[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
[Josh] Is that not too big a fire?
-No, he says more. -Serious?
All my life I've been taught to cook liquor low and slow.
Never have I ever seen moonshine being made
in one hour from start to finish.
It's kinda making me question some of my methods.
[Craig] This cattle fencing
is designed for zapping cattle.
Cattle weigh over 1,000 pounds,
this should easily stop an 800 pound bear.
Ya all right?
Richard and Craig is still making shine here in Maggie Valley.
I'm fed up to here with it.
-Look. Holy [bleep]. -[Jerry] Oh, my God.
[man] This is how we make the moonshine.
He sent me some coordinates, there's numbers here.
-Like 40 minutes. -That looks like it's in the middle of nowhere.
-It don't even look like there's any roads going-- -No, no roads.
This road is like 30 miles from that spot.
-It's like he's hiding up in the mountains. -Yeah.
-That's the way we do it back home, that's perfect. -Okay.
[narrator] High in the mountains of Minas Gerais, Brazil...
-[Josh] Hell, yeah. -[Paulo] Half way up, huh?
...Josh and his guide, Paulo, seek out a backwoods moonshiner, Dojeno,
who's outlawed cachaca has made him a local legend.
[Josh] Damn, this is deep in the mountains.
Dojeno, he's gotta be the real deal.
Like, his place is way off the beaten path.
Super hard to get to, super treacherous.
[Paulo] Holy [bleep].
[Josh] Oh, [bleep]. [bleep].
[grunting] God damn.
[Paulo] This gotta be the place, man.
-Let's check if he's around. -[horn honking]
That's a rough ass road, ain't it?
[chuckles] Yeah, you bet it.
But we got here, huh?
-[Dojeno speaking Portuguese] -[Paulo speaking Portuguese]
-Si. -[in English] Hey, we found the guy, man.
-[Paulo speaking Portuguese] -[Dojeno speaking Portuguese]
[Paulo speaking Portuguese]
[Josh] It's always good to meet a fellow moonshiner.
Tell him I'm very glad to be here.
I got a whole lot of ideas of things I wanna try,
and I wanted to see if he'd kinda turn us loose
with his operation a little bit, like show us how it's done.
-[speaking Portuguese] -[in English] He says, yeah, let's go.
-[Josh] Okay. -Okay?
[Josh] There's a huge market out there for coffee infused liquor.
And if I can learn how to make the cachaca and mix that with a coffee,
I'm gonna have something totally unique.
This is epic.
Holy moly, this thing looks like it's from the '20s or something.
Wow, look at that, that's crazy.
He's got a way different way of doing things than Sabola.
This contraption to grind the sugar cane's way different,
it's running out of a pipe right into a barrel.
This motor looks like a dinosaur.
And this his still over here, look at it,
this thing is mudded in, it's in a mud oven.
It's probably about a 60 gallon still.
It's basically like what we got in America,
he's got basically like a turnip style still.
Goes up, runs down the copper,
runs right into the worm,
and right out the money piece.
I guess this is where he sits and watches it go down.
Anywhere you go in the world, moonshine is moonshining.
This is crazy, this is as backwoods as it gets.
Even though I'm 15,000 miles away from home
when you come out here and you look at his operation,
I know he knows what he's doing.
So this is all pretty simple.
We're gonna put our mash in there, build our fire underneath it,
keeping water running in and outta here, that's simple.
Where's the mash.
He said he was just about to start it
because sugar cane is ready to cut.
Paulo, tell him we don't have no machetes
or any tools to cut sugar cane,
but if he's got some tools and wants to show us what to do, we're ready.
[speaking Portuguese]
-[in English] Let's go. -[Josh] Let's do it.
-[Paulo] Yeah, okay. -Yeah. Show us how, dawg.
[Mike] Don't turn us over, we'll be all right coming in here.
Season's starting to change on us a little bit.
Just a fuzz here, ain't it?
[narrator] In Haywood County, North Carolina,
after deploying some backwoods scare tactics
Mike and Jerry standby to see if Richard and Craig
heed the warning and get outta town.
[Craig] What the hell happened here?
[Richard] I'll tell ya what happened.
The [bleep] bears happened.
[Mike] Richard came in here, started stealing our customers,
and taking money right out of our pocket.
Hopefully, our little bear attack will show Richard he don't belong here
and he'll head his ass back home to Louisiana.
[sighs] Get in here and get 'er done.
You know, you got to give the Devil his due,
Richard Landry makes some damn good moonshine.
There we go.
If we're gonna get our customers back
we're gonna have to step our game up.
Today, we're gonna mash in our elderberry, ginger, and honey recipe.
I'm sure this is gonna kick ass
and be better than anything Richard Landry's ever made.
Boy, shoot. I'm getting too old for this stuff, man.
-You're only as old as you damn feel, brother. -I know, I feel old sometimes.
Me too. [chuckles]
Set her down. There we go.
We'll shave a little of that ginger and let it cook in with this water,
so it'll release all of that ginger flavor into the berries.
[Jerry] You're the cook around here.
You know, I use ginger for a lot of things.
I cook with it, I put it in teas,
it's very good for the stomach's sake.
And it tastes good when it's blended into foods, or drinks, or what have you.
So I'm gonna use this stuff with this recipe
with the elderberry and honey.
I believe it's gonna make a good drink.
-Is there ginger in ginger ale? -That's all it's made of.
Really? Hmm.
Well, that makes sense now.
You like ginger ale?
-Oh, I love ginger ale. -Okay.
Back when I was a kid, we got sick
and the first thing you always hear is,
you know, go get some ginger ale.
Yep, ginger ale.
-That's the only thing we could keep in our stomachs. -Yep.
Mmm-mmm.
[Jerry chuckles]
Feel like a damn hornet doing the two-step on ya, son.
That's what you like, ain't it?
I believe that'll be a damn enough.
We gotta be very, very careful with the ginger
because it can overpower something,
it takes just a little bit, you know, to flavor something with ginger.
So we don't wanna do that.
All right. Good ol' elderberries, brother.
When we was up here picking these things, Mike says this stuff's poisonous,
so it'd really make you sick.
You tell me all this stuff's poisonous
and we gotta cook it down so much, you sure we're all right?
It's just like a lot of these wild things out in the woods,
once you cook 'em down they're good to go.
[narrator] Although raw elderberries are poisonous to humans
and should never be consumed,
cooking the berries breaks down the toxins
to where they're considered safe to eat.
Due to their uniquely tart and slightly sweet flavor
they've been used across Appalachia for centuries
to make jams, pies, and wine.
Whoa!
Probably back that heat down a little bit.
[Mike] It's boiling off the poison.
-[Jerry] Smells delicious. -Is that not pretty, or what?
That's what we're looking for, brother.
Ooh, beautiful.
[Jerry] With this steamer still we can't scorch anything.
So we can put the berries, the sugar, everything right in our pot,
stir it in, let it work off, and be good to go, and ready to run.
[Mike] Good ol' black, black honey.
-[Jerry] Looky there, looky there. -Good to the last drop.
You know, as I'm sitting here with this mash
I'm thinking, "This stuff is gonna be awesome."
[Jerry] I tell ya what, our temperature's down there low enough
-we can pitch that yeast now. -Oh, yeah.
You wanna stir that in for us, Jerry?
I'll get 'er stirred in.
-[Mike] Oh. -It worked a little quicker.
Why, yeah.
This mash, it smells amazing.
I'm real confident that we gonna gain our customers back.
Hopefully, Richard and Craig is on their way back to Louisiana.
Me and Jerry can get back to doing what we've always done,
selling our good liquor.
[Craig] Oh, man. You ready to do this?
-[Richard] Grab that stuff. -I got it.
-Grab that game camera too. -Oh, I almost forgot about it.
[Richard] We gotta bear proof this still site.
Very first run in Maggie Valley, we getting introduced to bears.
Spilled most of our proper mash,
left us with a little bit to run.
Definitely didn't make any money on that.
We get this thing together, this gonna stop them bears.
So now we gotta make sure that no bears can come in here and do this to us again.
It's gonna take a little while to learn what goes on here, but I ain't going nowhere,
bears ain't gonna run me away.
We have bear proofing material,
this is electric cattle fencing,
this is a 10 mile fence perimeter.
Solar powered, we don't have to worry about power run to here.
We're gonna run this thing around the still site
and we're gonna make sure that nothing can walk in.
We got a good game camera right here.
And this should tell us exactly what's going on around the still site.
I'm not gonna let the bears beat me. No, bears can't do that.
We're gonna run one low, we're gonna run one medium,
we're gonna run one this height.
[Craig] This cattle fencing is designed just for that,
for zapping cattle.
Cattle weigh over 1,000 pounds,
this should easily stop a 600, 700, 800 pound bear.
[Richard] There's an artform to this.
[Craig] Make it tight.
[Richard] Them old farmers back in the day, man, they used to do this so good.
[Craig] You know, we're out in the country, they set up posts
every 8 to 10 feet or so.
And you have three levels of wires,
whether it's cattle, humans, or bear,
it has to get zapped if it tries to pass through our cattle fence.
[Richard] All right, we'll hang this control box.
Solar works on cycles, so this cycle should be fall.
It should be able to catch optimum sunlight right here.
Yeah, I just gotta connect this one
and then we can try it. Let's do it.
Ya all right? I can't touch...
[laughing]
I saw you smiling and I was scared to touch you. Man, don't do that.
I was just messing with you, man.
Yeah, man, but we out in the middle of nowhere.
Man, I was just gonna throw your dead body in the creek
-and let you just roll on out. -That's all you gotta do.
I'll wash up somewhere later on.
And we're good.
This should... When we turn this on, this should come on.
I know I gotta test it.
I wanna make sure that a bear would run away just like I would run away.
I don't have a volt meter, so there's only one way to test this thing...
that's to touch it.
This should light our world.
-Oh, yeah. It's working. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Richard] It's charging up.
As soon as I touched this thing, zap!
And it's not really fully charged yet.
So when this thing is fully charged, pow! I doubt I'll be touching it.
All right, game cam next.
This game camera is motion activated.
[Craig] All right, point it this way.
Yeah, that's perfect right there.
Whenever there's motion at the still sight it's gonna record a clip.
That should hit the whole site.
Our mash barrels, our still, and even our little path getting in here.
We got this site bear proofed, I feel so confident that we're not gonna lose mash anymore.
Whoo, man, it wasn't a hard, hard day's work, but it was a good one.
Good and sharp, ain't gonna be nobody talking [bleep] now.
Dojeno brought us into his operation and he's teaching us
everything about how he makes cachaca.
Hot ass job right here.
This is old school, they're growing their sugar,
the sugar cane's got yeast on it.
I'm not standing that close to you son of a guns.
We're gonna grind it up, take the juice, put it in the dang tub the mash is in.
[Paulo] Uh, he says it's enough for one batch.
-That's enough for a batch of shine? -Yeah.
[Josh] Enough?
-[Paulo speaking Portuguese] -[Dojeno speaking Portuguese]
-[Josh] Crank it by hand? -Yeah, yeah.
Is it gonna kick?
-[Dojeno speaking Portuguese] -Ask him if it's gonna kick.
-No, no, it's not gonna kick, but it could just fall out. -[Dojeno speaking Portuguese]
Yeah, okay. Because I'm gonna jerk it off when I crank it, right?
-[Paulo] Could fall off, yeah. -[Josh] 'Kay
Y'all ready? [grunting]
[straining] Yeah, bitch.
[Dojeno speaking Portuguese]
-[Paulo] Hot damn! -Whoa!
-[both cheering] -Got that [bleep] going.
This is my boy right here.
What's his name again?
-Jason. -Jason.
[Richard] And he gonna love this pawpaw.
We ran this pawpaw brandy,
I thought we were gonna get at least 17 - 18 gallons outta this,
but we only wound up with six because of them damn bears.
Nevertheless, what we get for this it's all profit. Everything.
-That's him right there. -[Craig] Yes, I can see him.
-What's up, man? -[Jason] What's going on, bro? How you doing?
-What you got there? -[Richard] That's that pawpaw I told you about.
[Jason] Ah, yeah.
[Richard] I think you gonna like that,
that's gonna sell pretty good around here.
[Jason] That's got a good taste right there. How much you got?
[Richard] I got six gallons of that stuff I'm trying to get rid of, man.
-[Jason] I need it. -You need it?
-We're doing $150 a gallon on it. -[Jason inhales sharply] Mmm.
So now I gotta make a little something, you do $100?
[Richard] Mmm.
I might be able to do $125, that'll leave a little meat on the bone for both of us.
[Jason] $125?
You got six? Let's load 'em up, I'll take all of 'em.
-[Richard] Sounds good. -Sounds like a good deal.
[Richard] Now, tell me something...
-I know you got some good stuff hanging around. -Hey, well, you know...
Hey, it ain't Maggie Valley for no reason, you know, she's the home of moonshine.
-[all laughing] -[Richard] What you got, man?
[Jason] Hold on one second, let me get you a little something.
[Richard] He's always got liquor, man.
[Jason] This is something from right here from Maggie Valley.
Uh, now, this is something different.
You probably never had before, this is, uh, kudzu cantaloupe.
-[Richard] Kudzu, like the vine? -Just like the vine.
[Richard] How much you selling this one for?
-I'd take $25 for it. -I'll take it.
-We can get outta here, we do it. -All right.
I decided to buy a jar of this,
I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna do some brainstorming with it.
-We gonna get them six gallons. -Yes.
[Richard] We gonna get the hell outta here
before somebody come and wonder what we doing back here.
[Jason] I know that's right.
It feels really good to have a payday.
[Jason] Here goes a little something for you.
-[Richard] There ya go. -Yes, sir.
And we're gonna get onto the next one,
we're gonna figure out what's going on with this cantaloupe
I'm telling ya, that's Mike and Jerry liquor right there.
I know for a fact that come from Mike and Jerry.
Cantaloupe kudzu, looks good, man.
[Richard] Well, I'm gonna pull over and taste this stuff, man.
I gotta a little spot right up here.
[Craig] Man, how'd you find this little spot here?
This is my duck-off, man. This is where I come and hide.
All right, moment of truth right here.
-Yeah, I'm gonna taste this. -Let's see what they got.
Smell good, I ain't gonna lie.
Is it good?
It's pretty good. It's strong.
The cantaloupe taste really, really good, man.
It got real bite to it.
Not gonna lie, it's real good.
I can taste the cantaloupe and there's just a little tiny bitterness,
like some tea that wasn't sugared down or something like that.
-But I like it. -That's that kudzu.
I know they know what they doing, but...
I know what I'm doing too and we could make this better.
The reason why this is selling right now is because it tastes like cantaloupe.
Not because it tastes like kudzu, Craig.
What goes good with cantaloupe?
What about cantaloup and strawberry?
I'd have to put some kiwi or something in it to bind that together.
-[Craig] Right. -That'd be too much.
Or maybe a muscadine.
You know what? Thinking about a muscadine, I found a grape.
It's called a possum grape, it's a little, small grape. That'll work well with this.
Grapes are really supple,
but they do give a real pleasant taste off of moonshine.
A cantaloupe and a grape, that just might work.
What's the next move? Do we go--
We go and get some possum grapes, man.
That's what I'm talking about.
-I wanna taste this too. -Yeah.
He's gonna put it in and you, and I'm going to get the pulp out.
[Josh] What I like about Dojenos is we do things a lot of the same way.
The old-fashioned way.
Home grown. Made by hand. Done by hand.
We cut sugar cane with machetes,
we ground it up in a machine,
we got an old school still site, kinda like I would have back at home.
This is as close as it gets to old school moonshining.
Paulo, we make a good team, man.
You didn't know you's gonna be a moonshiner, did ya?
No, never thought about it. Amazing experience.
I wanna do this again.
[Josh] We went in cut sugar cane, smashed it all up,
put the juice in containers, the yeast is already in it.
Awesome.
What's amazing to me is their mash is ready to run in 12 to 16 hours.
It's hard to believe there's that much yeast on that stuff.
Yeah, it was the same at Sabolas.
Thirteen - 14 hours maybe. Tomorrow we're ready to rock.
-[Josh] So we're done? -Yeah. Let's go.
[Josh] What an epic adventure.
[Craig] Man, this cantaloupe, possum grape. Man, this gonna be so good.
[Richard] I know, I can't wait to try it.
I figure it's gonna be one of our biggest hits, hopefully.
Today, we're mashing in our sugar kiss melon and possum grape moonshine.
-[Craig] Is it off? -Yeah, it's off.
[Craig] This was a long walk.
[Richard] I think this is gonna be
an award winning flavor right there.
It's gonna win over customers, it's gonna win over hearts, and it's gonna...
win us Maggie Valley, I think.
This is possum grapes.
It's really, really sweet. It reminds you of muscadine.
This is a sweet honey kiss melon.
This melon looks like a honeydew,
and it tastes like a honeydew and a cantaloupe mix.
When they get wind of this going on around here,
especially when Mike's selling just regular cantaloupes and kudzu,
he's not gonna be able to win when it comes to this right here.
When I mash in fruits, I like to cook.
I like to cook everything, especially something like a cantaloupe.
First, we're gonna cut these things, get the seeds out of 'em,
chop 'em into little pieces, and we're gonna cook 'em up.
This is a honeydew and a cantaloupe.
Man, I promise you this is better than the cantaloupes Mike use.
These sugar kiss cantaloupes are way juicer than a normal cantaloupe.
I mean, once you cut them you can see the juice dripping out of 'em.
I mean, we could squeeze these things
and fill up a gallon jug in no time.
That's gonna break this cantaloupe up real, real good
and we'll be able to do something with it.
Like orange juice, baby.
[Craig] I know them bears smelling this fruit right here.
Yeah, but you know what? We're secure now.
We have fence, we have game cam,
and we're in the ring.
We look like some wrestlers in the ring,
we're wrestling with these cantaloupe right now.
[Richard] After we cut up these sugar kiss cantaloupes,
we're gonna boil them down, get 'em soft, and get 'em ready for our mash.
Cantaloupes are actually very fibrous
and they're being held together by fibers.
It's gonna release the flavors from the fiber.
We're gonna make sure that our yeast
can properly appreciate every part of this cantaloupe.
Let's start dealing with them grapes.
This gonna make a really, really, good, interesting wine
before we even make our moonshine with it.
This gonna be a top-shelf liquor right here
we just stumbled on by accident.
-I think so. -Yep.
This is the kinda stuff you need to take over Maggie Valley.
I love putting things together that people never tried, never had before.
Just swinging it over the pot.
The best jar of liquor in the world has never been tasted yet,
I'd like to be the person that actually does that.
I mean, that's another reason why I came to Maggie Valley.
I mean, down in Louisiana I'm kinda by myself.
But when you're up against stiff competition like Mike and Jerry,
you get a chance to improve on yourself.
Meaning, those guys are really good liquor makers.
There's a lot of sugar in that fruit that we're putting in there,
plus, this liquor sugar from kettling...
That's the good stuff right there.
...this is gonna produce a lot of alcohol.
Now, all we gotta do is top this off with some cold water
and we can pitch our yeast.
This is gonna make some good liquor.
This gonna bust these boys ass.
Them boy's ain't even gonna know what happened to them, man.
Nah, they not gonna know what hit them.
I'm about to put some of this stuff
in the moonshine hall of fame.
Gonna love it.
[Richard] This is gonna be good, man.
We got three barrels of this mash,
and that's just enough for this 150-gallon pot.
We'll be able to run a full run.
Made for a good day, man.
Whew, come back in a few days, see what we got.
[Craig] I'm ready to taste the, um,
the little concoction we got going on
[Richard] I'm ready to eat this.
But I want to taste that.
[Richard] So today we're gonna run this cantaloupe possum grape.
This is a brand new flavor.
It's gonna be a really good moonshine
that we're gonna be able to sell all around Maggie Valley.
[Craig] How it's looking?
Oh!
It's looking like it's finished.
Nice little cap on there.
[Richard] Yeah, it's finished.
Look how that cantaloupe broke up like a watermelon.
Told you we gotta cook stuff,
look at those fibers in there.
This is the run.
I mean, I don't even count our last run as a run.
I mean, it was a barrel and a half.
This is a full 150-gallon run.
This is what I've been waiting on right here.
This smells good,
it look like a rose wine.
This is where we get the chance to make some money
and showcase our skills to Maggie Valley.
-It's on? -Yeah.
[both exclaim]
Damn, Craig, you got that high.
Whew.
That's flavor.
See, this thing's getting hot already
-[Craig] It is. -[Richard] Now we're gonna paste this thing up...
...and we're gonna get ready for it to start cooking
'cause it won't be very long now.
I think that if we're gonna use something to paste,
it should be something that I want to taste.
So I learned how to use cornmeal.
Everybody thinks that you gotta
put a big bead around the still
when you're capping this thing off.
All I'm trying to do is to make a seam,
make a gasket.
This is science, we're not making moonshine,
we're making a better liquor than somebody else.
So we had to put some science into it.
I need affirmation that if they just went at it haphazardly
then that's on them.
We'll go head and seal off this pot.
It won't take long for this thing to get running.
This center-core burner burns really hot and really fast.
Oh, yeah, that's getting... Oh, that's heating up good.
I like this old still.
[Craig] Man, look. It's starting to run.
We got a slight drip.
Oh, there it is. That's it.
Now we finally got liquor,
we finally got a 150-gallon run
that's gonna be ready here in a few hours.
That's a tremendous feeling to me right now
knowing that the last run that we had
wasn't anything at all.
All right, let's try this now.
[Craig] Okay, let's see what we got.
I know we got a masterpiece.
You can taste the sugar-kissed cantaloupe in the front,
and you can taste the possum grapes in the back.
I mean, it's just like Mike's cantaloupe.
Only difference is it's better.
[Craig] It's fruity, it's very fruity.
It's very clear.
I think we hit a home run, man.
I can't wait to get this out there.
We're gonna sell this to the same people
that are buying that kudzu cantaloupe.
If they like that, they're gonna [whistles] love this.
That's about it, Craig.
That's about 17 gallons we got out of here.
[Craig] We're still dripping though, we good?
Yeah, that's just low proof, we ain't gonna deal with that.
Gonna leave this to cool down.
We'll come back and check on it later.
Craig and I are gonna get these four buckets that we just ran,
and we're gonna get the hell out of here,
and we're gonna make some money.
17 gallons.
Wish it was 20.
But beggars can't be choosers, right?
[Richard] Yeah, we got enough right here.
[Mike] I wonder how our damn elderberries are working off.
I hope by the time our mash is worked off,
somebody can buy some liquor from us.
You know, we've got elderberry mash working off,
and that's a damn good recipe.
But regardless how good our recipe is,
if we can't sell it, we can't sell it.
Richard and Craig been in town, it's killing us.
Them two dudes has been a damn booger
turned sideways in my damn nose.
-You know. -Thorn in the ass is what they've been.
[Mike] Yeah.
I wonder if they left town.
I don't know, man. I hope like hell
they got the dad gum message.
Maybe they packed up, and they're on their way back to Louisiana.
But me and Jerry ain't selling nothing at this time,
and if they've gone, our sales should've heated up by now.
I'm really hoping our little visit
is gonna pay off and get them the hell out of town.
It almost seems too sensitive now.
I know, but there's one way to find out.
We need to go back over there,
check it out, see if they're gone,
and if they're not,
we need another gameplan.
I'm sick, and I'm tired of it.
I'm tired of fooling with them.
And if they're not gone,
we gotta do something drastic.
We got bills to pay, we got kids to feed.
-I know. -[Mike] If they're still in there,
they need to get the point that somebody has physically
come in there and done something.
The only damn thing we gotta do
is make darn sure
they can't track it back to us.
It'd be a whole lot easier on everybody
if my and Jerry don't have to escalate this conflict,
they get their crap, get gone,
get out of mine and Jerry's hair,
and everything will be just fine.
Whichever way it may fall, I don't give a damn.
I'm ready to go get it done.
I'm just trying to make some damn money, man.
[Mike] Yeah, me too.
[Josh] Holy crap, I can't believe it.
Everything around here's happening faster.
-[Paulo] We're ready to rock. -Awesome.
We made 60 gallons of mash.
We come back the next morning,
less than, like, 16 hours later,
the mash is ready to run.
We're good, that's perfect. All right, man.
In two days, we've got liquor.
That is
unheard of in the United States.
This is as old school as it gets right here.
This is how they always done it, man, back in the day.
Dojeno told us to go ahead and build a fire
and get the still rolling.
Oh, yeah. That'll burn good there.
So I do what I know how to do,
I start building a small fire over there.
Really just want to get a good bed of coals going,
and then once it gets too big,
you kinda rake it back a little bit,
and that's how you control your heat
is by how close it is to the pot.
I got a raging fire here.
Dojeno, is that not too big a fire?
Too big?
It's not gonna scorch it?
No, he says more.
-More? -[Paulo] More.
Serious?
Back home, we cook it low and slow.
If you cook it hot,
it makes hot, mean ass whiskey.
That's fighting whiskey.
[speaking Portuguese]
What did he say?
He's bringing some pieces of real wood, not chops.
-[Josh] You're [bleep] me. -[Paulo] Yeah.
[Josh] Dojeno comes in and is like,
"More wood, more wood."
He's putting 4x4s and big chunks of wood in there,
like we're building a bonfire for the night
for all of us to sit around.
-This is the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. -[Paulo] Different, huh?
[Josh] Way different than America, man.
[Paulo] That's why we came all the way up the mountain
-to learn, huh? -Aw, man.
Tell him thank you very much for bringing us into his operation.
This don't really happen in America.
Moonshiners wouldn't let you see how they work.
Yeah, they don't want to let you know where it's at.
They don't even want you to know they're a moonshiner.
[speaking Portuguese]
[Josh] And they fly over with helicopters.
[imitating helicopter blades]
[speaking Portuguese]
That's the way it is home.
[speaking Portuguese]
[Paulo speaking Portuguese]
[speaking Portuguese]
-[speaking Portuguese] -[Paulo laughing]
He's saying that the cops came here once,
and when they got here, they were thirsty as hell,
tired, and they ask him for a drink,
and in the end,
they bought four liters of cachaca from him
-and went down. -Holy [bleep], man.
Yeah. [laughs]
They made friends.
-That's crazy. -[Paulo laughs]
-[Josh] It's getting hot. -[Paulo] Is it?
[Josh] Yeah, it's coming.
It's coming quick too.
Like 40 minutes after we lit the fire,
you can already feel the heat
starting to move on down into the pot.
I'm starting to smell alcohol,
I know that it's about to run.
It's transferring quick, you can smell it.
[Paulo] Yeah, really?
Yeah, you can smell it.
Ask him if he throws his heads away.
[Paulo speaking Portuguese]
[speaking Portuguese]
He uses everything all together.
-What? -No difference.
You don't throw the heads off?
[speaking Portuguese]
No.
[narrator] Fermentation of any plant material,
like grains and fruits,
produces a small amount of methanol.
However, in mash made from sugar or cane juice alone,
yeast converts the source directly into ethanol
with little or no methanol byproduct.
Since cachaca distillers use sugarcane exclusively,
they face almost no risk of methanol contamination
and don't always take the precaution of tossing the heads.
Oh, here it comes, boss.
Dojeno said just to run the heads off into the liquor.
But what we're making,
I'm throwing the heads out.
-In the US... -[Paulo] Hmm?
[Josh] ...that's how you want your still to run.
It's getting a bead.
Never have I ever seen moonshine being made in one hour
from start to finish.
All my life, I've been taught to cook liquor low and slow.
If you put too much fire under it,
you're gonna make hot whiskey.
I'm skeptical that this is gonna work out.
In two days, we got
cane cut, mash made, mash ready,
mashed cooked off alcohol
in two damn days, that's amazing.
[Paulo] Yeah.
Oh, my God.
That's crazy.
The liquor comes out good with all that fire,
how is that possible?
Is the mash bill that much different,
or are we just cooking too slow?
Like, it's kinda making me start to question some of my methods.
Yeah, that's good [bleep], man.
This is definitely good.
It's got that smell too.
This is beautiful.
We're making liquor in Brazil, dog.
We've picked coffee, made coffee,
found the perfect coffee beans to mix with alcohol.
-[laughs] -We've hauled Sabola's moonshine,
we actually bootlegged moonshine in Brazil...
-Yeah. -...and now we're making it in an old school still site.
I don't see how it could get any better than that.
You know how this gets better?
When you get these recipes back to the US,
and you start working the [bleep] there.
-Thank you Paulo. -[Paulo] Yeah.
-I couldn't have done it without you, hoss. -[Paulo] Oh, yeah.
You got it, man.
-Wonderful, huh? -Mmm-hmm.
We made enough mash for a 60-gallon still.
We're gonna run that off, it's probably gonna make
anywhere from 8-12 gallons of liquor.
I don't need all that.
I can't take that back to America.
What I need is enough to mix with the coffee,
make a good drink,
and be able to take a little bit of cachaca home with me.
Hell, yeah.
[Jerry] Let's stash it under this laurel thicket, what do you think?
Yeah, pull up in there where we can't be seen.
[Jerry] I tell you what,
I sure don't see their truck anywhere.
Maybe they picked their ass up and went back to damn Louisiana.
Yeah, we can only hope so, but hey,
-only one way to find out. -[Mike] Right.
Try to keep an eye on behind us too.
'Cause they ain't here don't mean they ain't coming.
Hey, Jerry, look.
That's a damn electric fence, Jerry.
Well, where the hell are they getting their power from?
That damn solar panel right there on that tree.
[Jerry] Oh, I see it.
Them sons of bitches will light your ass up.
Yeah, they'll light you up.
[Jerry] They're thinking it's the animals.
Obviously, our first damn visit wasn't enough for them.
No.
No, we're gonna have to make it known this time
that it's not just coincidence.
We'll take care of them.
They're still making shine here in Maggie Valley
right under our damn noses.
I'm fed up to here with it.
I don't know, we could easily probably get through there,
but I want to tear it down.
There's a log right there.
-[Jerry] Just want to get that log and throw onto it? -[Mike] Let's try.
[both straining]
Ready?
Oh, hell, I got something right here that'll take care of it.
-[Jerry] There we go. -[Mike] Now,
sons of bitches...
All this stuff that we're doing
to Richard and Craig,
all of it stacks up, you know.
Somebody's gonna get tired of it.
See how bad they want that.
We want to discourage Richard and Craig,
make them throw their hands up,
make them move on.
[Jerry] We definitely want to shut them down.
We want them to either go home...
...or at least leave our customers alone.
Look.
-Holy [bleep]. -[Mike] Oh, my God.
You reckon that's a cellular one?
Hell, I don't know.
I know it's a damn game camera.
If it's linked to a cell phone,
they can look on their phone and see us in live action.
We gotta do something about this.
[Jerry] Nah, that don't have an antenna, that's just pictures.
But we gotta do something with it.
What are we gonna do, get the card,
or tear the whole damn thing down?
No, no, we just open it up and erase it,
just hit the erase button.
[straining]
Damn, watch your head.
Let's get this thing erased, man.
You see that button?
Yep, there it is.
You get it deleted?
It's gone.
-[Jerry] All right. -It's all gone.
-[Jerry] Powered off? -Yes.
Let's see if we an stand this thing back up.
Gotta put it right back in that same damn hole.
Is it gonna stay?
-[laughs] -Look at that [bleep].
[Jerry laughing]
Let's get the hell out of here.
[Jerry] Hey, tell you what, man.
-What? -I got an idea.
Let's mess with them just a little bit more.
-What are you doing? -[Jerry] Check this out.
What are you...
You gonna take the arm?
Yeah, let's see if Richard and damn Craig
can build something for theirself for once.
-Come on. -[Jerry laughs]
[Mike] Hell, yeah.
How about this cabin, like,
there's cheese up there on the block,
there's beef jerky hanging off this stick right here.
It's supposedly been hanging there about a week or so.
It looks really damn disgusting,
but I'm tempted to tear a piece of it off.
I love beef jerky.
How about this stove, huh?
Damn bring your firewood in here,
throw it under here, build a fire,
cook right here.
People actually live like this still today
This is like something from back in time,
like, [sighs] I don't even know how to explain it.
It's like I went to another world.
I love it though, I could totally live like this.
It's the simple life right here.
[Josh] Gotta smell that.
Come try this, Paulo.
All I can see right now is dollar signs
'cause ain't nobody in America making coffee moonshine with cachaca.
I'm gonna have something totally unique.
It ain't bad, but it wouldn't be something
I would buy right yet.
-I think it needs a little more alcohol. -[Paulo] Yeah.
[Josh] All right, whoa, whoa.
[Paulo] Not much, huh?
I think I'm gonna add, like, on or two beans to it,
-just to... -[Paulo] Just...
Just to throw in there.
-Dude. -[Paulo] Yeah?
[Josh] Listen, damn great start.
That's the jar I want to take back to America.
Good job, man.
I've had a freaking amazing adventure.
-[laughs] Me too. -Holy crap, dude.
All right, what do you say we do a little cleaning up
and hit the road?
All right.
I know that I'm gonna make a lot of money off of this
'cause ain't nobody in America making coffee moonshine with cachaca,
and I'm gonna take the backwoods by storm.
And the sky's gonna be the limit.
[Paulo] We're pretty close now.
[Josh] I'll be back on the plane
headed back to America here pretty soon,
and I'm so genuinely depressed right now
that this is over.
It's kinda like you shot a hot air balloon with a damn bazooka.
It... [imitates deflating]
I don't want it to end.
[Paulo] Here we are, man.
[Josh] Aw, man, what an adventure.
[Paulo] Come back to us soon, huh?
[Josh] It's been an amazing trip.
We finished this trip right where we started this trip,
and it really has been a roller coaster ride.
We've had highs and lows.
Many days on the road.
I'm sad that it's over.
We had a great time.
Me and Paulo legitimately made friends like that,
just instantly.
I don't want to leave, I don't want to get on the plane,
I don't want it to be over.
It's been an amazing trip.
I've only known you for a few weeks...
-Uh-huh. -...but it feels like we've been friends
-for 20 years. -Yeah.
I feel like Brazil has changed me as a human being.
We're entering Sao Paulo.
What do you say, huh?
[Josh] This is beautiful.
It did something to me
to see people that were so simple...
-[speaking Portuguese] -Everything you need from him, information whatever,
he's ready to teach.
In America, a lot of people are selfish,
got everything and don't want to give nothing.
In Brazil, they're happy to give anything and everything they have.
Obrigado.
Seeing that gave me a whole new perspective on life.
It's really opened my mind
that the world is way different
than anything I've experienced in the United States.
And it made me respect the things
that I do have a whole lot more.
I've laughed more in the last two weeks
-than I've laughed in years. -[laughs]
We've made great friends.
We did.
[Josh] This is definitely one of the best things
that's ever happened to me in my whole life.
I couldn't have done this trip without you.
It wouldn't have been as fun.
I would've been lost the whole time.
I wouldn't have known what anybody was saying.
You did a phenomenal job.
It was an honor.
No it was my honor. Thank you, brother.
Thank you, man.
I know that I'm coming back to Brazil.
I've got people I'mma be doing business with down here.
I'm definitely gonna be getting some coffee from Fabula.
I'm definitely gonna be seeing Paulo again.
[Paulo] It's your van. Is that it?
And
the experience that I had was...
-Friends to the end, we're brothers. -You got it.
[Josh] Thank you, take care.
It was the best experience.
It was amazing.
Hey, Paulo!
Bye, man!
I had a great time, man, one epic adventure.
Come see me in America, bro.
Yeah, yeah, I will.
-Hey, love you, man! -[Paulo] Bye, love you, man!
Take care, bro!
-You too! -[Josh] Come see me!
[Paulo] Yeah!
[Craig] Man, look at this [bleep], man.
-Sone of a bitch. -[Richard] What the hell happened here?
-[Craig] Goodness. -[Richard] This doesn't make any sense.
-What the hell. -[Craig] Look at this [bleep].
Got wires down.
No, man.
[Richard] Damn!
Look at that. They pulled that thing right off of there.
I knew I turned it on when I left.
Man, this is some [bleep].
Look, they done tore the damn still up.
This is not the work of bears.
Dude, this is humans.
I mean, there's been somebody back here.
There's no doubt about that.
The game camera's still there.
[Craig] That's our last line of defense.
We're gonna check that there.
Our game camera can see the entire still site.
Oh!
It has a real nice perspective on everything.
Craig...
...why you didn't turn the camera on?
I did turn the camera on.
Cameras off. I ain't gonna have nothing on the card
if the camera off.
Look, it's on off.
There's something Moby Dick fishy going on about this.
Man, something happened.
Either way,
we don't have any footage.
This has been a real big setback,
a major setback.
Got a whole bunch of grain here,
a whole bunch of liquid sugar for nothing.
And where's our elbow right here?
The elbow that connects the keg to the cap
is a crucial component.
It's Mike and Jerry, right?
I think they took it.
'Cause they know they're gonna cripple us
if we're missing one piece.
And now we're done.
They know that we're infringing on their territory.
I don't have the smoking gun yet in my hand,
I don't have the evidence that tells me this is Mike and Jerry.
But it's time to start looking for it now.
Damn it!
It's time for us to do something.
We can't let this [bleep] stand.