Making moonshine's illegal.
You can get seriously hurt or go to jail.
Do not try this at home.
[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
[Killer Beaz] I got one thing I want to talk to y'all about.
Shine pods.
Beaz has this harebrained idea
about building an interactive cocktail.
At $5 a pop,
gotta make this work.
That's insane damn money.
[Amanda] These things are just--
[Beaz] They're like egg yolks.
[Digger on speaker] Go ahead, Beaz.
We're not able to do this.
[Digger] We need this order, Beaz.
[Jerry] The guy took the bait.
[Mike on speaker]
This thief sent word that he's willing to sell his still.
The guy wanted $1,500 for it.
He ain't never gonna see no cash at all.
Don't turn your back on that damn fool.
Oh, heck no, man.
I'm not a cop. I've never been in this situation before.
He's following us.
[tires screeching]
[man] This is how we make the moonshine!
[Mark] Baby man. Let's see. I need six hazelnut rum.
-[man] Yep. -[Mark] And I need six of the triple malts.
Triple malts.
[narrator] In Cocke County, Tennessee,
after a thief stole $11,000 worth of liquor from their cargo van...
Well, that's an outstanding lookin' bootlegging car.
[narrator] ...Mark and Digger have their bootlegger Killer Beaz
downsized to a less conspicuous delivery vehicle.
[Digger] We've got liquor going out the door.
It's reminiscent the way it was in the late '80s,
early '90s in our world.
I mean, back then, we were moving a train load of liquor
and we're headed that way fast again.
-Killer. -Good morning, young people.
7,500 bucks.
-Oh, that's what I've been talking about. -[Digger] Perfect.
[Beaz] We got so much going, man.
I got to write all this stuff down now.
Cherry wheat, five cases.
You know, Beaz, he drops by a minimum of once a week.
-This is the... -Triple malt.
-Triple malt.
And he sells the hell out of some liquor.
You know the deal. It's time for you to go and make us some money.
Yep, I got one thing I want to talk to y'all about.
It ain't time for a raise, Beaz.
Just bear with me.
Shine pods.
[country music playing]
I don't know what that is.
This is a laundry pod.
I have a big money buyer in Nashville that likes to do out of the norm things,
and he is wanting some liquor
that can be an interactive experience
with his people who come to his big parties.
Well, I thought interactive experience with liquor
was just drinking with your friends.
Yeah, that's the interaction.
That's old timey days.
Well, we're old timey people.
He doesn't know what he wants, but he wants something with some visual effect.
I'm thinking we could get liquor in a gel pod
that people could drop into their mixers, into whatever,
and it would release the alcohol into it.
My vision is it's almost like a liquid...
fireworks display in your goblet.
I think it would be a hit if it can actually work.
I don't know if it's doable.
Even if it is feasible, we don't know how to do it.
You didn't give him a price, did you?
I told him they would run at least five bucks a pod.
There's 85 shots in a gallon.
-Yeah. -So $5 a shot, five aces,
400, five piles of 25,
$425 for a gallon of liquor.
-Right. -And I'm all about that.
When Beaz tells us
you can get $5 a pop for these things,
I mean, that really piques our interest.
It could be a big avenue for revenue.
I know how he loves a challenge.
-I mean, he's-- -Well, I don't want to be defeated,
but I like making that money.
Me and you might not be smart enough, but we know who is.
We need to put this in the hands of Amanda
and let her put that brilliant mind of hers to work.
We got younger eyes out here working for us.
Well, they've got younger ideas.
You tell them we don't know how to do it,
but we're gonna do our best to find out.
-Okay. -[Digger] Can you get them down the road
and get us some money made so we can explore this venture?
Yeah, all right. Later, man.
See you, brother.
[Mark] The amount of money that that could generate.
[country music playing]
[Mike] It's still hard to believe that we ain't got
no dadgum still to go to the woods with, son.
I don't know what we're gonna do, man.
[narrator] In Haywood County, North Carolina,
after Jerry's friend Roger shared a video
showing a man stealing their one-of-a-kind waterless moonshine still...
[man] Holy [bleep]!
[narrator] ...the Maggie Valley Trio plots a strategy
to reclaim their stolen property.
You know, the guy that actually took the still and made this video,
he's got a large list of felonies, larceny, trespassing.
He's been known to do a lot of drugs.
He's just a common criminal.
The longer we take, not seeing the still,
not finding out where that's at,
the chances are we're never gonna get it back.
No, the longer we go, the more he's inclined to take this thing
and cut it apart and try to get rid of it.
Exactly. Now is the window of opportunity
to try to find this guy, find him fast
and see if he still has our still.
Maybe we try to find out where this thug lives
and let's go raid his sheds or something
in the middle of the night, see if we can't find our stuff
and just take it.
Well, you know, that dude can really be bad news.
-[Mike] Oh, yeah. -We might be dealing with something
a little bit bigger than we thought.
This might not go well.
Well, he's dangerous.
He could be armed, and if we're on his territory,
there's no telling what kind of situation we could run into.
Maybe we should come up with some type of reward money.
Something to offer him to get the still back,
you know, without him knowing who we are.
Do you want to pay somebody?
Definitely not.
He won't ever get the money.
Oh, you just want like a, like a-- throwing a cheese out there
-and be able to reel it back in. -Exactly right.
[Mike] Your guy give you the video, right?
That guy that took the video gave it to somebody.
Roger's niece is the one who actually knows this piece of crap.
She's the one who got the video to begin with.
So maybe we can go backwards and be able to get ahold of this guy.
[Mike] All it'll be is somebody saying,
"Hey, there's somebody that's actually wanting to buy that!"
He's gonna be like, "Yeah, we'll sell it to you!"
You know, the only link that we've got to this crook now
is through Jerry's friend Roger.
So if we can talk to Roger and convince Roger
to get in touch with the crook and, you know,
put up a cash offer, a big cash offer,
maybe we can lure this sucker in.
-[Richard] That's a good idea. -Offer him 500 bucks.
Let's go.
You know, we don't want to offer him some much down money
for it to where, you know, it spooks him off or something.
But $500?
That seems pretty reasonable for a stolen still.
$500 is more than he can get at a scrap yard
any day of the week for that still.
Hey, buddy.
All right. It's going all right, I guess.
Hey, look, if you're willing to help us, man, we've got an idea.
Tell him that somebody wanted to purchase it,
like, they throw down a $500 offer.
All right, man. Let's see what you can do for us.
Let me know if you hear anything.
You know, my buddy Roger, he don't really want to get involved,
but he sees the need that we need to get ahold of this guy.
And he knows that he's our only point of contact.
So he's gonna jump on board with us and see
if he can give us a hand finding this thing.
And he said he'd throw the word out there at best, you know.
Yeah.
I just hope this guy's dumb enough to take the bait
hook, line and sinker, and we get the still back unscathed.
[Jerry] Maybe we'll shake a tree, maybe we'll get it fruit.
[Richard] Let's go shake it.
[country music playing]
[Big Chuk] This damn creek is treacherous, man.
[Joe] I don't remember this much water.
[narrator] Just north of Hot Springs, Arkansas,
after discovering old liquor
in an abandoned Prohibition-era club...
-Oh, my God, cuz. -[Joe] Is that from the days of Al Capone?
[narrator] ...double cousins Big Chuk and Joe Boy
attempt to recreate that same style of moonshine
once made by Al Capone's nearby illegal distillery.
And let's make sure this mash ready to run.
Here goes... nothing.
Voila. Cap done fell.
Bitter.
So about a week ago, we mashed in this corn.
We used world renowned, famous Hot Springs mineral water.
This is the secret ingredient
to recreate this Prohibition-style moonshine.
The same type of moonshine that people like Al Capone and them
came from Chicago down here to make.
We're going to pour the mash into here.
This is where the corn liquor goes.
We're basically going to handle that like a stripping run.
We're gonna run it kind of hot.
-Yeah. -We'll get it pumping.
But while that's doing all that,
we're gonna dump all the peaches in here,
put a little water in there
and let them just start simmering.
I want to cook out all the flavor of them peaches.
By the time that's done running, all we gotta do then,
-dump our distillate in here. -Yeah.
Pop a cap, stick it on here, paste up.
It's gonna be fire, man.
-Let's get to it, baby. -Yeah, let's get it.
So this here is gonna be a double distilled liquor.
Do it handful by handful,
which is gonna make it really smooth.
It's gonna come out being a good, clean, peachy flavored product.
Get ready to fire that sumbitch up.
[Joe] I'll tell you when.
When.
God dog! That burned the damn hair off my arm.
[Joe] That burner there is kicking.
Get the cap on and start rigging all this up.
I'm gonna get these peaches and some water going in this.
Pour these in.
We cooked them sumbitches.
About that time they cook that
is when we're gonna be dumping corn liquor in.
Put a little water in there.
Yeah!
Ah! God dog, man!
So now I'm gonna use a little peach juice for the paste.
I like mine thick.
Maybe that old sugar from them peaches
will make that paste a little bit more tacky.
Look like peach cobbler
-by the time it's all said and done. -[Joe] Cuz!
Oh, [bleep]!
[Big Chuk] Are you kiddin' me?
Man, if we can't get this sealed up,
it's just gonna blow steam out.
As we journeyed down this creek, busting our asses,
somewhere along the way,
we've knocked something loose on the worm box,
creating a big old gap at the bottom.
If the worm don't stay cool, we're gonna be blowing vapor out across the creek.
I'll take some screws out of this handle and put it in it.
-There you go. -Start bucketing water.
So Joe Boy's pretty quick on his feet,
trying to cinch it up.
It's about to start running, cuz.
But it's like putting a Band-Aid on a big old, gaping wound.
I guess the only solution we got is bucket fill this thing
all the way through the whole run.
[Joe] We need to hurry.
[Joe grunts]
Here comes the liquor.
Here it comes.
[Big Chuk] You can't explain how good it feels
to finally get started from this first run.
Hold on. Let me throw this out.
The sad part is, is we ain't nowhere near done yet.
[Joe grunts]
[Big Chuk] Swap it out.
We've got to work as fast as we possibly can,
putting buckets in,
in order to keep the water level up
where it's protecting the liquor.
Here, this ain't even running no more.
And we're getting into tails, 'cuz.
Go cut that sumbitch off!
All right.
So now that this first run is done, it's on to step two.
And that's adding this distillate in there with them peaches,
where they're already heated up pretty good.
So as soon as we pour this distillate in,
we're going to put the cap on,
and we'll be ready to run again.
Look, he's making him some oven mitts here, folks.
[Joe] That's the name of the game, baby.
[Big Chuk] Guess what?
Now we got to wait, again.
-[Joe] Got it. -Got it?
[Joe] Let's dance, baby.
[Big Chuk straining]
I'm gonna tell you right now, this is the hardest work
I've ever done in my life, to keep this water in there.
[grunts]
[Joe] We got a drip!
[Big Chuk] Oh, thank God.
[grunts] [bleep]
That's it, baby.
I got corn on the front, I got peaches on the back.
I got that smoothness that we found
-on that prohibition liquor. -Ohh!
-All this hard work's payin' off, 'cuz. -We just did it, boy.
-Yeah, son! -We did it, boy!
I think that we've finally got something here
that tastes just like that liquor we found
underneath the whole city of Hot Springs.
Holy crap, man, that is fire.
Just to think we've got the same liquor in our hands
that people like Al Capone and them
probably held in their hands...
We've got to keep on bucketing baby.
We got six gallons to go.
Man, I'm super excited about this.
It's fixin' to fly off the shelves.
-I'm about tired. -[Big Chuk laughs] Yeah.
Don't turn your back on that damn fool.
Oh, heck no!
He's in trouble with the law all the time.
So, hell, he may pull a gun.
If he does, I'm gonna have to pull mine too.
-[man] [bleep] -[Jerry speaking]
[Amanda speaking]
Damn sure is spooky up here.
-I turned the lights on. -[Amanda] It was your idea!
Beaz has this harebrained idea about building what he calls
an interactive cocktail for his client in Nashville
involving a dissolvable shine pod.
And we don't know nothin' about this.
So we recruited somebody who does.
Obviously, that would be Amanda.
Amanda, what's this process called again
that you've been investigating?
Reverse spherification.
It's a molecular gastronomy technique.
They use it in high-end cocktail bars and in restaurants.
So we're gonna make a food-grade outer container,
something that's edible, that people can consume.
So basically, you take two chemicals.
You have calcium lactate and sodium alginate.
They're both edible for human consumption.
Basically, it makes like a little gel shell.
And then the alcohol will be on the inside.
I don't know anything about how to even start this process.
To me, it's a crazy idea.
But what's not crazy about it is $5 a piece.
Amanda, you've got to make this work regardless of what it takes.
I mean, that's insane damn money.
So no-- no pressure, then, right?
-[Mark] No pressure. -[Digger] When have you promised these?
I have not promised these at all.
-Wonderful. -I do know
that he has a party coming up in about three weeks.
[Digger] I'm okay with that.
-I'm excited about that thing. -[Digger] Yeah.
[Digger] Well, y'all get to doing what you do.
She's in charge.
If this goes over and works...
Thanks for the work space.
...that's going to be the highest price per gallon
for any liquor that we've ever sold in our entire life.
We have the sodium alginate and the calcium lactate.
We're going to put the liquor in this one.
And then distilled water in this one.
The first thing we really have to do
is prove that we can make these pods.
For one liter of water,
we're going to use five grams of our sodium alginate.
So we're gonna need 10 grams of this.
So reverse spherification is a process where you take two solutions.
One will be our cocktail with the alcohol.
We'll mix in something called calcium lactate.
And the other solution is sodium alginate.
So it's like a derivative of seaweed.
When they come together, they create a gelatin form.
Now this is cloudy, but once it sits, it should be totally clear.
The sodium alginate,
this is the bath, basically.
So we're going to take the alcohol,
freeze it into little ice cubes, and we drop it in here.
Once it hits this, the outside of the alcohol will touch this.
And that forms the shell around it.
Exactly. So next, we're gonna mix our cocktail.
For the cocktail portion,
we're gonna take the alcohol, get it down to below 45 proof.
That way, it can freeze.
-So this is a cherry juice. -Mm-hmm.
[Amanda] So figure we'll make, like, cherry flavored ones.
-See how they taste. -Got you.
[Amanda] This is strictly just for experimentation
and just to really get our hands on the process
and see what we're dealing with.
We have the calcium lactate.
-Mm-hmm. -And we're going to add that to this,
which is our cocktail.
I think we should do some sampling first
-before we put anything in it. -Yeah.
Make sure it tastes good-- Oh, that tastes really good, actually.
And it's got some kick in there.
So this calcium lactate we're using
is flavorless and colorless.
Once it's mixed up, freeze the alcohol,
and then we drop it into the solution of the sodium alginate.
And that should give us an edible sphere
on the outside of our liquid cocktail.
What do we got here then?
-We have forty-eight. -[Beaz] At 5 bucks a pop.
[Amanda] It's like $240.
We'll drop them in our sodium alginate,
and hopefully, we will have
the world's greatest shine bomb cocktail
and we're all rich.
Good job.
-Good job. -Well, it was your idea.
[upbeat guitar music playing]
-[Big Chuk] You got that jar for doing it? -[Joe] Right here, son.
I hope he's ready for a little bit of a higher price tag.
I think he's gonna love what the hell this is.
Aye. Good liquor ain't cheap and cheap liquor ain't good.
[Joe] You ain't [bleep].
We got us a jar of this brand new state-of-the-art moonshine,
I'm gonna take it up here to our distro, Gooney Shakur.
So I've been knowing Gooney for quite a while.
You like that?
How does 40 gallons a week sound to y'all?
We'll do it.
[Big Chuk] We've earned his respect,
so I feel pretty good going into this,
knowing we've got something new,
something exciting, something he can take to market.
And hopefully, we can just do bigger and better things.
Well, I hear music going on up here.
♪ Country road Don't get caught up in the headlights ♪
[Big Chuk] Gooney is an entertainer.
He makes a little music, too.
That's how I kind of got to know him back in the day.
He's up here doing what he does, recording some music.
I feel like moonshine goes pretty good with music.
My favorite duo!
-Man, spinnin' here, big dog! -Good to see you all, boy!
-Hey, man. -Heck yeah.
I know he respects the liquor we're making.
What we bring to the table is gonna be a game-changer for him and us.
You know, in the early times of Prohibition, You know,
back in the day of Al Capone, they were always down in Hot Springs,
-you know, doing their gambling and... -Right.
So what I present to you today, my friends,
this is moonshine
made with all the things that it was made from back in the day.
-Okay. -This is the best liquor I've ever made in my life.
I'm sure you're gonna like it.
-[Gooney] Check it out here. -[Big Chuk] Uh-huh.
-Y'all said this last time. -Yeah.
[Big Chuk] Did we disappoint then?
-Every time is supposedly better. -Yeah.
Oh!
I don't care what you went through to make this.
[Big Chuk] That's smooth, ain't it?
A lot more went into this.
-Yeah. -A lot more trouble, a lot more effort,
a lot more research.
What I got right here, man,
somewhere to the tune of 150 a gallon.
Hell, no.
You're a vested partner right now, so--
I mean, I'm just gonna tell you,
you're wasting money making it.
It's not working out.
We got to go.
Hey, tell them to turn this [bleep] off, man.
[Big Chuk] So Gooney shut us down.
And not only that, he took a dadgum jar from us.
I'm deflated, but I've been in these situations before.
He took the jar for a reason.
He's gonna go out and let people try it.
And try to build a little bit of interest in it.
I know he'll be back.
I got confidence in the liquor hell.
Well, hell.
[Amanda] I really hope this works.
This is a sticky process, right?
There is a ton of room for human error.
It's like semi frozen, but not exactly.
[Beaz] Is it supposed to float?
I-- I don't know, Beaz. We're just...
We're figuring this out at the same time here.
We basically have staged baths
to make the spherification work.
First, the alcohol with our calcium lactate
goes into the sodium alginate bath.
We leave it in there long enough
to form a thick enough membrane,
and then we rinse it in a series of warm, clean water baths
to stop that membrane from forming anymore.
Wow. Isn't that something?
So we have figured out how to encapsulate our cocktails.
We have a sphere.
And there is an alcohol cocktail inside of that pod.
My goal is to be able to drop that in a mixer or whatever
and have it spread the liquor in there.
[Amanda] Well, that one's not as pretty.
That one broke, Beaz.
Yeah.
-[Amanda] These things are just-- -They're like egg yolks.
It looks like we're making a slasher movie.
These membranes are kind of durable,
but they're also pretty fragile at the same time.
They also don't always turn out
the perfect sphere that we're looking for.
I want to test one and see if it will dissolve
and turn into the beautiful concept
that I'm pitching to the customer.
It's just a matter now of how pleasant is this experience going to be?
Oh! There it goes.
Is it dissolved?
[Beaz] I see a little bit.
Yeah, I see it too. You've got some blobbiness going on in there.
Yeah, I saw the membrane float by.
Once the foam dissipates,
that slimy gross membrane it's still hanging on in there.
Yeah. I don't know.
I don't think I could go with that.
You're not a fan of this, are you?
Not even a little bit.
From being a bartender for years,
that is just not something that you want to serve to any customer,
especially at a high-end party.
The texture is really unpleasant.
It's just really not water soluble.
No matter what, you can break it,
but there's gonna be that gelatinous blob, still.
[Digger] Go ahead, Beaz.
Hey, buddy, how you doing?
[Digger] Hey, man, we're just delivering sugar. What about you?
Man, it's not going good.
These pods aren't turning out like we need them to, Digger.
I can't sell what we've got at this point.
[Digger] That ain't what I need to hear right now.
They don't dissolve when I drop 'em in a drink.
[Digger] We need this order, Beaz.
Five bucks for every one of these we put in this guy's hands.
Do you realize what profit margin that is?
Amanda, you ain't got no give up in you. I know you.
I know.
[Digger] This is your first day out of the gate on this.
Don't expect miracles.
You need some fresh hands there? I mean, I've got Joe.
-Yeah. I mean-- -Yeah. Yeah.
[Digger] If he can can help you all out, I'll get Joe with you.
A fresh set of eyes and some different perspective
would probably help us out a lot right now.
[Digger] Look here. Don't quit.
I'll get Joe with you, then we're moving on.
-All right. -[Digger] All right, guys.
All right. Bye.
Well, all right.
Looks like we're in it for the long haul.
[Amanda] I hear Mr. Jackson.
[Joe] You think he could get less stairs?
-What in the... -Welcome to spherification.
I've been doing research and development with Joe now, for a little while.
Digger had this brilliant idea to put us together to make hazelnut rum.
And he's really good at troubleshooting.
To me, that like what I would expect with reverse spherification.
Visually, it's just freaking me out.
I don't know why you chose this color.
I come up in here
and I haven't seen you in how long
-and this is how you greet me? -I know.
When Joe looked at our shine pods,
I could tell he was trying not to laugh.
Dropping a pod into a drink and having it react
is not as feasible as I wished it would have been.
Well, let's think about this.
Maybe it was like a cart-before-the-horse scenario,
where the idea of making a cocktail, dropping it in the glass
wasn't the endgame.
Let's elevate this.
What if it's an edible cocktail?
An hors d'oeuvres cocktail that...
Somebody comes around,
instead of a tray of glasses with cocktails in it at a party,
you come around and you've got these pretty little pods
that people just pop in their mouth.
Gotta be, like, appealing. It's gotta be palatable.
Joe's impressed that we've managed to make
these little encapsulated cocktail spheres.
If we can just improve the appearance, overall, and that texture a little bit,
then we might actually have something here.
I feel like if we're gonna elevate this
to the place that it needs to be for this customer,
we're gonna have to up the game in the actual cocktail itself.
-Yeah. -Okay.
I got this wine-based spirit that I distilled off recently.
It's really good, I added blueberries to it.
That sounds good.
And I've been planning to play around and do a blueberry mojito.
So,
-I've got some spirit for us to work with... -[Beaz] Is that the bar bag?
[Joe] ...to build this cocktail.
[Amanda] Famous bar bag.
[Joe] I got limes, some mints.
[Beaz] It is a bar bag.
[Amanda] It's literally an entire bar in a bag.
[Joe] Some blueberries.
I got some blueberry simple syrup.
So between sweet, mint, blueberry and lime,
you get the acidity, the sugar,
-a little bit of spiciness. -[Amanda] Yeah.
And then we can balance with our simple syrup.
We could add a whole blueberry, too.
You could add a whole blueberry.
-Make something that gives you more texture... -[Joe] For them to bite into.
It'll be encapsulated inside of the pod.
And the mint leaf garnish, I think that looks a lot more appealing.
A blueberry mojito
is something that a high-end customer would buy
at a really nice restaurant or at a really nice party.
It's not corn shine and cherry juice.
All right, this will obviously all be strained,
but doesn't that look a lot more appealing?
[Amanda] Oh, that smells really good.
So in the cocktail, it's like a garnish of mint and blueberry.
I think that's gonna look nice,
and it's gonna definitely help with the texture a lot.
-Wow. -That's good.
Next, all we've gotta do is add the calcium lactate to this.
So far, with Joe's input, I'm feeling a lot better about the edible cocktails.
So we're gonna add the calcium lactate
to the new cocktail that we have mixed up
and freeze it overnight.
Hopefully this next batch turns out better than the first one did.
I love that, dude.
[line ringing]
-[Mike] Hello? -Hey, buddy.
-[Mike] Hey, man. -Man, I just got the call from Roger.
-[Mike] What happened? -Man, you ain't gonna believe this.
Guy took the bait.
-[Mike] He took the bait? -Hell yeah, he did.
Hook, line, and sinker.
[Mike] Oh, my God, man.
Let's go get our daggun still.
Meet me at the shop and we'll kind of go over a plan from there.
[Mike] All right, will see you in a minute.
All right, buddy. Bye.
You know, Roger gives us a call
and lets me know that this thief sent word
that he's willing to sell the still.
But we gotta act fast.
We don't want this guy getting cold feet and spooking him.
If we do that, then we'll probably never get this chance again.
[horn honks]
There they are.
He's expecting five gallons of liquor and $500.
So he swallowed it to the hush puppy.
He took it, man.
We had to haggle with him a little bit.
-We offered the $500, right? -Right.
Well, he wasn't having that. He felt like it was worth more than that.
So he wanted $1,500 for the still.
Roger, being the guy he is,
he likes to haggle and barter with people.
He's like, "Tell you what I'll do,
I'll give you $500 and five gallons of liquor."
Well, right here's gonna be our liquor.
[Richard and Mike laugh]
Hell, yeah. Let's go get.
And, well, he ain't never gonna see no cash at all.
-You ain't gonna give him no money? -Cut this water off.
No, nothing.
We ain't about to give this guy nothing.
He ain't getting no money, and he ain't getting no moonshine.
We're gonna get that still back, though.
Let's go get this damn still.
Well, here's the deal.
You know, Roger made a deal with this guy, okay?
So I feel like he needs to go 'cause he knows this guy.
He just said, "You know, with these guys showing up,
don't want you guys showing up."
I gotta go by myself.
Me and Roger. We can't take no chances of spooking this guy off.
The best thing to do
is to have Mike and Richard and the camera crew stay behind.
This could be our one chance to get this still back, and I can't ruin it.
I'm gonna swap and pick him up.
And me and him will roll in there.
'Cause we don't wanna spook this guy, man.
If we roll in there, all four of us,
he might get spooked and take off on us.
I will say, whatever you do man,
this is a unheard-of deal,
-don't turn your back on this fool. -[Jerry] Oh, hell no.
You see that still? Get your hands on it and get going.
-Don't give him time to do nothing. -No.
You know, there's no telling what this crazy fool may do.
I mean, he's a known drug addict around the community.
[Jerry] We'll have this liquor for him.
Be careful.
Don't turn your back on that damn fool.
Oh, heck no, man.
He's in trouble with the law all the time, so...
I'm not a cop.
I've never been in this situation before.
I mean, this guy may pull a gun,
and if he does, I'm gonna have to pull mine, too.
But I'm gonna go put myself in that situation
to be able to get this still back.
[Joe] The moment of truth.
I'm hoping that these turn out way better than the last ones.
We put our blueberry mojito frozen cocktail
into the freezer to freeze.
So now, we're actually gonna turn that
into our edible cocktail.
-It's warm. -[Amanda] Grab these pods.
We have left these shine pods in the freezer long enough
to form a thick enough membrane.
They already look better. Blueberry mojito.
Our goal here is for uniformity and consistency.
[Joe] Here we go.
If we're gonna sell these on a large scale,
if they're all different shapes and sizes, it's just not gonna work.
[Beaz] That already looks a ton better than what we were dealing with.
It does. Science.
This is one of the crucial parts of this.
If the membrane does not hold together, we have failed.
That's looking good.
[Joe] I mean, they're spheres now, guys.
-[Amanda] That looks solid to me. -[Joe] That is nice.
It's really holding up on its own
and it makes me really excited that you can see
all of those parts and pieces
floating inside of the actual cocktail itself,
which is a part of the overall appeal of them.
-[Joe] Now... -[Amanda] The moment of truth.
They do kind of look like cow's eyeballs.
[Joe] Why you gotta say [bleep] like that, Amanda? Come on.
[Amanda] It's where my mind goes, I can't help it.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
-Bottoms up. -Bottoms up.
See where we're at.
Here goes nothing.
[Joe] Yeah?
All right, that's a "yeah" from me.
That's light years ahead.
It's a lot better.
They're a lot more pleasant with that natural blueberry
and a little bit of mint leaf in there.
It's a one-of-a-kind experience
that most people have not tried.
So on that note, we've nailed it.
This party planner will like this.
How many people are gonna be at this party?
Probably a couple hundred? I don't know.
That's $5. That's $5. That's $5.
-That's money in the bank. -[Amanda] Yeah.
One question is left unanswered.
That's the tough one. Will Mark and Digger dig it?
That's what we gotta know.
-[Amanda] It's an experience I'll never forget. -[Joe laughs]
We're in Canton, North Carolina, fixing to meet these guys.
Our still got stolen, and we're trying to get it back.
You know, the guy gave us a place to meet him.
Just for the legal parts of everything,
I want to make sure that everybody's protected.
So I had the crew put in some dash cams on the truck.
At this point, it's just me and Roger.
He ain't really excited about being on camera,
so we honored that, kind of keeping Roger out of the picture.
But here we're at the meeting spot, waiting on this guy.
[Jerry] Mm-hmm.
He shows up, he's driving a little old beat up, crappy car.
Back window busted out of it. Sure enough, this is our guy.
[Jerry] So see, right here, I'm thinking we're going back here
to these storage buildings.
But lo and behold, he kind of goes around the storage buildings
and pulls into this little trailer.
Dumbfounded me, really, 'cause he kind of more or less blocked himself in,
so of course, I pull up right behind him so he can't get out.
So that still's in the car, it's coming with us.
Roger's niece is with this guy.
He's just really smitten on her.
Evidently, he trusts her.
[Roger] Okay.
[Jerry] So we got out, ol' Roger gave him that little jar of liquor
and he smelled it and he was all just gung ho.
He's getting really excited.
Of course he's ready to get this thing moving
and get his cash and get on the road.
So I grabbed the bucket out of our fake liquor
set it there on the ground, and he was just all tickled.
He's like, "Man, let's get this out of the car." you know?
So he opens up the door.
Lo and behold.
There's the actual still.
So we start pulling her out of the car and he's excited.
Me and Roger, we haul that damn still right there.
We take it around to the side of the truck with it,
and we get in the back of the truck,
lo and behold, we turn around,
he's coming around the corner with parts.
He's bringing the parts to us.
He's helping us load it up on the truck.
He's already counting his money on his next fix.
So we got it all loaded and everything.
He's like, "All right, man, how about that cash? Where's the cash at?"
I just approached him, and said, "Look."
I said, "You ain't getting a [bleep] bit of cash."
I said, "That's my still that I built.
You ain't getting none of that."
See, he's getting all antsy.
At this point right here, I've already got my hand on my damn gun.
I said, "You're lucky, you know,
that I don't beat you to the ground right now."
And oh, he just went all to hell.
That's when we tell him, "Don't you pull out a gun."
He says, "Oh, man, I ain't got no gun!" He pulls his shirt up.
He says, "I ain't got no gun."
Then I said, "Forget it. We're getting in the truck and we're leaving from here."
Roger's niece, she went and jumped in my truck.
And I'm thinking, "Where the hell is she going?"
And that even makes the guy even more livid.
-Yeah? -We're grown men.
[Jerry] Come to find out she's just scared of him.
She just wanted to get away from him.
[man speaking]
[Roger] It's okay.
She's fine. I promise you she's fine.
You know, this guy kind of goes, like, speechless and he gets really erratic,
and he can't even... he can't even pronounce a word at this point.
[man stammering]
-[Roger] Man, just stay calm. -[bleep]
[Roger] Calm down, son.
[Jerry] So then we just backed up.
He got mad, he slammed his car door.
[Roger speaking]
[Roger's niece speaking]
At this point, I'm just ready to get away from him and let it be.
[Roger's niece speaking]
[Roger speaking]
Next thing I know, you turn around and look,
he's right behind us.
He's following us.
He's on our tail right now.
You better go home, dude.
[Roger's niece] He comin' at ya?
[Roger] Oh, yeah. He's crazy now.
[Jerry] You know, this guy, he's a known criminal. He's dangerous.
I mean, he could be armed.
Just depending on what time of day I guess it is
and how hopped up on drugs he is at this point.
-[horn honking] -[Roger] Watch out.
People that ask for 140-proof liquor.
That's 'cause they ain't had it.
They think they want it.
They think they want it until they get it.
You've got a certain amount of people out there that wanna say,
"I drink this liquor all the time."
Dollar won't do chest beating.
"Look at me, I'm drinking 140-proof liquor."
You ain't gonna do it long.
They think it makes their nuts hang lower.
It did my sister.
He's following us.
[horn honking]
[Roger] Watch out.
-[Roger] Is that a cop? -[Jerry] Thank God, buddy.
[Roger] Just pull in right here.
Now, this guy's got a lot of road rage with us,
and the law actually seen that.
[Roger] Yeah, he just turned around up toward that road.
[Roger's niece] That's where he lives at.
-Right up there? -[Roger's niece] Yeah.
Did y'all see that silver car that went by?
He was chasing us through town.
Just right up here, this next drive he turned in to the right.
All right.
[Roger] Hell, he's got warrants on him. Hell.
[Mike] What the hell is taking them so long, man?
[Richard] It's nerve-racking.
Jerry's dealing with a thug that stole from us.
I'm hoping and praying Jerry comes back with the still unscathed.
-A crackhead will do anything for a fix. -I'mma tell you what.
[Mike] By now, he could have damn Jerry tied up
to a log or something up there.
[horn honking]
That sounds like Jerry.
Oh he's got the still on the truck.
Come on back, Jerry!
Jerry pulls up, he blows the horn,
that still is on the back of the truck.
Jerry's here, he's in one piece,
and that's all that matters.
Baby.
Yes! Got her back, son.
I don't know how Jerry and Roger pulled this off
without getting into it.
But, hey, whatever they done, my hat's off to them.
Man, what the heck went on over there?
I'm gonna tell you what. You wouldn't believe it if I told you the story.
I mean it's... I couldn't make this stuff up.
We got the still back,
the guy decided to chase us down the road.
Now I didn't know if I had to start shooting at him
or to start trying to run him off the road.
-I didn't know what the heck to do. -[Mike] Oh, my God.
So luckily, he tried running us off the road,
-and he'd done it right in front of a cop. --[Mike] Oh, my God.
I mean, one of Haywood's finest, he seen it,
went after it, and nailed his ass right there on the side of the road.
There ain't tellin' when he's liable to get out.
I actually heard he had a lot of priors,
so he may never get out of jail.
Man, when you're dealing with idiots like that, you never know.
I'm just glad to see you back here in one damn piece.
So with the charges he had and the new charges he's got coming,
he's headed to prison for a long time.
And hopefully for him, he can actually rehab hisself.
We're back in business now, so let's check this still out,
see if it got damaged in any way,
see if we can do any repairs to it.
That way we can get it back to the woods.
[Mike] Finish our season out with a bang, put some money in our pocket
and live to shine another day.
Mm-hmm, okay, a little nature ride.
We finally got this Prohibition-style liquor
made out of this Hot Springs water.
We go up and we see Gooney,
and sure enough, man, he just shuts us down.
He don't even really give us a chance to even sell it to him.
Just like I thought, Gooney's left me a message on my phone
and told me to come to the trail ride.
He's got some good news for me.
-What the hell? -Ready to get your groove on, Joe Boy?
This is what they call a trail ride right here.
They race the horses through the day,
and then they have a big old party at night.
And this is where they sell all the liquor.
Go here, see if we can't round up Gooney.
I know the game he's about to play.
He's gonna take us out here and show us the playing field
and start talking his volume conversation with us.
He knows if he could buy a whole lot at once, he can reduce the price down.
-What's up, Big Hoss? -Gooney Shakur.
What's up, baby?
But little does he know I'm okay with that.
Because if he's buying volume, that means we're selling more liquor.
And hey, I'd rather make a little of a lot than a lot of a little.
I know it was kind of crazy last time,
-but what y'all brought me last time to the studio? -[Big Chuk] Mm-hmm.
I need that, man.
All these people out here? Come on, man.
But that price y'all gave me really was some bull [bleep].
I can't really do nothing with that.
$110 a gallon?
No. No.
Come on, man, have y'all sold with all these people out here?
[Big Chuk] No, man. All this running around--
Every two weeks, it's going down.
-Every two weeks? -You see it.
And 15 gallons will be enough for every two weeks?
Seeing is believing. You here.
Let's talk business, then. Let's see wholesale.
15 gallons. $120. Every two weeks.
I can do that.
Y'all got some today?
We can get it, we'll bring it right back.
All right.
We've developed a business now.
We've got a continuum.
We can deliver 15 gallons of moonshine to him,
cash in fist.
And one thing I know is slow motion is better than no motion.
Let's go, baby.
[hip-hop playing]
[Mike] Let's go see what the others have got going on.
Beaz reaches out and tells us they've got something to look at
in the way of our interactive cocktail/shine pod.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to your fine dining experience.
[Amanda] I know Joe and Beaz are super excited,
and I'm happy that they're happy about it.
But I really don't know what Mark and Digger are gonna say.
Gotta explain real quick.
We made a pivot. We dropped the idea of the dissolvable liquor pod,
and we have come up with an edible cocktail.
I kind of made a blueberry mojito.
You know, we garnish it on the inside, make it look pretty.
-Yeah. -I mean, look at that little rascal.
Look at the little blueberry moving around in there.
-It's just swimming around like a little tadpole. -Right.
It could be little pieces of strawberry.
It could be peach.
You just changed the delivery system.
Can we have enough of these done for the party?
-One person can make 60 of them in an hour. -[Mark] That's outstanding.
We wasn't even sure it could be done.
So now we need you guys to taste this.
-[Mark] All right, guys. -[Digger] Here we go.
Wow.
Outstanding, guys!
There ain't a thing in there unpleasant.
That cocktail is wonderful,
that blueberry is right up front,
and that little mint hanging out...
God bless America.
This is a game changer.
I'm hooked on these already.
I love the idea of having some in the refrigerator
and just pull them out and let people reach in
with a little plastic pair of tongs or a spoon and give 'em a cocktail
and go eat it.
It's just a joy to... to chew up.
That's exactly how I wanted that cocktail to go.
Outstanding.
I think that it'll spread way beyond this cat that he's going to sell to
and I look forward to making a lot of these.
I can't tell you enough how happy I am with what y'all did.
[Joe] Good.
You've made me proud to be making liquor again.
[Beaz] They love it!
It's a weight released off the three of us.
Outstanding job.
You know, this is the first time I guess I've ever ate a cocktail.
It's a delicious cocktail, but most importantly,
it's $425 in one gallon of liquor.
Can you believe the money we're gonna make off of that?
[Mark] It was good.
[Digger] It's beyond good.