[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
Out of all the frickin' hundreds of still sites
that I've wandered into in my lifetime,
I've never found a cap.
Cecil Love is a fricking OG moonshiner legend.
[Henry Law] God of Moses, that smells good.
[Josh Owens] We got his still. We got his recipe.
We're making legendary moonshine.
What's that?
That's somebody walking in right there.
[Mike Cockrell] That's damn Richard and Craig, man.
What the hell?
What makes you so sore about this?
-What did I do wrong? -'Cause you can't take a damn hint.
You know what you need?
You need to learn what a good ass-whooping feels like.
-How about that? -Bring it. Damn, I'd love one.
[Tim Smith] This is how we make the moonshine!
These things are heavy.
We need to start a gym class.
-Moonshiners gym? -It's a Moonshiners workout.
[narrator] In Haywood County, North Carolina,
after a profitable summer outselling the competition,
Richard and Craig prepare to mash in a seasonal pumpkin spice moonshine.
[Richard Landry] Man, this is a whole lot of pumpkins.
I know. We're gonna be back here cutting all day.
Since Craig and I came to Maggie Valley,
our moonshine's been selling like hotcakes.
Only one problem. That really ticked off Mike Cockrell.
Look, they tore the damn still up.
Where's our elbow right here?
I think they took it.
Look what else those sons of bitches got.
[Craig Landry] That's our elbow!
[Richard] We're gonna get the hell out of here.
So we're not gonna take our still piece so we can at least start making some?
No, this is their stash spot.
We gonna get them later.
We don't have a functioning still.
Mike and Jerry stole our thumper elbow.
But that's not gonna stop us.
Fire in the hole.
We're gonna get this pumpkin spice mashed in,
and while it's working off,
we're gonna solve our elbow problem.
Do you know what this is?
It's a planer.
That's gonna save us a whole bunch of time and energy.
You have to take the skin off of the pumpkin.
We have to get these things clean.
We have to dice them up,
then we gotta get them to boil.
That's a lot of work when you got 60 pumpkins to start peeling.
This guy wants a seasonal liquor.
This is a seasonal liquor right here, pumpkin.
Can't get no more seasonal than that.
We're gonna do a traditional pumpkin spice.
We're gonna do it with cinnamon, nutmeg,
allspice, a little ginger.
Something that you would typically taste in a pumpkin pie,
I'm gonna put that into an alcohol.
Second pot.
So these pumpkins, after you cook them down,
it has so much flavor.
Man, you smell that?
It's like a pie or something.
That's what I want them to think they're drinking.
I can eat this right now just like it is.
[Craig] Aw, that smells so good.
Oh, that tastes so good.
This is gonna be another homerun right here.
These pumpkins have cooked down good enough
for us to go ahead and add it to our mash barrels.
So we put some of this liquid sugar that we got from Mr. Kelly in.
We're gonna add our pumpkin straight to it.
I'm gonna mix this up real good with the sugar.
Get some water in it, cool it down.
Pitch some yeast.
Come on. We gotta do this three, four more times.
We're already way behind because Mike and Jerry stole our elbow.
But we're gonna build a new elbow for the still.
We're gonna get right back in production.
I'm anxious to put some good liquor in Maggie Valley,
but my hands gonna be hurting.
Your hands starting to cramp up?
Yeah, but that's what it take to do this.
To be innovative.
We got these pumpkins at a really, really good deal.
Cost us only $150.
If you do the math, today, price of pumpkins being $12 to $14,
we pretty much paid, like, $3 a pumpkin.
[Richard] Stir it up with that paddle.
We are doing this in Maggie Valley at a low cost.
We're doing better than back home,
and I'm loving every minute of it.
-[Richard] Here, you wanna pitch the yeast? -[Craig] Yeah.
[Richard] Here, go ahead.
Smell like bread is baking.
So, we got the last of our pumpkins done.
We gotta make sure that everything's good, tidy up the site.
We're gonna get to work on our elbow.
The most crucial part of the moonshine still right now, to us,
is that elbow that we don't have.
Let's get the hell out of here.
It's gonna take a week for that to work off.
[sighing] See what he's got.
What's happening, cap?
-What's going on, buddy? -All right, man.
-How was Mississippi? -It was great.
I enjoyed the damn trip, brother.
-[Jerry Benson] Satsumas. -[Mike] Hell, yeah.
The sweet damn orange of the South right here, baby.
Yeah, me and Mike, we've had a hell of a time
trying to sell liquor this season.
Richard and Craig being in the town,
we feel like that they've compromised our customers.
So we're gonna really need something that's gonna really pop, I guess you'd say.
We're gonna have to have something that's gonna get our customers' attention.
Let them know that we mean business.
Oh my God.
Is that not good?
Well, if it don't make some damn good liquor, ain't nothing going to.
I'm telling you, that's something people up here in the mountains
ain't probably never even had.
Of course, orange, tangerine family,
but this is a little different.
-This has got a whole bunch... -Mmm-hmm.
Whole different taste profile.
What makes a satsuma so special,
it's its own personal breed of orange.
But satsuma's a little bit more tart
than, say, a regular orange would be,
yet it's still super, super sweet too.
There's no other orange out there just like them.
Yeah, this right here, Jerry, I believe would be a better damn liquor
than Richard and Craig could ever dream about.
Well, you know what?
-These come around from down around Louisiana, right? -[Mike] Mmm-hmm.
So we just went and picked stuff out of their backdoor.
You the hell right, we did.
-We're gonna spank their butts with it, too, ain't we? -[Mike] That's it.
Well, we ain't gonna get it done sitting here.
Let's get these damn satsumas mashed in and make some money.
[Josh] Cecil Love. Cecil Love.
He's a legend in his own time.
I mean, boy, he's a moonshiner.
He goes back to almost the Prohibition.
I mean, this guy, he's seen more stuff
than we could even begin to think about.
Cecil Love is an icon.
You know, he's 95 years old.
He's a moonshiner all his life.
He's lived it. He's breathed it.
He knows all about it.
Cecil and his family, they got this 75-acre track
up in the mountains.
It was a couple years ago
that we saw all these old stills, man,
deteriorating, falling into the ground.
We didn't think a whole lot of it at the time.
A few weeks ago, they put the farm up for sale.
I want to get permission from him to go in there and...
-Save the relic. -Save the relics, man, empty it.
I'm down with that. I love [bleep]. I love that.
I'm telling you, it's gonna be too cool if he'll let us do it.
There are so many stills there in this one place,
and I intend to talk to Cecil about going ahead
and preserving as much of that as I possibly can.
-What's up, Cecil? -[Cecil Love] Hey.
[Kenny Law] How you doing, Cecil?
Cecil, this is Josh Owens.
How you doing, Cecil?
How you doing?
So you been doing okay?
A lot of liquor was made in Franklin County,
and you was right in the middle of all of it.
-I was. -You, all the Loves were.
[all laughing]
[narrator] A legendary figure in Franklin County,
Cecil Love began his moonshining career
in 1940 at the age of 12
when he chanced upon a bootlegger whose car had broken down
and helped him carry jars to the still site.
Cecil put moonshining on hold
while overseas serving in the Korean War.
After earning the Purple Heart during combat,
he returned home and got back to making corn liquor in the woods.
His operation soon grew so successful,
he would run as much as 600 gallons a day,
bootlegging as far north as Maryland
and as far south as Florida.
Evading the law for over 60 years,
he was finally caught in the act at the age of 83 in 2011.
A judge issued a 12-month suspended sentence
on the condition the lifelong moonshiner stopped producing liquor,
ending one of the longest-spanning outlaw distilling careers
Franklin County has ever seen.
[Henry] Listen, I've come here
to talk to you about your home place up there.
Can you tell us what's at that still site?
Well, there's some stainless steel there.
I think there's three copper stills,
two galvanized, little-bitty stills.
So let me ask you.
I wanna go up there and dig up a couple of those
and preserve them with your name on it.
-Yeah. -So in the future,
other people will be able to walk up and say,
"That was Cecil Love's outfit."
Are you okay with me doing that?
Yeah, get all you want.
-Yes! -[Kenny] We'll put a plaque,
a plaque out there with your name and all that.
Loves will be recognized, especially Cecil,
for what he did in this site.
-Cecil, good talking to you. -Yeah.
-We're gonna get on the road a little bit. -Good to see you, Cecil.
-Been good to be your friend. -See you.
And he did amazing stuff at this site.
I'm all excited about this little dig.
It's a few hundred yards out here
to the actual still site.
-That's what we're looking for right here. -Yeah.
That's a relic.
Yeah, it's a relic.
It's probably five foot long, four foot wide,
400 gallon.
And now, like, right here, you see it galvanized?
It got to a time, years and years ago,
you couldn't get copper or aluminum.
They had to rock and roll with what they had.
You had to throw galvanize on it.
They could get a few runs off of it.
But if you use this for a while,
it'll start to rust,
-and your damn liquor starts turning orange. -Turning.
But if you come in, light something, and make two or three runs with it...
And they'd discard it before it started rusting.
Hell, that is so wild.
[Henry] They had to improvise,
do whatever the hell they could.
You know, you gotta make a dollar.
All them Love boys did whatever they did, had to do to survive.
-[Kenny] Feed the family. -[Henry] Feed the family, man. You have to feed the family.
Let's check yourselves out.
-[Kenny] Yeah, let's see what else is here. -See what else we got here.
Watch your step, man.
Broken-up jars all in here.
When they used to come and cut up a still site--
[Kenny] They busted the damn liquor.
Bust the damn jars.
[Kenny] They'd even cut a hole in bags of sugar and pour it out.
When I look at this graveyard, this gravesite,
I see stuff that's just amazing to me.
See a couple over here, a couple over here.
Let's see us over here what we got, Henry.
We ain't never did no patching like that right there.
Hell, man, things were tight.
You had to do what you had to do.
Hell, if you had glue, if that wouldn't hold, you'd use glue.
A normal man looks, all he sees is sheet metal laying there and rotted wood.
But I see the blood, sweat, the tears
that these guys went through to feed their families,
'cause I've lived it.
-[Josh] No [bleep] way. -[Henry] What?
No [bleep] way.
Henry, you're gonna love this.
Out of all the frickin' hundreds of still sites
that I've wandered into in my lifetime,
I've never found a cap.
-Never. -Never.
Look at that. It's weird as hell.
They must have had this around
to keep it from falling in the still.
They muddied the piss out of that bastard.
I've never seen anything like it.
There's something over there.
You see something?
There's something over there. I don't know what it is.
Barrel or something.
[chuckling] Oh, man.
No [bleep] way.
[metal clanging]
[Josh] Damn!
[Kenny] You see something?
[Henry] There's something over there. I don't know what it is.
Barrel or something.
[Josh] Damn!
I ain't even believing this.
[Henry] Let's roll him over.
Damn good size and good shape.
It's very rare to find a still intact.
That never, ever happens.
[bleep]
I can't see any rotted boards on it.
I can't see any metal that's rusted.
It is looking extremely good.
This still's in solid, great shape.
It is in pretty damn good shape.
We could use this still.
Use it?
We could take this still and fricking use it
and pay homage to Cecil.
[chuckles] Man, I like that idea.
What if we could get one of his recipes from him?
I'm telling you, let's make one of his fricking recipes,
make a run for him.
I like it. I like the idea. Let's do it.
To find something that's usable is unbelievable.
-[Josh] Legendary moonshiner. -[Henry] Legendary still.
[chuckles] Legendary mash build.
Let's drag this bitch out of here.
Let's sit it upright.
-And maybe grab it, buddy. -[Josh] I don't have a handle over here.
Remember, there are big old spiders in there.
[Richard] All right, we're gonna just do
some quick measurements here, man.
We need one 4x2 connector here.
So that's gonna take this four-inch and turn it into a two-inch,
or we could put a 2-inch pipe under there.
I'm real pissed about the fact
that we even have to get into building a new elbow for this arm.
We know that Mike and Jerry took that thing.
They think that we're gonna be stopped.
But I can do anything.
We're gonna build this arm,
and as soon as this mash works off,
we're gonna get right back in production.
All right, we got our 2-inch pipe.
I couldn't find anything 4-inch.
So, we got some reducers.
All right, let's carry it in, man.
We're losing daylight.
I had trouble finding elbows and collars and pipe.
I can't even find copper sheeting right now.
That's how bad things are with copper.
So, we're reducing our 4-inch pipe down to a 2-inch pipe.
That's where that's gonna sit.
It's shouldn't be too hard to make an elbow.
I can do that in my sleep.
We really don't even have to solder it.
We could just paste it so we could take it on and off.
We just gotta solder one of these joints
for our lining.
That's it.
This is quick fix,
because we got customers waiting on us.
We got orders waiting on us right now,
and we can't afford to just sit back and wait.
It looks like it penetrated down here, but it hasn't.
[Craig] No, it's still bubbling up right there.
[Richard] Gotta get it right there.
That's gonna be one of the last spots.
Right there.
I have no doubt that Mike and Jerry stole our elbow.
But these guys ain't gonna just do this to us
and expect us to walk away
with our tails between our legs.
Everything else is soldered up good.
Stays in place.
Them boys didn't know that we could do this.
They thought we were gonna be crippled by that.
[blows air] It's done.
See this thing here?
Right there. That's good.
Yeah, just like that.
We paste everything,
and we're pasting everything.
That's it. We're back in business.
And we'll run that pumpkin, man.
Let's start making some money.
[Mike] Get in here and get her done.
[Jerry] Might as well.
Seasons are changing, winter is right around the damn corner,
and pretty soon, it's gonna be too damn cold to make any moonshine.
Now, me and Jerry, we've lost a lot of sales this year to Richard and Craig.
But if the satsuma run turns out the way I think it will,
these sales could really help turn our season around.
[Jerry] If you go grab us a couple buckets over there,
I'll start loading this thing up.
[Mike] Before we mash in,
we got to slice these things up,
break them down and get their juices out.
-[Jerry] Ready? -I'm ready, son.
Send it down the pipe.
[Jerry] Here we go.
No better way to do it than our apple slicer that me and Jerry built.
It's just a 3-inch pipe with 4 knives
where whenever something goes through it,
it slices it into four perfectly good wedges.
Now all we gotta do is get them boiled up and get them mashed in.
Give us some fire.
-[Jerry] Look at the juice. -[Mike] Oh, yeah, they got it.
[Jerry] Here's one more important thing I brought.
I brought us a pH meter.
This being a citrus fruit,
it's gonna have the acid.
We just wanna make sure it's not too much acid.
Too much acid.
'Cause, you know, even though yeast like an acidic environment,
-it can be too much. -RIght.
So I actually thrown in a little bit of baking soda.
That'll help bring the pH up on it a little bit if it gets too low.
I get the fruit, and you know what to do with it.
That's right.
[Mike] Hell, yes.
Yeah, this is ready to pour over, buddy.
The rinds and the peels has got a lot of flavor.
A lot of the zest off the top is really, really good.
But a lot of that white pith in there
can throw a bitter taste to your alcohol.
So we're just gonna simply strain all the juice through there
and throw the pulp and the rinds away.
[Jerry] Oh, yeah. This melts as soon as it hits the pot.
Add our sugar in there and put some water in it.
Then we're ready to check the pH level in this mash
before I pitch the yeast.
There you go.
So what we're looking for here is the pH level.
We wanna see about a 5.2, is where yeast actually thrive really good on.
-A 5.2? -You know, just water, just plain water is about 7.
That's about really neutral.
So right now, we're sitting at about 3.9.
3.9, that is way too damn acidic for our mash.
I just have to put baking soda in it
to bring that pH up.
I said we wanna see about a 5.2.
So the one thing about this right here is it don't take a whole lot at all.
And you mean to tell me that right there is gonna do a difference to this?
[chuckles] Yeah.
It's kinda like Goldilocks and her porridge, you know?
If you get it too hot, you ain't gonna eat it.
If it's too cold, you ain't gonna want it.
But if it's just right, you're gonna eat every bit of it.
[Mike] 5.3.
-That's exactly where we wanna be, man. -[Mike] Hell, yeah.
You done your damn thing, brother.
Homework pays off.
I reckon you right.
We just got one more important step.
In order to work this off properly,
Jerry brought in a special kind of wine yeast,
which will put it through a really slow working process.
We want it to take its time to work off properly.
Yes, so it should breathe.
It can breathe, can't get no creatures in it,
nothing like that.
Satsuma liquor time.
[Richard] We'll see if this mash is finished.
[Craig] Aw, yeah. That's beautiful.
SInce Craig and I have gotten to Maggie Valley,
we've faced a whole lot of curveballs.
But, I mean, we're true moonshiners,
and we're persevering.
Smells good.
Oh, hell yeah. That's a fine wine.
They got alcohol in there.
[Craig] Let me see.
-Oh, yeah. -Yeah, that's ready to go.
We got our elbow fixed.
We got our pumpkin spice mash worked off.
Looks like we're back on track.
Come on. We might as well get to work.
Mike and Jerry think they knocked us out.
But we're right back up and ready to keep fighting.
Craig, I think our new elbow looks good, man.
Let's throw a bucket and some mash over,
start getting everything ready.
We got 150 gallons of mash.
Using Mark and Digger's still,
we should come out with 15 gallons
of a real good pumpkin spice moonshine.
All right, last one.
Look at that. Look how pretty.
Wow!
-Whew. -Turn it down.
We'll be running in no time.
[Richard] Yeah, we're back in business.
That elbow's gonna work real good.
We're gonna paste everything up.
We can't have no leaks in this new setup.
I'm happy this plan working itself out.
I can already see it.
Once people get a load of this pumpkin spice moonshine around here,
my phone's gonna be blowing off the hook.
If it's probably starting to get...
-[Craig] Real hot. -It's getting hot already.
I know that Mike and Jerry are not putting out liquor in Maggie Valley like this.
I know that for a fact.
-It's going down yet? -[Craig] Oh, yeah.
Should be any minute.
Hey, man, we're starting to run.
Aw, I can smell it.
[Richard] It's running good, man.
Yep, I can't wait to taste it.
Yeah, it's running good.
So we're gonna make sure we get rid of all of these heads.
We're gonna start collecting the good stuff.
Man, I'll tell you what.
I'm gonna take a drink of this.
Yeah, let's see what we got now since we slowed it down.
Goddamn, man, I'm telling you.
That's good.
It's like pumpkin pie.
-Whew! -This is exactly what I wanted.
This is a really good drink.
You wouldn't think that you can ferment a pumpkin
and making it real good alcohol.
No stopping us now.
[Richard] Them boys ain't gonna know what hit them.
This is something that everybody could enjoy,
whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter,
whenever and for whatever.
How many jars you got there?
This'll be number eight right here.
[Richard] That's two gallons of some damn good liquor,
liquor nobody else got around here.
-How-- -[crashes]
Oh, [bleep]!
What the hell?
Man, what the hell happened?
[Richard] What the hell happened, man?
[bleep] Goddamn.
That arm blew off of there, man.
Cut the gas. Cut the gas.
Shut the fire.
Damn, that arm blew off of there, man.
Cut the gas. Cut the gas.
Oh, [bleep].
What the hell happened?
It blew the damn elbow.
Look at all the damn alcohol we're losing.
[Craig] What happened?
[Richard] It must be too much pressure.
Pressure built up so strong.
Son of a bitch.
[Craig] Now what are we gonna do about the rest of this run?
We can't do nothing but shut it down, man.
It's too dangerous to keep running that thing.
Look. That thing blew way over here.
Oh, that's one piece of it.
Damn.
[Craig] It's hot, watch it.
-Man, look at that. -Oh, my goodness.
Look how much force that thing hit with, man.
That is stupid, dumb, crazy.
It bent copper piping.
Look at that.
That would've tore somebody's head off, man.
We got all this effort, all this time.
We got all that mash sitting up in there.
We're gonna have to get an elbow,
or that mash ain't gonna be no more good in a little while.
It's a big setback right here, man.
We got a customer waiting on this right here.
We ain't got the two gallons to give to him.
We're gonna have to get our elbow back.
Damn it, let's go get it.
[Henry] Josh, easy now.
-This thing-- -[Josh] I got this. I got this.
[Henry] All right, don't want holes in it for Cecil.
I ain't tore anything up. Cut me some slack.
Not only we went and met a frickin' badass, frickin' OG moonshiner legend.
[Henry] What do y'all think about this spot right here?
I think it looks good.
We got his still.
-What do you think? -Perfect.
We got his recipe.
We're using the exact same creek bank.
We're making legendary moonshine.
We're making Cecil Love's moonshine.
-[Henry] You got a lighter, don't you? -Yeah.
Ooh.
Fire in the hole.
[all laughing]
We didn't come here with 20, 30 barrels.
We came in with one barrel.
We got Cecil's recipe for 4-grain corn liquor.
We want to get it right.
One barrel, we can concentrate on it,
we get the timeframes right on it
to get it exactly as close as I possibly can to Cecil's.
[Josh] Stolen honey.
The yeast got on... [groans]
We got four grains to go in here,
and each one has to be timed
to a certain point.
What is the mash build?
First off, a little bit of cornmeal.
And that's a little mixture.
-It's two different kinds of cornmeal. -Yeah.
-That looks good, that color. -He uses yellow and a white.
Yeah, that smells good. I love that smell.
This recipe Cecil gave me, it uses corn, rye,
malted barley, wheat bran.
But moonshiners use a lot of different grains.
It's one thing about the grains that go in here,
but it's more to Cecil's mash build than just the grains.
It's the timing of each one between the application
of putting the grains in here.
That's the key to his.
Okay, put this rye in here now.
Oh, hell yeah. Rye always gives that little bit of a spicy taste.
It helps it bead a little bit, too.
All right, five minutes.
Cecil was very adamant.
Each grain has got to go in in line the way he said it.
Malt barley, baby.
That's some good tasting stuff right there.
Not just, "Here's the grains."
"Here's the steps to take to cook them off with."
[Josh] All of the wheat's on.
-Ready? -Yeah.
God of Moses, that smells good.
-Yeah. -[Josh] That's all the sugar.
[Henry] Normally, we'd put more sugar in.
Cecil's telling me this mash build here,
they would make specialty mash builds to barter.
You couldn't trade a pint of liquor to a man with a ham and a haul up there
that you need to feed the family
if you just put all sugar
and then it just came out to be sugar liquor.
-He said, "You ain't get nothing." -[Kenny] He did moonshine.
[Henry] This recipe here is the best of the best.
[Josh] Premium liquor.
This is Cecil Love's family recipe
that's probably over 100 years old.
Aw, man, this is gonna be amazing.
Hopefully, it'll come out right,
'cause we're all dying to taste it.
But being we got Cecil's recipe
and we're doing it exactly down to the frickin' half a minute,
it should be perfect.
[Henry] Smells like heaven.
-[Kenny] Smells like $100 bills to me. -[Henry] Yeah.
It does, doesn't it?
[Mike] Let's unveil this bad boy.
See what she's looking, see what she's looking like.
Yeah.
You know, I'm nervous as hell about this run.
If we're gonna reclaim our customers
and win back Maggie Valley,
we gotta make a superb moonshine.
It looks pretty, ain't it?
Look at that. It's flat as a floater.
Make some of that raw mash.
Mmm, my God.
-[whistles] -That's orange alcohol.
Damn, that taste like a damn screwdriver, don't it?
So if we can get one-tenth of that flavor out of it...
Ooh! Damn, that's gonna be good, son.
A satsuma screwdriver.
Hell, yes.
[Jerry] We got everything just right on this run.
We got all the sugar levels right.
I'm pretty proud.
I got "A" in science for the day,
and this stuff's ready to go.
I hope it turns out like Mike wants it to.
[Mike] Fire in the hole.
You know, I can't help but be a little bit nervous
about how this stuff's going here today.
Looks like we got steam, Bubba.
[Jerry] Yes, sir. This thing's plugged up, get it rolling.
You know, it's getting late in the season.
Me and Jerry's not sold enough liquor to get ourselves through the winter.
This satsuma run has got to be great.
What's amazing is how fast it's running through them tubes.
-You can hear it, too. -[Jerry] Yeah.
[bleep]
She's hot. This is coming down your way there.
[Jerry] Oh, [bleep], yeah. Look, it's coming out now.
[Mike] Oh, hell yeah, baby.
Let me put my pecker in it.
[Jerry] Look at you.
[Mike] Look at that.
-Stuck that pecker in like a true professional. -[Mike] Ooh!
All you can smell is them damn satsumas.
Damn, that's orange-ade, son.
[Jerry] You can smell it, can't you?
That satsuma...
I can't wait to drink that, baby.
I'll tell you what, if that taste comes through as good as that smell does,
we gonna be in some money,
and I mean literally.
Adios, Richard and Craig.
[Jerry] I think we're past the heads there.
-What do you think? -Pitch them damn heads, man.
Now it's nothing but to catch some money now.
That's right.
So how many miles is in this first jar?
Over 1,200 miles.
My goodness, better get her swapped out, man.
[Jerry] Yeah, that's about to run us over.
Oh, yeah.
-Is it taming down? -Oh my God, son.
That is fricking mellow.
It has just a very faint bite to it.
Man.
Oh, man.
That takes me right back to them damn trees,
just sitting there pulling them satsumas off of the damn tree.
They're sweet, but yet a little tart,
and that's what I love about it, man.
-Mmm. -And you ain't gonna get them.
I can't get over that.
[Mike] By God, let me tell you.
It is as smooth as pouring water off of a damn roof.
You know, the flavor, man...
You can taste the satsuma.
I wouldn't be scared to say
this is one of the very best that we've ever run.
I'll tell you what. Richard and Craig ain't gonna know what hit them.
Hell, no.
There ain't no damn way they could compete
with that jar right there, baby.
-[Jerry] No. -No way.
[Jerry] And if anybody says anything different,
we know they're a damn liar.
[Mike] I feel like we're back on track.
Can't wait to bring this to the market
and make some money.
Once people taste this stuff right here,
they're gonna be buying Mike and Jerry's moonshine from here on out.
Get your pecker, and let's get out of here.
-I'm gonna get my pecker. -[Jerry chuckles]
[Jerry] Won't be long before this hits the streets.
I'm telling you that right now.
That flavor's just too damn good.
[Jerry] Now we'll get here and get this all stashed up in the old barn.
[Mike] One more load down.
Me and Jerry, we got another damn run of alcohol run off.
We gotta go stash 10 more gallons in our stash house.
Bringing liquor to the stash house,
it's like putting money in the bank.
-[Jerry] It is a maze, for sure. -Mmm-hmm.
-Amazing we can even get back here. -[Mike laughs] That's right.
[both grunting]
Something don't look right here.
[Jerry] It's not quite exactly like we left it.
I had it tucked in underneath that...
-[Mike] You did. -...piece of machinery right there.
You did, didn't you?
Yeah, all the liquor's here.
It's still alcohol.
Maybe I'm letting my imagination run wild.
All the liquor's here.
Everything is still stacked right here
just the way me and Jerry left it.
But I don't like the way this looks.
[Jerry] All the liquor's here.
The elbow's still here.
Was it standing up in the box like that?
No, I think we had it lying flat down.
That's what I was thinking, just laying down flat in that box.
You don't reckon somebody's been just snooping around, do you?
I don't know. That's kinda weird.
You know, uh, me and Jerry,
we took Richard and Craig's thumper elbow
to set them back,
and I know I laid it flat in this box.
It ain't like somebody's tore up anything.
I think we just need to go ahead,
just check the damn camera.
This camera that we've got, it's remote activated.
Anything that crosses its path,
it's gonna kick on and record for two minutes.
-Gonna fast through some of this stuff here. -Yeah.
Ooh, ooh, what is that?
That's somebody walking in right there.
[Mike] [bleep] That's damn Richard and Craig, man.
[Jerry] What the hell?
They're looking through our [bleep].
There he goes picking that damn elbow up.
[Jerry] So, they've been here.
Why is our stuff still here?
They may not want us to know...
-That they've been here? -...that they've been here.
I don't give a damn
why they didn't take nothing.
But by God, they have missed their damn chance
is all I can tell,
'cause they ain't getting this damn liquor.
We got two damn options.
Get it all out of here
or get up in this loft and watch them till they come back.
[Henry] You know what I guess we need to do?
[Josh] What?
Check and see if the damn beer's ready.
[Josh] It looks good.
Whoa.
That's good and bitter.
-Start getting her in there. -Yeah.
Can't get out till we get it in there, can't we?
Today's gonna be a big day.
Cecil Love.
I bet you he's waking up early this morning
knowing we in here running his mash.
We got this mash build of Cecil Love's,
and it's done worked off.
It smells so good. It tastes so good.
I cannot wait to see what we got.
-[Josh] Mmm. -[Henry] Mmm.
-[exclaims] Ha! -[Henry exclaims] Ha!
You know, been a long time.
-I bet nobody's gotten into this liquor... -Hell, no.
[Kenny] Sure smells good.
-It damn sure does. -[Henry] We gotta cap it, y'all.
This may not be one of the most badass stills that we've ever set up,
but it's got soul in it.
It's got heritage behind it.
Just 'cause she ain't the prettiest still
don't mean she ain't gonna take care of us.
I can smell it over here, Henry.
There it comes.
-Oh, it's coming already? -[Kenny] Yep.
Oh, she's rounding good.
...in like this.
God, that smells good.
Well, don't hog it to yourself.
-I'm dying to taste it. -Damn, that's good.
[clicks tongue] I mean...
From what I smell and what I taste,
it tastes damn good.
But we gotta proof this baby down.
That's strong as hell right there.
Proof it down. That's the flavor to it.
[Henry] It tastes good.
It's got a great smell to it.
We know we got good liquor.
But now the true story's gonna come out.
Is it gonna turn out to what we want it to be?
Pour about half of that in there, Josh, if you would.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on.
[Josh] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think you got something right now.
It's got a nice bead on it.
Damn good bead.
I'd better leave a little high bead on it than cut it too low.
[Josh] Damn, that's good.
-Perfect. -I think, yeah.
-[chuckles] -I think it's a homerun.
[Henry] I love this.
This liquor, it brings back so many memories.
My dad used to sit around the kitchen table
and drink coffee laces made out of Cecil's liquor.
He called it coffee lace.
There was more liquor in it than it was coffee.
You could smell the aroma all over our kitchen.
I'll never forget those days.
And to think many took his stuff and bartered with it.
-That's exactly right. -His daddy paid for this whole farm
with this mash build right here.
There's so much heritage here,
and to be able to do what we've done is such an honor.
And I hope that wherever these old-timers are,
the ones that are alive,
even the ones that's dead, maybe looking down on us
is gonna look at us and say,
"Yeah, Henry, Josh, and Kenny, y'all did a good job."
Ooh-whee.
[Josh] Sweet.
[Craig] Don't be nervous.
[Richard] I ain't nervous. I'm pissed off.
I'm nervous. I'm not gonna lie.
There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
We gotta get back to work,
and that elbow's standing between us and work.
All right, kill the light.
All right, let's go.
[Craig] It's on now.
[whispers] Get out of here.
-[Craig] Don't make too much noise, man. -Quickly, Craig, quickly.
[Craig] Don't slam your door.
Yeah, don't slam the door.
Shh.
[whispers] Stop it, right there.
Let's not make any noise.
Get in and out of here. We're gonna be gone fast.
Come on.
Careful. Don't hit nothing.
Don't knock nothing over.
[whispers] Try not to make too much noise.
Cut through right here.
Shh.
Oh, here it is.
What the hell?
-What's this? -What the hell?
Where's the stash?
Man, [bleep].
They don't have any liquor in here.
They don't have our elbow in here.
This is bad.
The [bleep] is this?
"You are too late. I'm watching you."
I'm starting to think I made a mistake
coming out here to Maggie Valley,
getting into it with these guys.
They "oned-up" us again.
Let's close this [bleep].
Close this.
We should've known that these son of a bitches would put some cameras up.
The worst part about this is,
our operation is at a complete standstill.
Here, cut that off.
I don't know what the hell we're gonna do.
I'm tired of Mike and Jerry and their [bleep].
Show me your best satsuma shuffle.
My best satsuma shuffle?
Learn to dance.
You're doing a satsuma stir.
-Stir on it. Ooh! -[Jerry chuckles]
[Mike laughs]
I've got a little bit of rhythm.
I can pick up on a dance or two here and now.
I can do something like this.
I used to dance back when I was little with my mom, uh,
but haven't done it since.
But I can keep a beat.
[all laughing]
Now I gotta take a breath and get a shot of liquor.
[Richard] Everything is just like we left it.
The burners, pots, everything.
-[Craig] Mash. -Still full of liquor.
Thankfully, the rest of the still is there.
I mean, we already gotta replace one part.
But we can't replace Mark and Digger's entire still.
Man, look at this elbow.
I might be able to call Mark and Digger
and find out if they got something up there, but...
I don't want Mark and Digger to be thinking that we're out here tearing up stills.
The thing blew off of there so violently, man.
I don't know what we're gonna do.
Should we just try to build another elbow?
We on borrowed time, man.
By the time we get back, this'll be done.
We need that elbow today.
[Richard] This sucks. I mean, we got a whole pot full of mash right now.
Our operation is at a total standstill.
I'm acting pretty calm about this,
but I'm kinda pissed off.
I'mma call them and I'mma tell them
I want that goddamn elbow back,
and I don't give a damn what he says.
If you call Mike Cockrell,
he's just gonna hang up on you.
[Richard] Yeah, he might.
But we can't do nothing out here but waste our time.
So let's go down here and then call their ass.
[Craig] You and Mike, y'all not gonna jam together.
How about if I call Jerry?
He has the cooler head,
and I could get him to convince Mike
maybe to meet up with us.
I got Jerry's number.
Mike's a little hothead, and I get hotheaded, too.
So I think we're gonna let Craig make that phone call.
[phone ringing]
[Jerry on phone] Hello?
Hey, Jerry.
-[Jerry] Yeah. -Hey, this is Craig.
[Jerry] Well, well.
Look who finally decided to give us a call.
What's on your mind?
I'm calling you because I know you have the cooler head.
Maybe you could convince Mike
to meet up with me and Richard and you,
and we can talk about this elbow that you have.
[Jerry] Well, you know, Craig, it's a little hard on us.
We just kinda had a little headbutting issue going on with our customers.
You know, we're not really too happy about things right now.
[Craig] Yeah, yeah, I know.
That's why I would like to meet,
and we can talk this out.
[Jerry] All right. We're, uh, we're down for it.
I'm at the old bridge at the cow pasture.
[Craig] We'll meet with you guys in a few.
-[Jerry] All right. -Bye.
I'm not playing with him no more.
We're gonna get our elbow today.
All right, that's the bridge right there.
We're just gonna be real cordial-like, right?
You know, Mike and Jerry, they have the upper hand right now.
So we're gonna have to be real smart about this.
Come and meet with these clowns and see what they're talking about.
Let's just see what they got to say.
What's up, guys?
How y'all doing?
Better than you, obviously.
What you want?
I know y'all got our elbow, man.
Could've took it and took all your liquor.
Should've took it while you had the damn chance.
It's too late to get any one of them now.
You're causing us a lot of headache this season.
What did we tell you guys the very first damn time we met up with you?
We said, "Welcome to the mountains,
but don't step on our toes."
-Well, I didn't know I was-- -Going around selling to our customers,
stealing our recipes, that's as low as you can go.
I ain't got no problem with taking your half-ass recipe and making it whole.
Okay.
We've been actually really damn nice.
We want your asses out of here.
Well, we ain't trying to go nowhere.
[Jerry] We've invested our time for years here,
and we've got a lot of liquor stashed back, 'cause we can't sell it.
It's not our fault that you guys' alcohol is not selling.
When it comes down to our livelihood,
we'll do whatever necessary
-to get your ass finished. -You know what you need?
You need to learn what a good ass-whooping feels like.
I'm your huckleberry. Boy, bring it. [chuckles]
-Damn, I'd love one. -You're starting one, man...
I ain't starting [bleep]. You got it started.
-We're just gonna finish it. -I came here to bury the hatchet, man.
You won't even shake my damn hand.
I don't never bury the damn hatchet.
I keep it someplace nice and shiny.
Man, I just need that elbow back.
That's what you get trying to take over somebody else's territory
and their livelihood.
That is not my still.
It's Mark and Digger's still.
I'll get it.
You know, what fascinates me...
...is this 18-inch piece of copper right here is holding a moonshiner up.
Yeah.
-Damn. -It did.
It did.
Got the elbow back. [whistles]
I can't believe them clowns gave that back.
[Craig] They gave it back. They actually gave it back.
[Richard] We never letting this go again.
What made them give that [bleep] back?
Mike knows he can't play with Mark and Digger like that.
Well, once I told Mike and Jerry
that that was Mark and Digger's thumper elbow that they stole... [whistles]
I could tell Mike and Jerry are scared to death of Mark and Digger.
Wait till they see what we do now.
We're gonna kill these waters.
They ain't gonna know what hit them.
That's my ace in the hole.
That's how I win.
We're gonna get back in the woods,
and we're gonna make a ton of liquor.
A ton.