Anyone attempting to make moonshine
risks serious life-threatening injury or time in prison.
So don't try this at home.
[narrator] This time on Moonshiners...
-How's it going, baby? -[Carol] Someone has to give.
I don't even want to be at this restaurant anymore.
Carol and I, we've got all our eggs in this basket.
Much as I hate to do this,
we've got to close down temporarily.
While this restaurant is shut down,
there is zero cash flow.
I need to make some money quick as I can.
Carrot brandy? I've never seen a moonshiner do it before.
[Joe] Look, somebody down there fishing.
Them's the type of people that's gonna call the law.
Long story short,
we ain't going back to that spot.
So, coming to you right now,
not late, but to tell you I'm probably going to be late.
[Tickle] If we don't find a place, we've lost mash.
If that turns sour,
we've got to pour it out and start all over.
I don't know how keen I am on risking my barn
to let you'll boys run liquor.
Richard, keep your eyeballs peeled.
Now, this is the most important part of our operation right now.
This is the most dangerous part...
[Tickle] This is how we make the moonshine.
[cell phone ringing]
[Tickle] It's the wife.
Watch it. Watch it, son. Watch it.
Henry, if you hit the button, it would help.
Well, son, you're gonna kill us.
[Tickle] Hey!
[narrator] In Franklin County, Virginia,
after taking ownership of a restaurant
with his wife, Carol,
Tickle is battling to sustain
his outlaw moonshine operation,
while also managing the new family business.
[Tickle] How's it going, baby?
[Carol] I don't know. I'm just really stressed out.
I can't handle this anymore.
[Tickle] I mean, what's going on?
They're not listening to me.
They're walking around here like I'm just a nobody.
[Tickle] Well, you are the business owner.
That can't happen.
A couple of months ago,
Carol and I opened up our own restaurant.
Y'all follow me.
Can I get you some more coffee?
-[bell dings] -Order up!
I'm really happy about seeing it packed.
[Carol chuckles] I know.
When Carol and I bought this restaurant,
we carried the old owner along with us.
We thought we would learn
exactly what we needed to be in the restaurant world.
[Carol] People don't want to do things my way,
they want to do things their way,
and that's not how it's gonna be here.
Once you've run a place for, like, 35 years,
I guess it's kind of hard to give the control up.
But when you sell your restaurant,
you have to relinquish that control.
[Carol] Someone has to give.
I don't even want to be at this restaurant anymore.
I can't take it anymore. I need you to come home.
Evidently, this is not gonna work out.
Okay, honey, I'm getting there as quick as I can,
and we'll figure out what to do about it.
-Okay? -All right, honey. Thank you.
All right. I love you, baby.
-Okay, I love you, too. -Bye.
Sounded, uh, stressed.
You know, we tried to keep the old owner on
because we had never run a restaurant.
But it doesn't look like that's working out at all.
This is never gonna work
with the old owner as a partner.
And all of her employees...
Well, they still look at her as the boss.
We're gonna have to shut down.
We're gonna have to hire all-new employees.
She was so excited to open this restaurant.
We've done put everything we've got in it.
We've got loans, we've got bills we've got to pay.
Every day that we're shut down,
we're not making any money.
[Henry] You run a business, you gotta learn to hire people and fire them.
[Tickle] Well, that's 100% right.
-[Jerry] You good? -[Richard] Yep.
It ain't every day you get
a piece of stolen equipment back, guys.
[narrator] In Haywood County, North Carolina...
[Jerry] This will be the only real problem we've got right here.
Really didn't bend it hard enough
-to make anything really, like, creased badly. -[Mike] Creased...
[narrator] ...after Jerry put himself at risk
to retrieve their valuable copper still
from the thief who stole it.
No.
[bleep]
[man speaking]
[woman speaking]
[narrator] The Maggie Valley trio
must scramble to restore it to working order,
and resume their own outlaw operation.
I'm amazed that we got the still back in one piece.
I mean, it's dented up a little bit,
but nothing that we can't fix.
[Jerry] Hang on one sec. I gotta to do something here.
[Richard] And we got it just in the nick of time.
I still owe Mark and Digger a lot of money.
Every once in a while, Digger will get mad
and give me a call, like, "Hey, where's my money?"
That's a big debt I gotta knock out right now.
[Mike] You think you can put your long beater to it,
ain't you, Jerry?
Well, I can't get no leverage on it in that hole.
Sometimes you just got to improvise
when you're doing work like this.
It's not something there's a special hammer made
to beat out valve in a moonshine still.
-Now, then... -[Mike] Now we can work on it.
[Jerry] We want to finesse it.
We don't want to just go in there wild
and start beating it to death.
We just want to see what needs to be bent out
and just address those spots.
[hammering]
[Mike] Looking good.
It almost looks like it never happened, Bubba.
[Jerry] We got this dent out.
If you look real hard, you can tell it's there.
But that's just one of the very unique things about it.
Now it's got, I guess you say, a battle scar.
Now we just got to figure out
where we're gonna set her up at next.
The problem that we've got is making mash work off.
[Jerry] Let's see if we can find a place inside.
-A building, barn or something. -Maybe a barn or something.
If we can find the right person,
and they're willing to let us be there
-and do something illegal there. -Exactly.
[Richard] We might be able to find us a drinker.
'Cause, you know, moonshine makes things happen.
[Mike] We've got to find a new still site,
and that's hard.
Especially when we're trying to get indoors
on somebody else's property.
You know, that's kind of the cool thing
about having this air-cooled still,
is we don't necessarily have to have a place with water.
In the meantime, we've got a truck bed of apple pomace
that needs to be mashed in.
[Jerry] What was the charges for a truckload of this stuff?
Honestly, we give it away.
You guys just want some, I think that'd be fine.
[Mike] He's like, "Man, you can come here anytime you want to
and get a truckload," and that's what we did.
I don't know 100%
we'll make really good alcohol out of this pomace,
but I'm willing to give it a try. It's free.
She's ready.
Now that this is ready, we need to get ready.
[Mike] Let's make some mash.
[Joe grunts]
[Joe] My ankle's giving out.
[Chuk] Well, you got to watch every step.
[narrator] In Hot Springs, Arkansas,
after making a lucrative deal
to supply their friend, Gooney's,
underground horse race operation
with Prohibition-era moonshine...
128 gallon wholesale, 15 gallons every two weeks.
I can do that.
[narrator] ...double cousins, Big Chuk and Joe Boy
trek upstream to their still site
to fire up their first 15-gallon order.
So we're gonna mash in and keep this show rolling.
-This is the a situation-- -Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey! Look!
There's somebody down there fishing.
They're on the bank.
[Chuk] What the [bleep]?
[Joe] There's a whole family down there.
[Chuk] That's right there by the still.
Them's the type of people
that's gonna call the law instantly.
Yeah.
We damn sure can't run a risk of the law.
[Joe] What the hell we gonna do now?
[Chuk] I think what we do is we just
get up in the thicket somewhere
and just wait it out.
We just got a little time to kill.
-Wait till dark. -Wait till dark.
Come out here, get our pots, get our worm,
get on out of here.
Ain't nobody down there.
No, looks like we're alone now.
-[Chuk] All right. -[Joe] Let's get this done.
Get on out of here.
It's supposed to be an easy day, man.
We're supposed to run down here,
mash in, get on out of here.
Here we are, five hours later.
We don't know if our still site's been compromised.
All we know we got to do is go in here
get the valuable merchandise, which is the copper,
and get on out of here as quick as we can.
[Joe] Everything's still there.
My babies.
[Chuk] We can replace burners and things,
but right now, I can't afford to replace no damn copper.
That's just where I'm at.
-[Joe] Yeah. -Let's get this thing out.
[Joe] Ready?
[grunts]
I'm gonna roll that down there.
[Chuk] This right here is really putting
a big kink in the plan.
And to be honest,
I don't really have a game plan at the moment,
but I know one thing.
We promised Gooney Shakur
this prohibition-style moonshine.
That means we've got to have this water.
And we can't ever come back here again.
Much as I hate to do this,
we've got to close down temporarily,
but we will be back open as soon as possible.
I want all of our loyal guests to know that.
But you know what?
We've got to do what's best for our restaurant.
Carol and I had to split with the old owner of this restaurant.
Now we're shut down.
What we've got to do is hire completely all-new staff,
train completely all-new staff,
restock all of these refrigerators and freezers.
And you know what? That takes time
and that takes money.
Hey, Henry?
Yeah, I thought I heard something out there.
There was a little noise, and I looked out and saw you.
-So how you doing? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, well... well, I mean, I've been doing all right,
but, you know, things ain't been going good
over at the restaurant.
I need to make some money.
I kind of need to make it quick as I can.
Henry and I, we're still making liquor.
But right now, the money that we're making
off of our moonshine just isn't quite enough
for me to still pay all the bills,
pay a new staff to train them for an entire week.
That right there, I took a really good hit.
Well, something quick.
Hmm.
You're looking at quick, you're looking at brandies.
You know, it's wintertime.
Well, I know it's wintertime
and there ain't a whole lot of fruit.
Do you know anybody...
maybe some of these orchards got anything in cold storage?
Not around here.
Brandy doesn't seem like it would be a whole lot more expensive.
But this is wintertime. Fruit is not in season.
So brandy is extremely rare right now.
If we can come up with some fruit to make brandy,
we can command a premium price for it.
[Henry] I was talking to a guy the other day.
They got nothing on hand.
-Nothing. Everything's gone. -Go further south, maybe.
But, hey, we know somebody further south.
But can he come up?
-Yeah. -Let's give him a call.
Yeah, give him a call and see what he can come up with.
Josh lives farther south.
There's a much greater chance
of there being some fruit, at least in cold storage,
down where he's at.
-[Josh] Hey. -What's going on, brother?
How's everything going down there?
It's just going.
How's Reese doing?
She's amazing.
Been going to dance, been going to buy dresses.
I never thought in a million years
I'd ever buy a dress for any reason.
You think you could put that dress on,
maybe dance your way up here?
We're looking for some fruit.
Tickle's here with me.
I had to shut my restaurant down
and completely re-staff it.
I need to make some money,
and I really kind of need to make it quick.
And brandy's gonna be the way to go.
You know how hard it's gonna be
to get fruit in the middle of the wintertime?
[Tickle] I ain't gonna lie to you, Josh.
You came through for us every time so far.
I'm willing to bet, if anybody can find any, it's gonna be you.
Well, I'll look around, but don't hold your breath.
Well, if you find it, you're gonna be able to bring it to us?
Or do you want us--
If I find it, you [bleep] are coming to get it.
[both laughing]
I'm just kidding.
No, I'll bring it to you
because I'm dying to go back to work, big dog.
The only thing I can hope and pray for
is that Josh can actually find some fruit
and we can make some brandy.
And that right there should fill the hole
in the void that I need for this money.
All right. Get on it, buddy,
and holler back at us quick as you can.
All right.
-Oh, Josh. -[Josh] I made it.
[Tickle] How's it going, bud?
Josh is just supposed to be bringing us
whatever he can find as far as fruit.
Hell, you got a bunch of apples?
And it looks to us like he found us some apples.
But as I get to looking at the bed of this truck,
I notice something I ain't never seen
a moonshiner use before.
What are you doing with carrots?
Well, you told me to grab some fruit.
While I was there,
the same man had all these dang carrots.
[Paige] I hope you got a good, cheap price on it.
He's was freakin' basically giving it away
'cause it's been sitting around and wanted rid of it.
[Tickle] I ain't never made anything with carrots.
I figured we could make mash out of it.
Or who knows what.
If nothing else, we'll feed them to the hogs and the horses.
I've never seen a moonshiner do it before,
but they got a lot of sugar in them, right?
They're already sweet on their own.
Like, they got starch in them, right?
-[Tickle] Yep. -[Josh] What the hell?
Everybody, in a cold climate,
the thing they've got the most to make liquor out of,
it's root vegetables.
Most of the time, potatoes.
Well, carrots are a root vegetable as well.
Who knows? Apple-carrot brandy might be the next big thing.
So, say, what if we grab two totes,
and just mash the apples in one
and then mash the carrots in the other one?
[Tickle] I'm game for that. Mash them separate.
[Henry] That way, we can mix it the way we want it.
'Cause we know the apples are gonna turn out.
[Tickle] So these carrots are really hard to process, though.
How you gonna break them things down?
Well you see that chipper?
[Tickle] Damn, that's a good-sized one right yonder.
[engine starts]
[Josh] Normally, we would chop up or smash the apples,
and that's a lot of work, especially with carrots.
So I brought this chipper with me, thinking that
we've got all these [bleep], we need to grind it up.
Maybe it'll grind through the chipper.
[Josh] That is absolutely amazing.
[Tickle] Looks good. Definitely fine.
[Josh] It worked better than I thought it was going to.
It just turns it, like, almost like into dust.
[clicks tongue]
This chipper actually made mincemeat
of hours' worth of smashing carrots.
I think she's ready for sugar and water, don't y'all?
There's plenty of juice in there,
but I think hot water would make it work better, don't you?
[Tickle] Sugar, water, a little yeast.
[Henry] We got water. We'll heat it up.
[Tickle] There we go.
Boy, if that won't heat her up,
ain't nothing gonna do it.
So we're just gonna mash these things in
in two different totes.
If we like the way the carrots turn out,
we can run them.
If we don't, we haven't ruined our apple mash.
[Henry] When we used this wood chipper to chop up these apples...
[Josh] It's like liquid.
...it broke it down so fine, about like an apple sauce.
[Tickle] That's it, fellas!
We're done. No more apples.
[Henry] Looks good, man. I don't think I've ever had
apples ground up that fine before.
We've got one big tote of apple
and one big tote of carrot smashed in.
Uh-oh.
That's a special recipe there.
All we can do now
is just wait and see how this mash works out.
If that works off, what we're gonna call it?
It can be carrot juice or it can be crapple.
-Crapple? -[laughs]
No, that's definitely not the right name.
Carrot juice or crapple.
-Hopefully, it ain't crapple. -[laughs]
[Mike] Well, this stuff's pretty, ain't it?
And we gotta get this stuff worked off.
We need to get some money in our pocket.
[Mike] Yes.
We got to get this stuff mashed in,
but we don't have the damn place to run it off.
We'll mash it in, this apple pomace, inside Jerry's shop
simply because we don't have a place to set our still yet.
So if we mash this in right now,
-we got a week. -Yeah.
[Mike] But if we can mash in here today
and find a place within the week,
we're good to go.
I'm thinking, we just use this trailer.
We'll put the barrels on the trailer and just mash in.
When we get a place, we can just take off, you know.
But we just can't let it be damn obvious.
"Hey, we got a bunch of mash barrels on the trailer.
You'll come see us."
We don't want to give nobody no reason to pull us over.
We've got to build something to disguise this,
not only from just regular, old, nosy people in this world,
but from the law.
You can't never be too damn careful, brother.
[Jerry] That's not a bad thing either.
[chuckles] Yeah, that's right.
That's why I'm still standing here today
and not having to pay off no damn debts.
Because I learned a long damn time ago time.
Hide [bleep].
Hey, guys, look at this.
[Richard] A stack of boxes.
There's a bunch of boxes wrapped in damn cellophane.
[Jerry] Exactly.
Imagine, like, our mash being
in the middle of all those boxes.
-Wrap it back up with cellophane -Wrap it up. Yeah.
Well, it's just looks like it's a pallet of boxes sitting on the trailer.
That'll work.
So the idea I come up with is
we're gonna build a plywood box,
and then we're gonna take all these boxes
and stack around that plywood box.
And then we're gonna re-cellophane it,
where you can't see nothing from the outside.
-Let's get it done. -Let's do it.
We are against the eight ball here,
but he's got an idea, so let's go, Jerry.
This is gonna be the base to our whole contraption here.
So the first step we have to do is
build a sturdy platform
because we're gonna have, potentially,
1,000 pounds sitting on this thing.
One here.
[Jerry] We've got to get a good, strong, sturdy base.
Then we can actually start with the sides of our box.
Man, it's an awful lot of work
just to hide some mash to run down the road.
Hey, what kind of damn bird can't fly?
A jailbird.
[Tickle] A jailbird.
My God, this is gonna work, ain't it, Jerry?
-[Jerry] I think it's looking better, ain't it? -[Richard] Perfect.
-Good. -[Jerry] Get it right there. What do you think?
I like it.
I guess, when we get the water and all boiled,
-we can start stacking our boxes. -[Jerry] Oh, yeah.
You know, now that we have this thing put together,
we got it on the trailer,
time to get the disguise going.
We're stacking these boxes.
Each box we place is looking better and better.
[Tickle] Last one.
I'm gonna tell you what, Jerry.
Looks like a pallet of boxes, don't it?
You got some wrap.
We're gonna shrink wrap this entire thing.
Anytime you're driving down the road,
you see a stack of boxes on the pallet,
they're gonna be shrink wrapped together.
[Tickle] That's good.
Richard, can you see me?
Man, where the hell you'll went?
-Peek-a-boo! -Whoo-hoo.
[all laughing]
Next thing we got to do, just pour us about
two five gallon buckets full of pomace in each barrel.
Whoo! That stuff smells good.
Just add the hot water and melt some brown sugar
and white sugar down.
Boy, mixing that white sugar and that brown sugar
is gonna give it that good caramel flavor.
[Richard] Yeah. And we put them spices in there...
Got a little nutmeg, some cloves.
You don't but about a tablespoon per barrel.
And a few cinnamon sticks to throw into our mash.
[Richard] And that's all you need.
Oh, yeah.
You know, I don't know if this pomace will make
good apple pie moonshine or not...
I'm smelling apple pie already.
You smelling apple pie, though.
...but I'm willing to give this a shot,
especially if we can get it for free.
If we can pull the flavor out of this
and get the flavor of a good apple pie,
we're gonna be making money.
You know, guys, we've got our mash mashed in.
We got it disguised.
We only got one more obstacle.
Find somewhere to run it off.
-We've got money in our pocket then. -[Richard] Yeah.
Yeah, the season ain't over yet.
-It ain't over yet. -[Mike] It ain't over yet. We're gonna finish strong.
Is it just me, or do these carrots look
like we mashed in an old red dirt road?
[Henry] I've ground up a lot of apples,
but I've never, ever ground up apples that fine before.
It really did do the job, didn't it?
It's a little bitter, but still a little sweet.
Probably two or three more days
before she's working off good.
This gives time to get the still site set up.
I ain't shown you'll my outfit yet, have I?
You mean the steam outfit?
Yeah. But you never saw a steam outfit like this.
-What? -[Henry] Oh, come on, man, let me show you.
[Josh] A steam outfit's always the one to put fruit in.
The steam is coming over, cooking your mash.
That makes it taste much better.
Also, you could put anything inside of it
without having to worry about it burning or scorching.
Scorched liquor tastes like
you strained it through a polyester couch cushion
after a house fire, right?
You don't want to damn scorch your liquor.
Damn! Look at that.
-Nice old steam rig right there, ain't it? -God damn.
-This is the front keg and that's the boiler. -That's keg's huge!
Yeah, could be, could be, but I'd rather use this one.
-What? -Good God!
Hell!
[Josh] Look, look!
[Tickle] Holy [bleep].
Put one overs on me, won't you?
-[Paige] Tried to. -[Tickle] I mean, damn!
Now let's see the first boiler that we've looked at, it sits right here.
-So that goes with this. -That goes with this.
We had two boilers, and that's the still right there.
[Josh] It is badass.
It's like... [vocalizing]
It's a little bit bigger than the other one over there.
It's a whole lot bigger than the other one over there.
Damn. Look, I got to stand up on the cinderblock
to even look over in it.
Good God!
[Henry] Look at that worm.
[Tickle] Damn it, it's a big [bleep].
[Josh] That's three inches.
You're gonna have to pick me up so I can see you.
[Josh] Get on one of the sacks, shorty.
[Tickle laughs] I mean, really.
Henry has got this great, big,
huge stainless steel steamer rig.
Now, if this carrot and apple moonshine works out,
we're gonna make the money
to get the restaurant re-opened.
-So this is a doubler right here. -Yeah.
And right here, it goes to the steam boilers
with the shut-off valve, check valve right here.
[Josh] Somebody here.
[Tickle] Who the hell is that?
Bobby, Joe.
Who the hell is that?
Bobby, Joe.
[Henry] Kenny.
-[Tickle] Damn, It is! -Yeah, brother.
Is he supposed to be driving that truck?
-I'm gonna kill him. -That's a good question.
-Yeah. -I'm gonna kill him.
[Tickle] Good to see you again, old man.
Good to be back, man.
[Henry] You must be feeling better.
Well, I'm feeling better
after the long road off. A long road.
Kenny had some heart problems earlier this year.
We had to literally pick him up
and take him to the hospital emergency room.
Because he couldn't even hardly walk.
I'll tell you, he spent a lot of time
in the hospital and in rehabilitation.
-Love you, dog. -Good to see you'll, man.
Damn, seems like it's been forever.
We did a whole lot of work without Kenny here,
and It just didn't feel right.
So seeing Kenny looking good, like he's ready to go.
You know what? It really does my heart good.
Well, what do you think of this rig Henry's got here?
[Kenny] God damn, that's nice.
[Henry] Ain't that pretty?
[Josh] You know what I got a problem with?
There's no copper in it nowhere.
Even with all our stainless rigs and stuff,
we at least got the copper worm.
Might have a point there.
Now, the copper, it helps lurch sulfides and stuff
out of your moonshine.
It makes for a better-tasting moonshine.
Well, that's a big-ass pot right there.
And you got that big-ass hole over there.
We could make a freaking cap to fit that right there.
[Henry] You talking about right here.
Put a cap here, eliminating this.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're right.
[Josh] I mean, I know it'll make liquor with or without, but...
Yeah, man.
-We can always say copper-- -I think you need some copper.
Sounds like a plan.
Josh, why don't you get the copper going?
I'll do the copper stuff.
[Tickle] Now we've got our full team back together,
and it looks like we've got a great plan in mind.
Josh is gonna fix the cap for this thing,
that's going to put the copper in here.
Our mash ought to be ready to run
by the time we get this still installed.
And it's just off to the races after that.
[Joe] All right. Here we are, cuz.
Damn, what we got in the country, eh?
[Joe] Yeah, boy, I'm telling you.
-Let's go plead our case. -[Joe] Yeah.
So if losing your still site ain't bad enough,
now we're having to go and face Gooney
and tell him that we may not be able to deliver
on the day that I agreed to deliver to.
Gooney!
Hey, what's going on, gentlemen?
-What's up, baby? -Man.
-You doing all right? -How was the drive down?
-Hey. -Good to see you.
[Chuk] So Gooney is well-known in this area
for these underground horse races,
where they go around all over the countryside.
They ride horses, they dance, they party.
[Joe] Man, check these horses out.
Yeah, this is my boy, Big 60.
-Straight off the track, man. -Man!
-Getting ready for Terry, Mississippi, man. -[Chuk] Oh, yeah?
There's a lot of gambling going on,
and obviously, where there's gambling, there's moonshine.
So he uses the horse races
to distribute all of his moonshine.
And here we are at the big headquarters,
where it all goes down now.
[Gooney] So what's up, man?
All right, so the spot we we're at, long story short,
we ain't going back to that spot.
And with deer season coming on,
every spot that we got that we can use,
it ain't safe right now.
So, obviously, I'm coming to you right now,
not late, but to tell you I'm probably gonna be late.
Man, look, I got to get to Mississippi
in the next week or so,
so I don't got a week to wait.
But, hell, you should have been calling me
'cause I've got a spot we can go to tonight.
[Joe] Oh, yeah?
[Gooney] And we ain't gotta worry about a damn thing.
You ain't got to worry about nothing.
Plenty of places to hide.
Well, we didn't want to have to haul water,
but if that's what we got to do...
-Dang right -...to be inside--
At this point right now, yeah.
This prohibition moonshine doesn't exist
if we don't have the right water for it.
So therefore, we're back to the drawing board of hauling water.
We didn't want to do that to begin with.
But if my only con is I got to haul water,
that's not a bad deal.
If you give me the location, we'll go check the spot out.
-All right. -[Chuk] And we'll bring you some liquor.
[Joe] We're gonna make it work.
Jerry, you feel pretty good about this guy that owns this place?
Well, I don't know him real well,
but his family just dates back
a long time here in the valley.
You know, now that we got our mash working,
it's very important that we get out there and we find a barn.
You know, we put the word out
we were looking for a place to go.
Finally, today, I had somebody call me.
Man, that's a nice-looking barn up there.
You know, we pulling in to the property.
This is a nice place.
It's gonna change the map.
But, hey, we never know till we get out and talk to this guy,
if this thing's going to work.
How's it going?
-How you'll doing? -[Mike] All right.
[Jerry] Is that the barn you talking about over there?
That's it. That's the barn.
[Jerry] Yeah, that's nice.
What are you wanting to do with my building?
[Mike] The occupation, I'd say, that we're in,
the making of bootleg liquor.
-[man] Making liquor? -Yes, sir.
[Richard] Yeah, we make a little bit of moonshine.
Well, I like to take a drink of shine, definitely.
But I don't know how keen I am
on risking my farm and barn to let you'll boys run liquor.
If you'll want to go take a look at the barn,
see if it'll even be worth your time,
I'll scratch my head and think about it and see...
I don't think we can ask for no more than that.
[Tickle] Appreciate it.
-Yes, sir. -Thank you, buddy.
You know, if I owned a barn, I'd be worried about
letting people run shine in my barn.
I'd have to, you know, get a feel for these folks
and see if they the right kind.
Get a looksee.
Then maybe I'll let them in there.
[Richard] Oh, yeah.
Oh, this is it right here.
This is what I'm talking about.
Look how much room we got in here, and it's solid.
[Jerry] It's awesome. Man, I love it up here.
We walk up in this loft, it's exactly what we need here.
Hey, guys.
[Richard] Look at that, man.
We can run our hoses right up through here,
right into the pot.
[Tickle] We're ready to go.
This is the perfect place to set this still.
Well, we got to make a deal with this guy,
and we can't act too excited
about what we found and what we like.
This is a real big deal for us.
If this barn works out, we can hide our still
on the inside, under lock and key.
Also, by getting in here and starting to run this mash,
I can start to pay Mark and Digger.
What do you'll boys think?
Probably scrounge around, make it work.
Well, I've got a question.
I'm taking a lot of risk.
It's my barn, my property.
We totally understand that.
What is it going to be worth to y'all
to make this deal happen?
I think that we give you a gallon per run.
So, you know, like, this week,
we may be able to do one run.
Next week, we might get two runs off.
[Mike] Yeah, it won't be consistent all the time.
[man] Sure.
All right, guys, I think I'm going to do business with you.
-We appreciate you, fella. -[Richard] Man, thank you.
-Yes, sir. -You don't know nothing.
I don't know what you're talking about now.
There you go.
This barn can potentially be a lifesaver
for our season.
All we've got to do is get everything over here,
fire that still up and make some money.
Have a great day, guys.
[Jerry] Talk to you soon.
-Time to get to work now. -[Mike] That's right.
[Tickle] We need to try to get this stuff up as quick as we can.
We don't want nobody seeing
what we're putting up in the loft of this damn barn.
Let me grab this gate for you.
We got the still down the road, we're at the barn.
All we need to do is get it pushed up in the loft
and get it all set up.
You know, it's legal to possess a still
in the state of North Carolina.
But when you put mash with that still,
then your butt's in trouble.
That's why we always transport
the still and the mash separately.
Well, let's get her set up.
-[Richard] Beautiful. -[Mike] Nice, nice, nice!
It feels real good to have this still back
in the still site with us.
I mean, usually, we think of still sites,
it's in the woods somewhere.
But we're gonna run it in this barn, secure.
You don't need a water source.
You can run anywhere with a still like this.
It's time to start putting our coils on.
That is what's gonna convince that good old alcohol, ain't it, guys?
You know, our season's not going really well.
We've got our still stolen.
That put us at a dead halt.
But if we can make a good, clear apple pie
out of this pomace,
this could be a game changer for all of us.
It's free.
The last one, baby doll.
That means a lot of money
in mine, Jerry and Richard's pocket.
[Jerry] I'll tell you what, man.
We got her back together,
and we're damn fortunate to have a good place to do it in.
The part I'm worried about...
-[Jerry] Yeah? -...is getting that mash over here safe and sound.
[Chuk] I'll be damned.
[Joe] I never thought I'd be back at this place.
[narrator] In Clark County, Arkansas,
after following directions from their buyer
to an unoccupied building
to run their Prohibition-era shine...
A whole lot of firsts in here, cuz.
[narrator] ...double cousins, Big Chuk and Joe boy
approach a familiar local landmark.
[Chuk] The damn middle school.
I got my ass whooped right there in that room.
[both laughing]
-That's the principal's office, I think. -Yeah.
That's the principal's office.
Hey, I got my first paddling in there, too.
Down here in Arkansas,
if you come in certain neighborhoods
you've got to check in with the leader of that neighborhood.
Gooney just so happens to be one of those guys.
So if he guarantees you safety, you're safe.
So as long as we got that safety and protection,
we can get in here and get to work.
And we ain't got to worry about nothing but making liquor.
Oh, wow. This is like a damn scene
out of a horror movie is what it looks like to me.
There's a lot of challenges coming in this place
and setting up our still site.
In order to make this Prohibition-style moonshine,
I got to have that water out of that creek.
So it means we're gonna have to haul water.
But we can sit up here and set up shop
and run all seasons.
We ain't got to worry about the weather.
I mean, this sounds like a game changer to me.
Gooney didn't lie when he said it was a raggedy damn place.
[coughs] God bless him.
[Chuk] Don't be over here stirring up everything.
-[bleep] -Yeah.
Look at all this.
All this lead paint and all this asbestos
will [bleep] make us sick.
And I know one thing for sure.
I don't want all this bull [bleep]
getting in our liquor.
What about this?
What if you build us a little isolation chamber in here?
Maybe rig up a little old window unit or something in there
and pop it in there,
-so it's blowing fresh air in there. -Fresh air. Yeah.
[Chuk] In order to not have to worry about all that stuff
getting into our liquor,
we're gonna have to build this
protection layer kind of around it.
[Joe] Right here to right there.
Perfect.
That's about 12 foot by 20. I'm all about that.
It's gonna be a lot of work to set up shop here.
But I think it's gonna be worth it in the long run,
because once we get up in here and we get established,
we'll be able to just constantly be
pumping liquor and making money.
And that's the name of the game.
Sounds like a plan to me, cuz.
-We got us a spot, man. -Yeah, it's cool.
All right, well, let me go first this time,
'cause it's a lot scarier when you're on the back end,
and you know something might reach up there
and kiss you on the neck.
[Joe] Ooh!
Oh, man.
Henry's got this stainless rig,
and we already got a half-made cap.
And it just about fits it perfectly.
But it's a little bit shy.
-[Henry] It ain't gonna work. -[Josh] No.
It's just not enough cap.
It's got to be wider.
What we're trying to do is use a cap
and put some copper
on this stainless steel steamer pot.
But the cap that we've got,
it's just a little bit too small.
This one ain't gonna work, then.
Hold on. You know what?
Yeah.
Oh, that's right, it did, didn't it?
[narrator] Cecil Love is a Franklin County legend,
who started moonshining in 1940
at the age of 12.
By the height of his notoriety,
he was running as much as 600 gallons a day,
bootlegging as far north as Maryland
and as far south as Florida.
It wasn't until 2011, at the age of 83,
that the law finally caught up with him,
ending one of the longest outlaw distilling careers
the country has ever seen.
Cecil Love ran into the same situation.
And what he did is took just a copper tube,
and run it around the cap,
and it made the cap bigger.
Leave it to the old-timers
to bring up the genius stuff, right?
Damn sure did.
That's gotta be small
to keep it from freakin' getting in the way
of being able to mud it right.
No. Just don't matter what size it is.
You've got that flame sitting out here.
This thing will sit right on it.
You got plenty of room to pace.
[Josh] Won't it, like, blow the mud off all the time
when it builds up pressure?
You're talking about a big-ass still, bro,
and a steamer.
You're not talking about--
Put some weight on it. It'll be fine.
What I'm saying is, you're gonna have a hard time
getting your mud to [bleep] stick there.
Henry and Kenny start talking about
putting this ring on the cap so we can make it fit.
Well, to me, that's ridiculous.
Why would we make anything
that doesn't work properly on purpose?
When we got whatever we need to make it right.
It doesn't make sense to me.
See, I thought--
It's kind of like, if you're a carpenter,
and you roll up and somebody wants you to rebuild their porch,
but they don't want you to replace the header
that it's tied to, and it's rotten.
[Jerry speaking]
Why in hell we're gonna dispute
someone like Cecil, freaking ass, Love.
I'm not disputing Cecil Love.
Cecil Love is the master.
Are you telling me I'm arguing with an old-timer now?
I'm telling you, arguing with the God of moonshine business.
Okay.
[Tickle] I'm telling you, you'd argue with it
if it damn hit you on that truck.
[bleep] y'all.
-Come on, Josh. -Okay. Okay, Josh.
We'll do it your way, Josh.
[Josh] It ain't got nothing to do about my way.
-As soon as it didn't go your way, you got mad. -[Josh] I quit.
I quit. I quit.
Explosions, hunting or speed?
Can I ask you a question?
How do you expect me to choose
between all the most favorite things I have?
Blowing [bleep] up is just, like,
one of my favorite pastimes.
-[imitates explosion] -I know, I got a cannon.
I like shooting it.
I'm just saying, there's just something about it.
-[imitates explosion] -[laughs]
-If I had to choose one... -You gotta choose one.
...I'd probably choose hunting.
I could deal without the speed or blow [bleep] up if I had to.
But actually, I don't know that I'd
ever get away from the speed because--
-Well, yeah. -Even after my accident.
-You don't need no more speed. -With broken legs,
I was still driving 80, 90 miles an hour.
What if I'd have been in a wreck?
I think speed's the one you need to give up.
Speed's gonna be one of the hardest ones to give up.
Well, you're gonna have to.
I got somewhere to go.
[Josh] Tired of y'all [bleep].
[Tickle] We're trying to make a cap work.
But the cap that we've got,
it's just a little bit too small.
So Henry's idea is to just take an the old method
that he's seen that Cecil Love did.
Well, Josh would rather build a different cap
versus saying,
"Hey, this $4 copper tube works."
All right, Josh. Come here. Let me talk to you, man.
We're gonna need to get this [bleep] together and get this [bleep] done.
[Josh] I know it, I know it.
You're just going to have to let it slide, Josh.
[Josh] I know, I know.
You know, I mean, you're holding us back,
-and we ain't making no damn money. -I know, I know.
I know.
We're good, man.
I just need to let off some steam.
[Kenny] Okay, we're good. Good deal.
[Josh] No matter how you slice it,
when you've got four or five chiefs,
there's gonna be some butting heads going on.
But one thing about it is we're a team
and we always come back together and get it done.
I love you, dog.
Well, now that we've got all that out of the way,
we're gonna build this thing
and we're gonna move on with our day.
That's the most important thing.
Because Carol and I are really feeling
the pressure right now.
While this restaurant is shut down,
there is zero cash flow.
If I don't make some money with some moonshine,
this thing's gonna fall.
Look at that. There you go.
[Josh] Looks pretty damn good to me.
[Henry] Yes, it does.
Richard, keep your eyeballs peeled.
Man, I'm looking everywhere, man.
Now, this is the most important part of our operation right now.
This is the most dangerous part, right here.
[Mike] Yes, it is.
Moving mash is a little more risky
than transporting a still somewhere
because they know exactly
what you're gonna be doing with that mash.
This is always a nerve-racking part for me, guys.
I cannot stand transporting damn
mash and stuff up and down the road.
We've got our still stolen.
The cops has been hot on our trail.
We've not made very much money this year.
Everything has not really worked out
in our favor this year,
so we need to be nervous about everything.
Get this sumbitch to the barn right now.
I tell you what, son, we turn off the blacktop
where the gravel meets the road...
It's the home stretch now.
And if we can just get backed up
and unload this trailer,
old Mike will be just fine.
[Jerry] Well, guys.
-Are we done? -We got her in here, brother.
All we got to do is get this thing unstrapped
and get our pumps and hoses ready to go.
-[Mike] Get to pumping mash. -And we'll be ready for business.
[Richard] This is a recipe that we've never made before.
An apple pomace
that can be an apple pie of brandy.
All right, Mike, hit it.
[Richard] It's really, really important
that we can make some money with this run.
[Jerry] All right, buddy, we're gonna switch the chambers.
There you go.
[Richard] I need to get some money in Digger's hands ASAP.
These guys need to get some money in their pockets.
It's really, really important that this run works.
All right, we're good and full. Come on up.
[Mike] Fire in the hole.
Ooh!
[Jerry] That got a hair or two.
-[Mike] Back in business. -Running again.
Guys, you know this has been the first time
we've had this thing fired up since we got it stolen.
So keep an eye on the valves on the bottom and everything.
Yeah, you just don't... You don't never really know.
I mean, something could be there
that the eyes can't see.
This guy that stole it, you know, he banged it all up.
We had to fix the pot,
even to be able to bring it over here.
There's no telling what could potentially go wrong.
So now we're going to have her under lock and key.
-[Mike] Mmm-hmm. -That makes me feel a lot safer.
You know, one gallon's got to come off the top
to the barn owner,
and then the rest of it goes in our pocket.
Well, I'm glad we are where we are
and we're doing what we're doing,
and we're all together still.
Guys, we got alcohol.
We are running the first run of alcohol
since we got the baby back.
We haven't been able to catch a break at all this season.
[Mike] Get rid of these old heads.
I just want to get some money in my pocket right now.
That's the feeling that I miss.
If we can make some good shine out of this apple pomace,
this is a big-time game changer right here.
I mean, we're getting this stuff for free.
I definitely get the apple, that's for sure.
The clove and nutmeg is coming through.
Oh, yeah, the clove's coming through there.
It smells awesome.
I can smell that brown sugar.
[Mike] It smells just like a daggone pie.
But we're not gonna be 100% sure until we taste it.
Taste a little hint of cinnamon in there.
I'm gonna tell you what, that nutmeg is not overpowering.
You know, nutmeg and cloves take over.
[Mike] That's what we're looking for.
[Richard] It tastes awesome.
All our spices married really well.
That ain't nothing but good old clear apple pie
right there, fellas.
Finally, we're gonna put money in our pockets.
[Jerry] Guys, these buckets are almost full.
We got our landowner taken care of today.
-Good to go. -And money in our pockets today.
Exactly.
We've got 10 gallons of alcohol
sitting here right now.
It's time to get out of here,
go give our barn owner his gallon worth
and get on to trying to sell the rest of it,
put some money in our pockets.
-You got that bucket? -[Jerry] I got it.
-I got the jug. -[Richard] Let's go.
[Mark on phone] Go ahead, Puss.
Cowboy got killed yesterday evening.
[Mark on phone] Oh, no.
Sadly, when we lost Cowboy,
we lost access to the old Ghost Town theme park.
We still had a barrel of aging whiskey in Ghost Town.
-We got to fetch it. -[Digger] Yeah.
[Mike] Our bank account's dry.
We're not making the money that we need to be making
with three people working on the same team.
Richard, perhaps you get your own still.
That's some bull [bleep].
It is what it is.
No, man. It is what I say it is.
I got to get my restaurant back open.
If I can't sell this shine,
I've got zero dollars to open my restaurant up.
These people are 15 minutes late right now.
[man on phone] He'll be right there.
[Henry] That's the damn law, man.
-Spotlight. -Spotlight on us.