well, I'll probably temper it with some of the tails.
I don't like adding water to my stuff.
I like using what comes out of the still,
makes it a lot better and a lot better-tasting.
They keep tasting and smelling and all that.
I'm gonna bring one over here to the table.
It looks like we got us a jar.
[man] we got a turner-inner. [man] all right.
Tyler. Leo, you got 15 minutes. Take all the time you want. No hurry.
[digger] here comes leo.
Yes, sir. Leo, come on up with your jar.
-Yes, sir. -Oh, that's beautiful honey color. Beautiful honey color.
[digger] nine minutes, tyler.
-Take all the time you want. -As long as it's within nine minutes.
[man] that's a good-looking jar.
Good luck.
-Thank you. -[man] good luck.
This is mr. Doug.
It's nice and clear.
-[man] all right. -I do get a big, heavy
vanilla and cinnamon in there, right off the bat, on the nose.
[man] yeah.
And this is really a good brandy.
-Good run and brandy. -I got a bite that the fruit's a little high on this.
[man] followed by the 115.
I think mine down about 100 on some peach brandy.
So far, it's the best liquor we've tasted.
-So far, but it's the first. -We got leo.
-[man] it's not as dark. -I don't get no cinnamon or vanilla,
but I get citrus notes there.
But now he's actually improved his flavor a tremendous.
Yes, it has.
There's nobody that did this smooth,
but it's a little lower proof than what I would like.
Though it is way easier on your tongue.
Oh, it is smooth.
-Within this. -It's a good drink, and low proof liquor.
-[man] let's shoot with tyler. -[man] let's see what tyler's got going on there.
It's pretty good on the nose, boys.
Real light on the nose.
-Well, now. -That's impressive, right there.
It's a little weak on the flavor profile, but it's pretty doggone smooth.
Tyler got a strong bite, even though it's 100 proof.
In my opinion, a little bite's good.
You know you're drinking down liquor instead of lemonade.
I think it hit the mark on the proof, it hit the mark on looks.
But I think he filtered his taste profile out of the jar.
-[jeremy] coming up... -Very clean liquor.
-[jeremy] softened flavors and a hard blow. -But unfortunately...
We've got to let one of you go home.
[jeremy] a brewery owner turned home distiller,
a legal liquor maker, and a motorcycling moonshiner
have turned in their best jars of rapidly-aged colonial-style
peach brandy, but only two will move on to run their own signature recipe.
First off, I want to commend you all. Every one of you did a great job.
Well, leo, you went tremendous with this right here.
I mean, it's incredible, the taste profile that you created from what you had yesterday.
You know, yesterday I would not have bought your jar.
Today I would drink your jar.
I do think it's a little bit low proof.
I like a little bit higher proof, because if I want to make a cocktail
out of it or something, I got something I can work with.
Right now I can just drink it.
Tyler, very clean liquor.
You filtered it very well.
But with peach brandy, there's a such thing as overfiltering.
You can lose some of your flavor profile, but it's still got a good taste to it.
You could drink that straight out of the freezer, or you could mix it.
Doug, I think your jar has the nicest color of the three.
It looks like it's been aged a long time.
The profiles are for the smell and the taste.
Yours is... Yours is really pretty proofy.
I mean, I'm a-thinking 115, maybe 110.
That makes it more versatile.
You can do more things with it.
But unfortunately, it comes the time that we've got to let one of you go home.
Leo, unfortunately, buddy, this jar bought you a ticket home.
-We appreciate you, buddy. -Thank you very much.
You know what you're doing.
You just wasn't the most marketable jar.
-Good luck. -It is what it is. Thank you very much.
In the beginning, my jar was so higher proof
and I thought I might turn it down a little bit.
-Probably, that's probably why. -It's a good drink, though.
-Thank you. -It's a good drink, no doubt about it.
Good drink.
With everything that I learned here, I'm excited to go create a distillery.
So this is, it's just the beginning for me.
All right boys, you're down to two.
That means that you've got a 50% chance of going home now.
This is the time in this game that you're going to show us your skills with your mash.
You've got one hour to build it,
five days to let it firm in.
After that, we're running some liquor.
We want to see your best.
You've got one hour, starting now.
The thing about it is, it don't matter what they put in it.
It better taste like peach brandy.
You know, tim and I, we're kind of old-school.
-All peach brandy don't have all that extra in it. -Yeah.
[jeremy] tickle set out to learn heritage peach brandy recipes
from veteran outlaw henry law.
-Brandy season. -Brandy season.
We need to get it going 'cause the peaches are starting to get soft.
[jeremy] law is a legacy franklin county shiner who's family has used
traditional backwood brandy techniques for generations...
-Damn good. -Sounds like what? Sounds like...
Sounds like money.
[jeremy] to create their famously-smooth clear liquor.
It's a family tradition, and I'm glad I'm right here keeping it on with you all.
[jeremy] following in this tradition for the final round,
distillers will mash in their peach brandy recipes from scratch
and present their signature spirit to the judges unaided.
My peach brandy today is going to be kind of, pulling from eastern flavors.
I got about 30 pounds of michigan-grown peaches in there,
20 pounds of michigan sugar, and then I went totally crazy with it
and added lemongrass, star anise, ginger.
Bet you guys never used umeboshi plums before.
What did you say that is, tyler?
[tyler] japanese salted fermented plums.
Gonna add a little bit of funk to it.
Damn, I was always under the impression
you wanted to keep the funk out of your mind.
[all laughing]
oh, yeah, that's tasting great.
My signature mash is canned peaches.
Makes it a little bit sweeter.
I use regular peaches.
It's going to have honey in it.
[tim] did you make that honey?
-No, no, I got it from a friend of mine. -Got it from a friend?
Yeah.
Then I throw in a little bit of cinnamon,
little bit of vanilla in it.
And the big kicker, instead of using regular sugar,
I'm putting brown sugar in it.
Give it a little bit of rum flavor to it.
Looked like a big old peach cobbler. [laughs]
[tyler] how's it going over there, doug?
-It's getting there, buddy. -Good enough to win?
I think so. [laughs]
boys, your time's up.
[narrator] if conditions are right during fermentation,
the yeast will consume the sugars and starches and the mash
releasing alcohol as a byproduct.
But the effects of fermentation on pectin,
a starch found in the cell wall of fruits,
also produces methanol,
a dangerous compound that's harmful in high doses.
So distillers must take extra caution
when it comes time to distill.
[digger] welcome back, boys.
Whatever happens today, somebody's going to be the master distiller.
You're going to run your signature peach brandy.
We're looking for the best.
You got a four hours.
Your time starts now.
Oh, it smells good.
Smells great.
Look, that's a pretty fell around.
Always. Yeah.
It looks just like what a good peach brandy mash should look.
-[mark] yeah. -Yeah, so...
I'm excited about that.
Makes my damn liver throwing a smack right now.
[tim] let me taste some of your mash here.
I mean, tyler over here,
you know, he started lot of spices
that he's added to influence his mash.
You know, that could change everything,
it could be a different ball game.
Well, that's really bold when this is at stake.
[mark] yeah. [tim]yeah.
The more amount of ingredients you got,
the more amounts of chances it is
-to overdo one just lightly. -That's right.
And what is doug doing here now?
-Putting honey in? -Little bit everything.
Hey, doug, you care to tell us
what you throwing in that thumper?
This is from my mash when I originally made it.
[digger] ah.
Hopefully, it'll carry little more of the flavor on through.
Oh, you got some of that good sweet mash in there.
Yeah.
Once he put it, he just put his mash in his thumper as well.
Tyler's charging his thumper with fermented mash,
-so it will have some alcohol in it. -Yeah.
Doug chose to charge his thumper
with unfermented mash,
it won't have any alcohol in it,
so it is a good change.
It'll rob a little of his alcohol.
Yeah, yeah.
That fire underneath that pot is not roaring.
[digger] eating it up slow.
Low and slow is the way to go when it comes to moonshine.
Tyler just got his whiskers trimmed.
I don't wanna see nothing come out of the worm
for an hour and a half a at least.
Yeah.
I got to throw ice cubes on top of that thing to keep it cold.
And I brought my secret luck charm too.
There it is.
[narrator] coming up...
Crank that up.
I barely have the propane on.
[narrator] a slow burn to the perfect peach.
You're the next master distiller.
What did he have?
-Got a little... -Coon pecker.
-Oh... -Yeah, coon pecker.
Oh, yeah, I see it there now.
Was that road kill or intentional kill?
That was a catch and kill.
-Okay. -I'll call them volunteers.
Yeah.
[tim] I got a roadkill one time off the road,
took it in the hospital and thinking
as I was going to open it up and I stuck the knife in
and it been dead for a couple of days.
And it done blew up with a lot of that gas in
and, you know, when it went poof like that, you know,
come out into the kitchen.
-My wife said, don't do that again. -Yeah.
And then and then he found out it was a girl coon.
[all laughing]
-it's heating up now. -[tim] so he's really done
jumped ahead.
[narrator] it's a midwestern match up as a michigan
craft distiller faces off
against an ohio shiner
to bring the best original jar
of the southern staple peach brandy.
Crank that up.
[tyler] I barely have the propane on.
Oh, we're getting liquor.
Pretty stream you got there, doug.
Damn, coon pecker would've helped me out here,
this damn flows like in the middle of my pan.
I'm getting peaches, thank god.
How are you feeling, doug?
[doug] I don't know.
-[chuckles] -[tyler] you don't know?
You getting nervous about, like, flavors?
One hour left, guys.
[doug] hoping the cinnamon's not too much,
and overtakes the peach in it, so...
I'm trying to get into my tails where I can proof it down with that,
and if not, then I'm going to have to use
the spring water.
I usually don't like using spring water.
I like using what comes right out of the still.
I'm feeling pretty good
about my tails,
so, I'm at the end of the run.
The umeboshi didn't come through nearly as much
as I kind of wanted it to, but I use such little
'cause I was afraid of overdoing that flavor.
But, uh, it's kind of like a whisper in there...
Ten minutes.
Get it bucked up.
[tyler] I think I'm gonna kill this.
Think I've got enough to work with.
-Here comes doug. -[digger] here comes doug.
All right.
That's your jar, man.
-[doug] I hope so. -All right. [chuckles]
-all right, brother. -Thank you, good luck.
[doug] thank you.
He keep drinking that, then he'll make it over to the table.
[sighs] bring it in here, big man.
-All right. -All right, tyler.
-Let's see what you got. -[digger] two seconds to spare.
[laughs]
hmm, that's tyler.
Got a little peach on the nose...
-Yeah. -Got a lot of alcohol on the note.
Mm-hmm.
Finish is peachy.
Got that good alcohol bite and finish is real nice.
It lingers on the tongue a long time.
-It does, yes. -Almost like...
It's complex, that's star anise.
-Yeah. -It comes in hot and finishes kind of sweet
and temporary, really.
Why do I need pepper in peach brandy?
It's not something you normally find in a peach brandy.
I thought about playing it safe
and just making a peach pie kind of thing,
but that's not my style and so I had to just...
Lay it out there.
Well, you know, when they first started their run,
we were talking about the complexity
of tyler's recipe.
-Yeah. -Yeah, I was telling y'all that,
you know, that's just...
Makes it that much easier for one ingredient
to overpower something.
And I think that's what he's done with his anise.
What people a lot of times failed to get
is when you're putting something in there
that's going to complement that
peach flavor, it's got to be subtle.
It's really, really complex.
This is doug's.
-That's nice. -It's got more fruity.
-Mm-hmm. -At least on the nose.
Yeah, it's got fruit.
This right here.
This is tasting like a medicine.
It's sweet.
-You know. -Get your alcohol bite,
but it's still sweet in the end.
It's got more peach flavor in it.
In my opinion, than what tyler's has got.
I agree, he's got something else in there.
You got honey and cinnamon.
That's it, that's the cinnamon.
But it's smooth, the heat I'm getting
is coming in afterwards.
This is really good.
Yeah, it's smooth. Yeah.
Are we in agreement?
I think we're good.
I'm glad we get fellows who see it the same way I do.
[digger] welcome back, man.
We finally came to our decision.
Now, tyler,
I'm getting a note of star anise in here.
It's a little different peach brandy than I've ever had,
but again, you was asked to do
your interpretation of peach brandy
-and... -It was a very hard decision for me,
to not play it safe
and not go with like a traditional,
I was, like, I fought it in my head for weeks,
-like... -I can imagine, I can imagine,
but very, very good.
Well done. You.
Your flavor profile was really good,
I got notes of peach in here, you know,
there was a lot of peach in there,
but, um...
You've also got cinnamon in here.
It's very good.
We based our decision on the one that had
the most peach forward flavor
that carried all the way through.
You had star anise,
the licorice overpowered the flavor
through and through.
You had cinnamon, but it's damn fine liquor.
It's a great job on perhaps both of your efforts.
You have got what it takes.
It's obvious.
And it's my job...
To let you all know who the next master distiller is.
Doug, you're the next master distiller.
Thank you heaps, thank you, guys.
[all] good job.
[tyler] I was very disappointed obviously about the outcome,
but I have learned so much
that I'm going to go on and make some
very cool stuff.
Good job, buddy.
Yeah, I'm still in awe, I'm very proud of myself.
I feel that I'm keeping the honor
from all my family members
that made it back in the days
up in the hills in kentucky
and I'm just keeping it going.
[narrator] next time on master distiller.
-Let's get lit. -Ultra-high proof shine.
That is slap on 180 proof.
It brings big bucks to the back woods,
-[exhales] that's hot. -But this liquor is so hot,
mark, you're going to taste it first, right?
It's dangerous to drink without tempering.
[mark] oh, I ain't scared of it.