[Josh] Making moonshine is a risky business.
Most likely gonna hurt yourself or end up in jail.
Do not try this at home.
[narrator] This time onMoonshiners...
[Josh] Henry and Kenny are gone, Tickle is gone.
I just wanna prove to the guys I'm still part of this team.
[narrator] Old habits die hard for Appalachian's
most accident prone moonshiner.
[Josh] Don't tell me I can't go down to the liquor still.
I'm making a comeback and it feels good.
[engine spluttering]
[bleep]
[officer] Get your cash.
Well, you know, I thought it might come in handy.
I am here to see a politician.
[narrator] Tickle launches his campaign
for the common man.
-[Tickle] How you doing, Mr. Smith? -[Doug] Yes, sir.
[Tickle] We're gonna get home distillation
and it's gonna be legal.
It's part of our history.
-[Big Chuk] Bam. -That's freaking genius.
[narrator] And a new outlaw duo
makes waves and moonshine in Arkansas.
We need to take this liquor down here to Louisiana.
The idea is to put it under the boat.
Log, log!
God damn!
[Mark] This is how we make the moonshine!
[Henry] Got a little bit of work ahead of us here.
We gotta get this liquor on road, man.
You know, just get on the road and get some money.
Put some of it over in some jars, too.
All of them in some jars.
You want 'em all in jars?
Yeah, I'm gonna make more money out of it that way.
Whatever you say, boss.
Yeah, meet us around back. We'll go get it out.
[narrator] In Franklin County, Virginia,
Tickle, Henry and Josh are jarring up a limited run
of their peach brandy for a lucrative sale.
[Josh] Just gonna pour 'em back and forth?
-[Tickle] Yeah. -[Henry] Yeah, both a couple of times.
And that way we make sure we got 'em all right.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna take and just mix everything.
That way we've got one consistent proof
and a very consistent product.
What state's this going to?
[Henry] Its not going to a state.
[Josh] What do you mean?
[Henry] It's going to DC.
Well, I wanna go with you.
I can't take this no more. I'm ready to work.
Jarring up some bottles of liquor is not enough.
I'm ready to go.
-You can't go with. -[Josh] Why?
'Cause you're in no shape to go with me.
Not yet, Josh.
Henry tells me that it's not possible for me to go.
I don't wanna hear that [bleep] .
Just throw the wheelchair in the back,
and throw me in, let's go.
And what if I have us a problem, have to bail off of it and run,
then there you'll be.
If they pull us over,
and I can jump and run, get away,
and you're sitting in the trunk, can't get away,
we're gonna lose a good man.
You know, Josh, I understand he's bored.
I understand it.
You know, he hasn't been able to get out much,
but he's not ready.
Nobody's going with me but Tickle.
[Tickle] Well, Henry,
to be honest, you probably gonna have to make this run by yourself.
I got this trip to West Virginia, I got lined up.
I got this delegate, finally somebody willing to meet with me,
and talk with me about getting home distillation legal.
If my dad saw me doing some stuff like that,
he'd roll over his grave.
You know, Tickle, do whatever you wanna do, man.
I'm telling you right, right up front, I don't like it.
You're going to get your butt on back here, so we can get things rolling.
I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna try to get back here as quick as I can.
But you know, we already can't make enough liquor for which customers we got.
We got to figure out what we're going to do on that, too.
You know what I've been thinking?
Arkansas boys...
Big Chuk and Joe Boy, you know 'em.
[bleep] I love them boys.
I went all the way to Arkansas,
helped them build their still.
[narrator] Just one week before his motorcycle accident last spring,
Josh took a trip to Arkansas
to help up and coming Ozark moonshiners,
Big Chuck and Joe Boy,
scale up their operation.
Demand is there, we work all day
just to take care of one, two people.
Well, it sounds to me, like you gonna have to build a bigger still.
They're good ol' boys.
If there's a way that we can bring them in to make some money,
I'm down with that.
I really like Joe Boy, Big Chuk.
They had some dealings with Henry while I was in the hospital.
And guess what?
They gave all those proceeds from their liquor to me.
How many people do that?
That says a lot about somebody's character
when they're willing to do something like that for somebody else
and be straight up about it.
Why don't y'all get the rest of jars,
and I need to hit the road. Y'all holding me up.
You hit the road, I'm gonna be drinking, grandpa.
This grandpa's job is to get this done.
I'm gonna get this liquor loaded up,
gonna make this run, get us some money.
I might just make a run a liquor while you're gone.
-Don't even try. -[Josh laughs]
-[Big Chuk grunts] -[Joe Boy] What's up, cuz?
Well, I see you got something here that we asked for.
-You got the boat here. -Yeah, I got the boat.
And you see here a PVC pipe here.
[Joe Boy] I'm not 100 percent sure what you got in mind.
[narrator] Nine-hundred miles southwest in Clark County, Arkansas,
Ozark shiner and country rapper, Big Chuk,
and his cousin, Joe Boy,
prep their riverboat for a long distance bootleg operation.
A jar of liquor, pipe.
Wham.
So, me and Joe Boy have been making liquor around Arkansas
for about six years now.
We're a little small operation,
but we got big ideas and big dreams.
Okay, so we fill the pipe full of jars...
We put them underneath.
Oh, that's freaking genius.
Me and Big Chuc, we're actually double cousins.
And what that means for people who don't know
is my dad was kin to his dad,
and my mom was kin to his mom.
And so, it's opposite sides of family,
but when they have children like that,
that makes us double cousins.
Tricky thing is these jars are gonna weigh a lot.
With them capped off airtight, they're gonna float.
We need to take this liquor down here to Louisiana,
and Joe Boy with traveling on the roads,
he's been down there before and got in some trouble.
Only other thing that makes sense
is we got to go through a river system.
So obviously the idea is to put it under the boat.
Little they know what's below.
Chances are we will see a game warden between here and Louisiana.
So, we're traveling on river,
we just look like two old boys out fishing.
All right, so let's get this contraption together.
We're gonna have to modify my boat,
build a bracket system to hold these pipes,
completely underwater where nobody can see this.
I think it's a genius idea,
but we don't wanna drill a whole bunch of holes in this boat,
and just ruin the boat.
So, my idea is to come up with a bracket system to hold all these pipes.
That will bolt the structure itself
this bracket system to the boat,
stack several pipes side-by-side.
We can actually haul quite a bit downriver.
Like a champ!
Put our end caps on there.
West Monroe, here we come.
Give me some glue, cuz.
Mm, no, no. This is serious.
[laughs] Serious business.
-You ain't graduated to glue yet. -[laughs]
It's very important to get a good strong seal on these pipes.
I'm putting them on here 'cause I know
that they're glued right if I put them on.
These things, they need to be absolutely airtight,
so no water at all gets in.
If water gets into these pipes,
that's gonna weigh us down.
It's probably even gonna sink us at this point.
All right, let's get a nut on that.
Joe Boy, I asked him along the way,
"So, we'll be running liquor tomorrow morning?"
He seemed to agree, so that's the deadline.
So, tomorrow morning, rain, sleet or snow,
we're on that river, we're hauling liquor to West Monroe.
Boy, that's a log deflector if I've ever seen one.
It's amazing what we can do when I'm in charge, eh?
[both laugh]
-Let's get out of here. -[Big Chuk] Yeah, let's get the hell out of here.
[Josh] Henry and Kenny are gone,
Tickle is gone, everybody is gone.
I've been cooped up for a long damn time.
While Henry's off on this run
and Tickle is off politicking,
the last thing that Josh is gonna do
is just sit here in his wheelchair with his thumb in his ass.
We got a water problem we got to fix,
and I just wanna get the job done
and prove to the guys that I'm still here,
and show that I still got some worth.
During our peach run, we had a little bit of an issue.
We didn't have enough water flow to keep our worm cool.
Henry's got a ram pump right here in the shed.
But there's a huge hornet's nest up there.
Can't get to the pump until we get rid of the bees.
I don't know if this'll fit me or not. Maybe.
I'm gonna go get the ram pump,
kill some bees, install the ram pump,
and when they come back, we're gonna have water.
The only thing is
with my history with stinging insects,
I'm really not looking forward to this.
God damn, right on the face. [bleep]
Man, get this off of here.
[screams]
But I can't let the past get in the way.
I gotta go in that building,
get that pump,
and right now, I can't run.
So, the stinging might be worse than normal. Who knows?
But we're gonna go for it anyway.
I am the bee killer.
[laughs]
I'm sure I'm gonna be all right,
but I am allergic to bees.
They're white-faced hornets, is what they are.
So, we're gonna spray these bitches.
Twenty-seven feet.
I know when you piss off a bee's nests,
they're all gonna come out.
As long as I don't get stung all to hell.
All right, let's kill some bees.
They're pissed.
They're coming out of there now.
That thing was full of bees.
Hell yeah!
Let's get this [bleep] and get the hell out of here.
Honestly, I expected those bees to cover my ass up.
But they didn't.
I'm really happy Henry, Kenny and Tickle wasn't here
'cause if they saw this ridiculous garb, this stupid crazy getup,
they'd laugh, I'd never hear the end of it.
You know, just because of the fact that I am a moonshiner,
there was a huge target on my back.
Every time somebody looks my name up,
first thing that comes up,
is a mug shot.
I wanna change that,
and get home distilling legal.
And that's something that can carry on for future generations.
My great great great grandchildren will have something to be proud of.
So, right now,
I have made it to Charleston, West Virginia, the capital,
to go see delegate Doug Smith.
He is trying to put forth a home distillation bill.
I really think Doug can be the guy to give me the information
and the ammunition that I need
to go right across the border in my home state of Virginia,
and get home distillation legal there.
-Mm-hmm. -[beeping]
Is that everything out of your pockets?
Yeah, I believe it's about everything.
-I mean, I've got a belt on. -Okay.
-Yeah. -Just turn around for us, so I can see for weapons.
-[Tickle] Yes, sir. -[officer] Thank you, sir.
-All right. -Get your cash.
Well, you know, I thought it might come in handy.
I am here to see a politician.
Sounds perfect.
I mean, I have a lot of cash.
It usually comes in handy.
-I mean, right? -Yes.
I mean, I'm new to this. I don't know how it works.
Hopefully, I leave with it in my pocket.
-Pretty good. -All right.
If you asked me ten years ago,
"Do you see yourself in a Capitol building
trying to get a home distillation bill passed?"
I would have told you the only way I see myself in the Capitol Building
was for a capital offense.
Boy, I tell you what, this sure does look like an official building.
This is my biggest step so far.
Maybe who knows?
Two-hundred years from now,
maybe the moonshine heritage is just huge in the world.
And I can be the guy that really kicked that off.
-[Doug] Mr. Tickle. -[Tickle] How you doing, Mr. Smith?
[Doug] Yes, sir. I'm so glad you reached out to me
talking about a moonshine bill.
But let me start off, tell you a little bit about myself.
I'm actually a moonshiner.
I just think it's a shame that,
you know, in my line of work, we've really got to hide in the woods
and really be hunted down, you know?
And I read about what you're doing here in West Virginia
with your bill about trying to get home distillation legal,
and I wanted to talk with you about that
and see what I could do in my home state of Virginia.
Distill Your Own is what the title of the bill is.
Basically, it would allow somebody
to distill their own liquor up to 50 gallons per person
or 100 gallons in a household
for personal consumption only.
They cannot, you know, sell it,
can't transport across state lines,
that type of thing.
We're more than happy to go get you a copy and bring it down.
And actually that should help, you know?
Take that when you are looking for your delegate
or senator in Virginia,
you know, give them a copy of all of this and say,
"Hey, would you help sponsor this?"
That would be great.
It's part of our history, just like this whole building is.
It's part of our history.
Especially in Appalachians. And then
a couple other states are looking into it also.
Arizona, Massachusetts.
Missouri has it, perfectly legal.
Delegate Smith understands where I'm coming from
as a moonshiner.
Yeah, I'm very interested in seeing a copy of this bill.
I really feel like I've got my first ally now.
Here's the bill, share that with the individuals
that you talk to in Virginia.
-[Tickle] Yeah. -And you've done the work for them.
All right, thank you very much.
Meeting Doug Smith today was a huge success.
He's not willing to back down from this fight,
and neither am I.
You know, Doug's so valuable to me,
not only as validating me,
but he told me other delegates and other legislators
are looking to do the same thing.
I'm ready to hit the road, I'm ready to keep moving forward,
and I'm ready to make sure that in the state of Virginia,
and even any other state that wants to pass this,
we're gonna get home distillation and it's gonna be legal.
[Josh] This is what you call a ram pump.
And I know this works,
but it seems like it was leaking air around in here somehow.
While Tickle is gone,
and Henry is off on a bootlegging run,
I'm taking it upon myself
to get our water source fixed.
Guess I'm gonna cut this off, put a new piece on it.
Put everything back together and see what happens.
The whole idea behind the ram pump is
our stream is way below our still site.
And with that being the case,
we're having a hard time
getting pressure to go all the way up to the still site.
So, what we got to do is take the ram pump
which creates more pressure to the line,
which makes you able to push water up the hill.
Once it fills up, it builds up pressure
and I guess to a certain place,
it kicks back out,
and then it overflows until it catches.
I know I can fix the pump and make it work.
My real worry was, "Am I gonna be able to crawl down to the creek or not?
Am I gonna be able to get down to the water?"
I know it sounds crazy
because I've done made a run a liquor,
and I've done been down there.
But at the same time,
my world is a little different than it was.
When you can walk, can talk,
wipe your own rear end,
you don't really think about it.
It's just took for granted, it's just part of life.
But when you can't,
what a pain in the ass that is.
This thing looks like it's supposed to,
it looks as good as it can.
It's watertight.
Now, the question is,
am I gonna be able to get into the creek and actually hook this thing up?
That's the real question.
[Joe Boy exclaims] Oh!
I had done told you about the damn holler, cuz.
We out here trying to be quiet.
Yo, we're hollerin' [bleep] .
Gonna get that shine in there.
[grunting]
God damn!
[Joe Boy] You wanna hand me jars, I'll shove them in the holes.
Two at a time.
So, we're transporting 25 gallons a moonshine
in PVC pipes under the boat.
And if anything goes wrong, and this thing don't make it,
we just lost 2,300 cash.
You did bring the Channellock.
[Joe Boy] Yes.
[Big Chuk] So, you might wonder to yourself
why we're gonna all this trouble to move 25 gallons of liquor.
But it ain't about the liquor,
it's about developing a relationship
and turning that relationship into a potential client.
And if we can get that client right there,
we're one step in the right direction to building a better business.
I just pray that this works.
All right, big moment of truth, cuz.
-Oh, yeah. -Damn, cuz,
that floats good, son.
[Big Chuk] It's floating like a dream, boy.
-I ain't never seen it stick that far-- -Look. It's standing up.
[both laugh]
Golly, it's all the way out in the water.
All right, I give you credit.
All right, so I gotta eat my words here.
We put the boat in and it floats.
I'll have to hear from Joe Boy about it.
I doubted him.
Yet again, he come through in the clutch.
So, we're off to the races now.
[motor starts]
[Big Chuk] So, me and Joe Boy are gonna be moving
this liquor down the Little Missouri River.
It's gonna then connect to the Ouachita River,
and that's gonna cross over into Louisiana.
And we're gonna do the deal,
and get back up the river to Arkansas.
[Joe Boy] You're paying attention up there, aren't you?
[Big Chuk] Yeah, I'm paying attention.
There's a lot of things to take into consideration
when you're moving 25 gallons of moonshine under a boat.
Number one being the river itself.
If it rises, if it falls,
log jams, shoals,
stumps that's poking out of the water you can barely see.
You can sink a boat like that. We did it before.
And then secondly, and most importantly,
there's Mr. Green Pants himself, the game warden.
They'll sneak up on you.
So, that's the reason why we manufactured this thing to go under the boat.
So, that way all we look like is just two good old boys
having a good time on the river as we float on by.
I tell you what though, cuz, I'm proud of this.
Yeah, me, too.
-This right here something ain't nobody ever done. -[Joe Boy] Nope.
[Big Chuk] We're crossing two river systems,
two states
-to deliver liquor. -[Joe Boy] Incognito, baby.
Incognito mosquito, baby.
Just the river and our horizon.
Boy, I might just take me a little stretch up here.
Just take me a nap.
-Gonna hit that log. -Huh?
[Big Chuk] Log, log, log! Oh [bleep] !
God damn!
[Big Chuk] Gonna hit that log.
-[Joe Boy] Huh? -[Big Chuk] Log, log, log!
Oh [bleep] !
God damn!
-God damn it. -[Joe Boy] God dang, man!
You paying attention?
I thought you was watching where the hell we going?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at here.
-Look. -Oh, my God.
-We got bigger problems too, cuz. -Did we lose the rack?
No, but I got a pipe
sticking out about three foot.
[Joe Boy] I'm gonna try to get us off these logs, so we can check it out.
[Big Chuk] All right, I got the pipe.
[Big Chuk] You better hope like hell the rest of 'em are underneath here
-or we did all of this for nothing. -[Joe Boy grunts] [bleep]
I'm about to flip.
[exclaims] Here we go.
-[grunting] -[bleep]
Some of them damn near broke free, I'm holding it though.
-[engine starts] -[Big Chuk] Hell yeah.
All right, I'm gonna hold on to this.
Go slow!
All right, I got you.
Let's get up by that gravel bar and check it out.
-Can you hang on to it? -Yeah, I got it.
Be my luck. We're halfway in between here in Louisiana
and if we lost this liquor somewhere on the river,
it's flowing, we'll never find it again.
So, this is panic mode stuff right here.
[groans]
If we get out and there ain't no moonshine right there...
[Joe Boy] Don't tell me that.
[Big Chuk] We got everything except for this one, just slid out forward.
[Joe Boy] Rack is still down there. Hey, look there.
We gotta look at the rest of our damage.
Go straight.
Push.
[both grunting]
[Joe Boy] All right. I'll hold it. You check it.
[Big Chuk] We got a good gash there,
but it ain't all the way through.
You got to push up on this.
-Yeah. -[Joe Boy grunts]
A little more.
There you go.
Hey, that's good. Knock 'em flat and strap 'em good.
These old boys get a load of us.
[Joe Boy] Damn rack is still on though.
[Big Chuck] Yeah. You're damn right the rack is on.
That's about it.
[Joe Boy] You sure that's gonna hold?
We got no other choice.
I'm just wrapping it around as much as I can.
I got it weaved in there.
[grunts]
Ah.
-Just think, cuz. -[Joe Boy] What?
Two and a half hours on the road, we'd have been there.
Just keep thinking about that every time we're doing this [bleep] .
This is your problem.
Better than being in prison.
Give me that bucket, boy.
We're gonna be a lot slower now without our shield on front.
It's gonna be hard to push water out the way,
and so, we just got to see where we go from here.
[Tickle] Well, I'm here just outside of St. Louis, Missouri.
I'm going to see this fella named Don Gosen.
Now, this guy actually wrote up a bill that got passed.
Now, home distillation is legal in the state of Missouri.
I don't know how he did it,
but that's what I'm here to find out.
He cares about the craft so much,
he's done moved way past the home distillation stage.
He's actually got a legal distillery open now.
I'm meeting Don here at Copper Mule distillery.
This is a family farm
that goes back so many generations.
I'm super excited to meet this guy.
I'm definitely in the right place.
Hey, Don.
How's it going?
Hey, Tickle. How are you? Welcome to Copper Mule.
[Tickle] Oh, yeah, I'll tell you what.
I knew I was in the right place.
I could smell the barrels of whiskey.
I see you love old stills.
[Don] Absolutely. We've got about 100 stills on the property.
We're putting together a collection.
[Tickle] Where do you even come across something like this?
An old copper washing machine...
-[Don] Well-- -...turned into a still.
[Don] During World War I,
everybody had given a lot of their scrap metal
and different things for the war effort.
So, you know, a few years after World War I, prohibition hits,
and people had to use whatever metal they still had laying around the house.
Washing machines, milk cans, whatever they could find.
[Tickle] What do you know about this here, Don?
This one right here.
Well, I've tried to research these as much as possible,
and they look like,
especially, what the Europeans used
to make brandy in stills that looked like this.
I'm almost wanted to say there's a bullet hole in this thing.
Very well could have been.
Definitely not a revenuer
or they would have done a little more damage than that to it.
I do have a still over here that the revenuers definitely got into though.
Just meeting Don,
and seeing all these stills,
smelling the smell of his barrel room,
it lets me know that I'm among kindred spirits right here.
-They took a good axe to that. -[Tickle] Yeah.
This shows what the law does when they catch us with our pots.
But in the state of Missouri,
you don't have to worry about this anymore.
Not only does he care enough
about legal home distillation to get this bill passed,
he cares enough about legal home distillation
to preserve the history of it.
How did you actually get it through?
What was the key to your success?
You've got to build a coalition.
And that's the most important part.
You've got to have other people of like interest.
You're making moonshine? What do you make moonshine out of?
Corn? How about the corn growers?
Where do we put our new making to make bourbon?
White oak barrels.
We went to the Missouri forestry department
and had huge support from them.
Believe it or not, the forestry business in Missouri,
it's a ten billion dollar industry.
You got to have that coalition.
Talking to Don, he's letting me know that
I can't do it on my own.
I'm just one small voice.
[Don] It wasn't that many years ago where we were in a room
about one-twelfth the size of this,
and that's another place I'd really like to show you today.
What I've got to have is a larger voice
of other people that will back me.
So, this is our building version of the five gallon bucket.
This is where it all began.
We had a still in the center of the room.
We had fermenters lining this wall.
What we do in here now is we do our barrel dumps.
We do our bottling, packaging.
This is 2,000 square feet right here.
If I can get a bill passed in the state of Virginia,
where home distillation becomes legal,
where you've came from
could be somebody else's lifelong goal.
I know, for one,
George Washington distilled, you know, a long time ago
in the state of Virginia.
And you know, he was one of the first home distillers in the state.
And he'd probably be sad if he was back here today
and couldn't distill a batch of moonshine at his property,
he'd probably be a little disappointed.
So, I know he would appreciate you, for one.
He might even start a revolution over the fact, eh?
-What do you think? -He might do that.
[Tickle] I'll have to say, I wouldn't be a moonshiner worth my soul
if I didn't ask, can we taste one of these?
Sure, absolutely.
Let's take a little taste of this.
[Tickle] Yes, let's take a taste of that.
Let's see what we got going on here.
I've got a lot more work to do.
But now I got me a grocery list of what I've got to accomplish.
Well, and after talking to you,
I can just tell how passionate you are about it,
and you will get this done.
If you're passionate about it, it will happen.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
I've got to go back to Virginia,
I got to talk to the grain farmers,
I got to talk to the loggers,
I've got to talk to barrel makers.
These are all people that are gonna be intricate
and get behind me
in order to get this bill passed.
Well, I'll tell you what I do need.
I need something right now from you.
Okay, and what's that?
I need a bottle of this to go.
[Don] We can take care of you there.
-[Tickle] All right -Let's head out this way.
[Tickle] That sounds good.
Gator tearing you up?
[Big Chuk] Horseflies, mosquitoes.
We're out here on a long bootlegging run to Monroe.
Plan was to get this shine delivered in one day,
and not still be out here on the river.
But here we are.
We might as well just park this thing and set up camp.
Sounds good to me, I'm wore the hell out.
Looks like we're about to spend the night.
But the good news is we brought some food with us,
so at least we got something to eat.
Just a big camping trip for me and Joe Boy.
There you go, cuz.
[Joe Boy] Hey, boy, looks good to me.
[Big Chuk laughs]
Whoever the hell thought moonshining was easy. [bleep]
I tell you what, I get some fire going.
Let's get the vittles ready, boy, I'm starving.
[Big Chuk] What did you do with that red ice chest?
I ain't seen no red ice chest.
I got the green one.
[Big Chuk] You gotta be [bleep] me.
You didn't bring nothing to eat "Mr. I Got The Food."
So, I'm gonna blame this on Joe Boy.
I told him go get the ice chest out of the back of the truck.
He got the green one instead of the red one.
Green one had the drinks, red one had the meat,
left the red one.
Come on, get your ass in the boat.
We're gonna get something to eat.
I can catch a damn frog.
We're fixing to get in the boat,
and go out and try to get us a few frogs.
[grunts] Come on, let's go get a damn frog.
It won't take but a couple big ones.
And we'll be good for the night.
I hear one up yonder.
-[Joe Boy] You hear it? -[Big Chuk] Yeah.
[Joe Boy] There he is, right there.
Look at that big ass frog.
[Big Chuk] Get it, Joe, you wanna chase him down through the woods.
[Joe Boy] It's ready to jump though.
[Big Chuk] These frogs, as soon as you see 'em,
just slip up on 'em, keep the light in their eyes.
[Joe Boy] All right.
-[Big Chuk] Yeah! -[Joe Boy] That is something. Heck, yeah, boy. Look at that!
-[Big Chuk] Hell yeah! -[Joe Boy] It's a huge frog.
It got kicking legs back here, boy. Look at that.
I have literally caught thousands of frogs in my life.
I'm the frog master.
No frog left behind when it comes to me.
[Big Chuk] Bam!
[Joe Boy] Another good one, boy.
[Big Chuk] Yes, sir!
This is something that grew up in our culture.
My kids love doing it.
My dad grew up doing it.
My cousin, we've done it all of our lives.
So, we really enjoy this anyway.
[Big Chuk] Let's get this grease fired up.
All right, I'm gonna start skinning these frogs.
Anytime I have a good frog to fry,
man, I go for it.
[Big Chuk] It's the law of nature, it's how it all works.
[Joe Boy] I absolutely love when they are doused in this.
God, it's gonna be good.
Y'all roll 'em in flour, salt, pepper,
and throw 'em in the skillet with some grease and that's about it.
That's all you need to have a good frog meal.
Put that ol' salt and pepper on there.
Oh, yeah.
[Big Chuck] That will definitely get me through the night.
Damn, how are you eating that.
-[laughing] I'm starving, dude. -[Big Chuk] Damn.
A frog is delicious.
If ain't never had a frog, boy,
it tastes like the best chicken you ever ate.
I'll be glad when we get this thing done.
[Big Chuk] While my belly is full, cousin,
I'm finna go and call it a night.
[Joe Boy] All right. Good night, cuz.
I'll see you in the morning.
[Big Chuk] We're gonna get rich one of these days, Joe Boy.
Don't tell me I can't go down to the woods on a four wheeler
and go to the liquor still.
[engine starts]
Don't tell me I can't do it.
Because that's the first thing I'm gonna do.
Oh, God, that hurts.
I made it with a crazy get up on
and killed the bees.
Got the pump, fixed the pump,
strapped it on the four-wheeler.
I'm gonna freaking prove that being here is worth something.
This is our water supply right here.
We're gonna hook this...
ram pump up to it right here.
This is the easiest spot to put it right here
'cause I can drive with four wheeler right down in here.
Oh.
I'm gonna put that bad boy in the creek right there.
[yells]
Son of a bitch.
Damn it. [laughs]
Right here we got a good water source.
But going up the hill kind of kills it.
This should intensify what we have.
Hopefully, I'll be able to damn get this together.
Now, if this thing'll do what it's supposed to do.
[grunts]
Hot damn!
That's what I'm talking about.
Golly, look at the water, it's pouring.
[laughs]
I'm making a comeback and it feels good.
I've accomplished so much today.
I made it down to the creek.
I fixed the water pump.
Today is an amazing day.
[engine spluttering]
[bleep]
I don't know why this thing isn't cranking. It's gonna kill the battery
if I keep on keep on keep on,
probably burn her starter up.
And I won't ever hear the end of it.
This four wheeler freaking is not cranking after all I've been through today,
after all my accomplishments.
I really was... This sucks.
[phone ringing]
[Henry on phone] Josh, what's going on, brother?
How you've been doing?
I need your help.
[Henry] What do you mean?
I'm stuck and I need you guys to come and get me.
[Henry] Stuck? Where are you stuck at, man?
I'm at our... I'm at our... I'm at our site.
[Henry] Say that again. You're what?
I'm in our site.
-[Henry] At our site? -Yeah.
[Henry] Dang yourself. Get the [bleep] . What the hell? My God, man.
Please, just come and get me.
[Henry] All right, all right, all right, all right. Damn.
Thank you.
I was gonna be able to say, "I told you so."
Instead, they're gonna be able to say,
"I told you so."
Because no matter how much I was able to accomplish today,
I still can't walk back from the creek.
[engine spluttering]
I still don't see how you think we're gonna get more money out of a jar.
[Henry] It's the way it is, man.
It's the way it's been for years and years and years.
[Josh] I've done this for years and years and I've never even
thought of that or heard of that.
[Henry] In our market, the people that we sell to,
it's got to be in jars.
Now if you wanna get $100 less,
leave it in the buckets if you want to.
[Josh] Price is the price like...
X amount of dollars for the liquor
is X amount of dollars for the liquor.
Just because you've done North Carolina, Virginia is different.
It's a whole different ballgame here in Virginia.
Whatever, you're full of crap.
[Tickle] Y'all sell Kool-Aid in North Carolina, don't you?
Yeah, that's what we're selling.
[Henry] Everybody knows that Virginia's center is located on the east coast.
That just means y'all are closer to being Yankees is what that means.
[all laughing]
[grunts]
So, day one is in the books and it was awful.
Anything that could go wrong went wrong.
But we were able to eat us a good meal last night.
And hey, this morning, we're back on the river
to finally deliver this liquor to our buyers.
If that's all we got to do today, baby,
we're good to go.
I don't know this old boy or
what he's gonna have waiting on us up there.
-You know if they're gonna be in? -[Big Chuk] I don't know.
Man, all I got is a pin, that's all I got.
We're almost there.
Should be just right up around this bend.
[Joe Boy] That is music to my ears.
So, we're just looking for 'em on the side of the bank?
[Big Chuk] Yeah.
That somebody standing in the grass?
-[man] Hey, there. -[Joe Boy] Hey, man.
[man] You boys from around here?
[Big Chuk] We're just out doing a little fishing and stuff.
Hey, y'all wouldn't be looking for something to drink, would you?
Sure would be.
We've been thirsty.
[Joe Boy] Hell, yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
Thank God.
[man] Y'all have a good trip?
[bleep] no, we didn't have a good trip.
Well, welcome to Louisiana.
[Big Chuk] We're here though. Hell, that's all it matters.
[man] I'm glad to see y'all,
but I don't see what I'm looking for.
[Big Chuk] Just 'cause you don't see it,
don't mean it ain't there, big dog.
Hey.
[scraping]
Oh, y'all got a little bit of...
Now you see what we working with here?
I see, I see it.
-[grunts] -I appreciate that.
Now, listen here, we're gonna have to call a workout for y'all for this.
Unscrew them dodaddys there, lift it up,
shine jars fall,
take it far and away and do whatever y'all want do with it, all right?
-All right-- -Will we get a discount?
-[Big Chuk laughs] -[grunts]
Let's get it and get it out of here
-before we gotta answer for it. -All right.
[man] Where are y'all boys coming from?
-[Big Chuk] Arkansas. -Really?
[Joe Boy] All right!
One, two, three.
[man] You know, when we left home this morning, I didn't know this
was gonna turn into a damn job.
Damn.
-[Big Chuk laughs] -[Joe Boy] Oh! [bleep]
We got moonshine going everywhere.
Oh. [bleep]
I'll better go swimming for it
-'cause we ain't coming up short. -[Joe Boy] We got it, boys.
Damn, they're coming out like Whack-A-Mole.
-Oh. -[Big Chuk] Let that right there be
an example of what this entire damn trip has been about.
Yes, sir.
All right.
[Big Chuk] Last jar.
[man] Appreciate y'all, man.
-[Joe Boy] Yeah. -[Big Chuk] And we appreciate you.
Y'all be careful.
[Big Chuk] Homeward bound, baby.
[Joe Boy] Get on back.
[Big Chuk] Damn, I'm glad this is over.
[Joe Boy] Yeah, me, too.
Get back. Won't you take your two or three baths.
Throw that damn shirt away.
Maybe them overalls, too.
Sounds good, cuz.
Let's go, baby. [laughs]
[engine spluttering]
Damn!
This four wheeler, I don't know if the carburetor is not working right,
the floats are hanging up.
I don't know what the damn deal is.
All I can tell you
is the four wheeler wouldn't start.
And it's a hell of a time
'cause all I wanted to say, "I told you so."
Josh.
What the hell, man?
Don't you know better [bleep] than this?
I can't believe you, son.
[Josh] You hear that beautiful sound?
-[Henry] You didn't do this by yourself. -[Josh] Hey. Hey.
Damn, Josh, you got it running.
Hey, I killed your bees, too.
It running like a damn Rolex watch.
Damn if it ain't.
[Henry] One second I wanted to kill him,
the next second, I want to pat him on the back
because he's done one hell of a job.
But I'm so afraid he's gonna get hurt.
And now the damn four wheeler just won't crank.
[engine spluttering]
[Henry] You can't get it going?
That switch is on?
Kill switch?
All right, don't run the battery down.
I can't believe I'd done damn killed bees.
Got a pump, fixed the pump,
brought it to the creek, got it going,
but still can't get the hell out of here.
We appreciate what you did with this pump and all.
Yeah, you got this thing singing.
[Henry] You get crazy on us.
How are we gonna get you out of here?
Another four wheeler?
We can't get the four wheeler running, ain't no choice.
We're gonna have to tote you out, Josh.
Y'all can't tote me, it's too wet.
[Tickle] Man, we might not have a whole lot of choice in that, Josh.
I know it ain't the optimum thing.
We're gonna be as careful as we can with you.
I believe we'll go right through here with him.
[Kenny] We go straight down that way.
[Tickle] All right, what side do you want to be on, Henry?
[Henry] Let me get around here, where I can get a hold on him.
Henry, Kenny and Tickle having to tote me out of here
is totally letting the air out of the bag.
After all I've been through today,
it's kinda like getting a birthday cake,
but having it took away from me before we get to blow out the candles.
-Here we go. Be easy. -All right.
It will be fine.
[Henry] So, Josh, how are you feeling, buddy?
[Tickle] Yeah, you feeling all right?
Just glad to be here, man.
But that really embarrassed the hell out of me that I had to ask for help.
I'm not quite up to snuff yet.
I need my legs to work.
I'm gonna leave for a few weeks
and just work my butt off doing therapy.
-[Henry] You'll leave for a few weeks? -[Josh] Yeah.
I got my therapist and my buddy waiting.
[Henry] Well, if you're leaving, and Tickle is on this...
savior thing he is on,
trying to get the liquor legalized.
How's that going?
I think I could do something with it.
Maybe I can, maybe I can't, you know?
But I've been kind of catching the same thing at home from Carol
-I've been catching from you. -Really?
She's says, you know, "Even if you do
get this home distillation legal,
where does that leave us?
We ain't gonna be making no money off of it, you know?"
We got thinking about, you know,
we do make pretty good money, you know, making liquor, you know, in the woods?
[Henry] Yeah, you do.
But I was thinking about what can I do legally
that I can actually make a good living at?
And me and Carol got to talking,
I mean, you know, I love cooking liquor
and I love cooking food, too.
-Right? -Right. Right.
We thinking about opening up a restaurant.
Cooking burgers, dogs, barbecue,
just good old country eating.
So, are you gonna be able to do that and make liquor?
Well, when I'm needed to be making liquor,
she can be working in the restaurant,
and I should be able to make liquor
and have this for when I'm not.
And I'm not just bailing.
[Henry] I know.
Well, you know, we only want what's best for you.
[Henry] Yeah, absolutely.
But with that said,
we're gonna make some money.
[narrator] Next week on the mid-season finale...
[Digger] Killer Beaz has got our first big load going out of here.
Forty-eight boxes of liquor
headed west of Memphis.
[Mark] There goes $10,800 worth of liquor.
Come on!
Henry tells me we're gonna go meet Perry.
We're hoping he can start supplying us with a little bit of liquor.
[all exclaiming]
[phone ringing]
[man on phone] Digger, the liquor got stolen.
[Digger] We're gonna load it back up,
but me and Mark, we'll follow him along for a little while.
We're gonna see if anybody tries to jump our little buddy.
[Mark] Oh, hell.
This black SUV, he's out with them, ain't he?