- Apple brandy. - This time on "Moonshiners"--
There's a huge shortage of American liquor up in Canada.
What liquor is more American than apple pie?
I don't know, man, I think we got a problem right here.
But these apples are already starting to ferment
on their own. - It's wild yeast, man.
- Bad for flavor-wise. - Dang.
We're wanted men, son.
- They want us for a robbery. - For robbery?
You spend all your life making moonshine, you know,
always trying to dodge that bullet.
I'd say 50 pounds is all we need.
You're always looking over your shoulders.
Lo and behold, you're caught with your britches down.
What are y'all doing with these pecans again?
Hey, old boy's back. He's here.
Shoot the [bleep] in the head.
Hopefully, we can shut this rat down once and for all.
There's his tempering water jugs.
I ain't sure of a lot, but one thing I can promise you,
this man ain't gonna walk around a free man much longer.
- We got to stop him permanently. - Yeah.
This is how we make the moonshine.
Mark. He should be around here somewhere.
- They got plenty of apples. - I wonder which ones is ours.
In Franklin County, Virginia, teaming up with Tim
to supply a pipeline of tariff-free liquor to Canada,
Tickle and Henry visit their local fruit purveyor
for the key ingredient in Appalachia's most popular
fall season export.
- Mark. - What's up, Bubba?
We got the whole crew here.
- What y'all doing today? - We need some apples, man.
There's not only a shortage of good, white liquor up in Canada.
- Go out the front door, here. - All right.
But there's a shortage of brandy as well.
So we're gonna go pick us up some apples, and we're gonna do
everything we can to see if we can't get some brandy
sent up here to Canada as fast as possible.
What you got for us, big guy?
I got you a bin of golds.
I'm kind of glad that you're using these.
Well, we've never used them before, man.
That's what I'm concerned about.
We've always used Winesap, stuff like that.
You know, Mark, he's always taken good care of me,
but I've never used Golden Delicious apples before.
They got a good flavor to them.
Mm, good and sweet, too. A lot of sugar in 'em.
I think they'll turn better juice and everything
like that for you.
It's the soil, makes a world of difference on fruit.
Mountain dirt versus down in the flats.
The apples grown in the mountain here, a whole lot better flavor.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
We call it the mountain twang to it.
It ain't completely sweet. It's got a little twang to it.
Sounds good, man.
All right, so what's the damage here?
Oh, 200.
That's the best I could do this year.
Yeah.
- That ain't terrible. - We got to run something.
All right, let's do it. Can you get us loaded up?
Thank you, brother. Appreciate it.
We're lucky that we got these apples, so what we got to do
now is get them back to the house, get them ground up,
get them mashed in, and do whatever we got to do
to get this brandy mash worked off, because we don't want to
miss this opportunity right here.
- Jerry. - What's going on, man?
Oh, man. Living life, cuz.
What are you doing?
I'm working on a little still for a guy.
I've got some exciting news, brother.
You know my home place I've always told you about
I was raised up in? Down in Mississippi? - In Mississippi?
- Yeah. - Well, it's come up for sale.
- Really? - Uh-huh.
I'm looking to try to buy it back.
- I want to, anyway. - You got a few pictures of it?
Yeah, man. That's the house right there.
I like that, man. Got a big front porch on it.
Yeah, my grandpa built that house for us.
- I think you should buy it. - Well, I want to.
But the thing is, man, I've got to come up with a lot of money.
Over that ridge right there, over that hill down in that
holler is where I used to run all my liquor at.
Matter of fact, that still is in that pond right now.
That's the one you sunk in that pond?
That's the one I sunk in the pond.
Yeah, when the law got in after me.
Didn't you have to shoot it full of holes or something?
Shot it full of holes and sunk it to the bottom of it.
- Sure did. - Well, I'll tell you what, man,
things don't come like that very often.
That's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing to
get your home place back.
I've got $5,000 right now saved up, but I need to come up
with $10,000 more to make the down payment for it.
- $10,000, woo. - Some people, it ain't but pocket change,
but to us, you know, it's a lot of money.
There's no way in this world
I'm letting my home place get out of my reach.
Right now, that's priority and it means everything to me.
We need to make some money fast.
I say we actually go get us some kind of ingredients.
So get a mash mashed in.
Let's get that part secured and done.
And while that's working off, then we can concentrate on
getting this other stuff sold.
As long as we're working and trying to get rid of liquor
every day that we can to that day.
I don't care how it happens. As long as it happens.
Man.
Son-of-a-gun.
Well, we know a lot more than we did.
In Cocke County, Tennessee, after identifying
the man who betrayed them to the law...
Two weeks ago, on a Monday, about 5:45, he was here.
And he's been here multiple times.
- It's usually between five and six, correct? - Yes.
...Mark, Digger, and Josh plot to catch the rat
once and for all.
We're just at the point now that we've got to stop
his forward progress.
Well, I'm so damn angry right now, I just don't even...
This sonofabitch got my underground still site raided,
all my equipment confiscated, and cost me thousands of
dollars in sales.
They're taking my still, Henry.
Yep, cleaned completely out.
- Yeah, that's it. - Thumpers, worms, caps.
This ain't happening.
I mean, can't we just snatch him somehow and just
beat the piss out of him?
Well, that's just a temporary fix.
We've got to stop him permanently.
If you think about a bobcat, they'll sit here
and they'll watch for turkeys
until they come off the roost in the morning.
Then they climb that tree and they wait on them to
come back to roost, and then they spring
a trap on them. We're gonna do the same damn thing.
We've got to stake out that phone and follow him back
to wherever he goes to.
So you want me to go sit over there and watch?
Just keep giving him enough rope till he's got enough to
snare his own self.
Me and Mark's got a run of liquor we got to finish up.
We got that apple wheat mash and it's ready.
Follow him, find out where he's going, OK?
Don't jump out on him when you find him.
So y'all go make that run of liquor.
I'll sit and watch this fella. I'll get all the info I can.
I'm gonna do anything I can to get this to stop.
You go do what you got to do.
We're gonna do what we need to do.
That's all I can do not to want to break
this dude's bones. It really is.
He ought to be thankful that we're not those folks.
This guy comes back to this phone,
I'm gonna be waiting for him.
And I'm gonna follow him wherever he goes.
Jerry, I don't think we can go wrong, man, by doing
our aged whiskey.
I mean, who out there don't like good, aged whiskey?
Nobody we've found so far.
I've got to get $10,000 made up quick.
Less than 30 days here.
My home place is on the market in Mississippi.
I cannot let this slip through my fingers.
I've got to try to get it bought quick.
Me and Jerry's got a plan now.
We're gonna make our aged whiskey.
Everybody loves that stuff,
and we can make this stuff fast.
Well, it'll bring the money that we need to help you
get your house back.
Right now, that's all that matters is getting it done
by that deadline.
So, all me and Jerry's got to do now is head out,
get our corn bought and our wheat bought and sugar,
get in the woods, get it mashed in,
and get this aged whiskey on the road.
We got to get some gas, because we are about out.
Yeah, Lord God, we don't want to run out of push for her.
You want a honey bun and a chocolate milk
or something? - Yeah, man, that sounds good.
Why don't you go and pay for about 40 spot for gas?
40 in gas? All right, I got you.
Yeah, boy.
Mike's got to put a down payment on this house
by the end of the month. So maybe he's gonna want to
work harder and stay out there
longer and actually be able to make us more money.
What, are you looking for, a new job or something, man?
A new job, my butt. We're wanted men, son.
[bleep].
That's us standing there picking that freaking lock,
come from the speakeasy.
Hurry up and get us in here.
All right, got it.
Get in. Go, go, go, go, go.
Liquor's in here somewhere.
Oh, my gosh.
This reward photo has a picture of me and Jerry breaking into
the speakeasy to get all that liquor back out of there.
The liquor that we retrieved back from the biker bar,
we had it there on consignment.
But it got busted, so we went in there and got
our liquor back.
We've got a problem, man.
Oh, my God, you can tell that's me standing there for sure, Jerry.
You spend all your life making moonshine, you know, of course,
being an outlaw, but you're always trying to
dodge that bullet.
You're always looking over your shoulder, taking extra
precaution to keep yourself out of trouble.
And lo and behold, you walk into a gas station,
there's a big picture of you and your partner
caught with your britches down.
So, obviously, we can't go get no daggum corn and wheat, man.
What are we gonna do from here?
Man, I have no idea.
It's always risky, buying mash ingredients, buying bulk sugar,
bulk grain. That generally only means
one thing, and people notice what
you're fixing to start doing.
Not just the corn and wheat, man, but what am I gonna do
about sugar? We gotta have sugar.
Cops are on the hunt for two suspected moonshiners
that fit the description on this reward poster.
And even though you can't positively identify me
and Jerry in that reward poster, we don't need to be
taking any chances out there, showing ourselves around town.
I mean, regardless of this, we still gotta make--
make a run happen.
I've got a deadline to meet, and I intend to make it
unless I'm in jail somewhere.
We hit the motherlode getting these apples this cheap.
- Period. - Yeah, yeah, at all.
- They are beautiful, too, man. - This many of them.
With all the tariffs on liquor heading to Canada,
prices are just unaffordable.
But let's face it, there's still a high demand
for American liquor.
And what's more American than apple pie?
You stick it up here on the tailgate of the truck.
So what are we gonna do?
We're gonna put it in a jar in apple-pie brandy form.
Now, we're already set to send our Canadian buyer tons of
corn liquor here in just a couple of weeks.
Adding a run of apple-pie brandy
is just gonna boost our profits.
- What are you talking about? - One pull!
Hey!
While this machine is a very old machine,
I pulled this thing once and it fired right up.
This grinder right here works better than any other grinder
I've ever ground apples up with.
I mean, there's literal applesauce
pouring out of this thing.
And every other grinder we've ever used, I've had to at least
chop the apples in half before I could even get them in it.
We're dumping buckets of apples in this thing at a time.
She just quit on us.
- You know, Henry? - Yeah?
That looks like an old spark plug in it.
Yeah.
All right.
I don't know, man, I think we got a problem right here.
What do you mean we got us a problem?
Did you put yeast in it when we walked away?
No, I didn't put no yeast in it when y'all walked away.
Paige happens to notice that these apples are already
starting to ferment on their own.
What?
Is that good or bad or?
I thought yeast was just yeast.
Right.
- Right. - Yeah.
We've got a yeast mix that we've been using for years just
for brandy, and that's what I want to make sure that we use
here because when we go to Canada with this liquor,
this brandy, I want it to be the best of the best.
You sure this ain't a good sign this is just gonna
work off good?
We add water that's hot enough, we cool it back down to
the right temperature before we put our yeast in there,
I think we should be good.
We're gonna have to boil some water, put it in there,
cook it in.
It's not an ideal fix,
but we've got two options right here.
We can either leave the wild yeast in and risk
an off-putting taste in our brandy.
Or we can put the hot water in and kill off the wild yeast.
Try to stir all that around.
But then we risk killing off certain compounds that
give the brandy its fruity, crisp flavor.
And if that happens, there's no fixing it.
It's definitely, uh, cooled down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're right about that.
I'll tell you what, I don't know what the heck we're gonna do.
I know one thing I don't want to do--
end up in jail.
You know, this whole reward poster has put me and Jerry
back a little bit.
You know, we can't stay around here and resource our corn
and wheat for our aged whiskey.
With the end of the month coming up, we're trying to
figure out what can we do
to make this happen.
Needing $10,000, we've got to come up with a plan.
What else kind of alcohol have we done that's been
a good seller?
We know our straight hasn't been selling good at all
here lately. - No.
- It's gonna have to be something flavored. - The aged whiskey
would have been the best because it's a neutral deal.
They-- people buy that year-round.
But you know what?
To make anything, we still need sugar.
You're right there, but sugar's sugar, right?
Well, I mean, in most sense, there's a whole lot of
different types of sugars, yeah.
I got an idea. Come with me.
You know, I wouldn't call Jerry a hoarder, but would I be
surprised if he had a big, old stack of sugar in his shop?
OK, he's definitely a hoarder.
This better be good, man.
I mean, it's been here a few months, but I think it'll be
worth it. - A few months?
What is this?
So I done a job for a guy.
He had started a candy store, and he had one of his machines
was messed up, so I fixed it for him.
And, of course, he run up a bill.
- Right. - And he said, "Well, putting all this money in
the store, I really don't have that kind of money."
I don't know if you're ready for this or not.
What is it?
55 gallons of pure caramel.
Oh my God, Jerry! That's sugar, baby!
- What do you think about that? - Woo!
You know, this caramel, it's non-dairy
and it's pure sugar.
And it being in an airtight container, it can last months
outside of refrigeration.
It's sugar, just in a whole different form.
Ha, ha.
That's the thing about being a moonshiner.
You got to be flexible and versatile and think.
He didn't have the money, which would have been great,
but instead he had a barrel of caramel.
In my mind, that's as good as money because I'm gonna have
to spend money on sugar anyway.
This is a whole barrel full of it.
Look at that.
I guess the big thing is, let's see what it tastes like.
She's tacky.
- Whoa. - That's sweet, man.
- That's sweet. - See, the first thing we need to do
is let's get some of this heated down, so I'm gonna grab some water.
- OK. - You grab that pot sitting over there,
and we'll get it on the stove top.
Get this stuff melted down to see how much sugar
we actually have. - OK, sounds good to me.
So the way we're gonna check the sugar content in this thing
is just simply use the hydrometer.
Take one pound of caramel to one gallon of water, melt it
down into a sweet liquid, and check the sugar content
that way to see how much above regular sugar we may be.
In a normal situation, we usually just take one pound
of sugar to one gallon of water, mix it up, and we've got
our sugar content, our ratio, so to speak, for our mash.
So we're just gonna do the same thing here with this caramel.
One pound of the caramel to one gallon of water to see
where we're at in comparison.
Oh, God. That's caramel water, dude.
Oh, that's sweet.
That right there is gonna make us money.
What's it look like?
I can't see but nothing but colors.
I mean, this is exactly equal to sugar.
A one-to-one ratio.
That's exactly the sugar content that we have
in this liquid.
And now we gotta figure out what we're gonna do with it
because it is caramel.
You know, I don't really know at this present time
what we're fixing to do.
Well, I mean, how about a candied apple?
I mean, apples are in season this time of year.
Candied apples are good, man, but what are we gonna do?
Make a bunch of candied apple liquor and take it to
the friggin' fair or something?
Where's the nearest carnival going on at right now?
- I don't think there is one. - You know?
I mean, you know, like-- like you know, in a candy bar,
you know, they use caramel and nuts?
I just know that we gotta put something with it that's gonna
make it a good, premium alcohol that somebody's gonna want.
Hold on just a minute.
I might, I just might have an idea.
What if we do caramel pecan pie?
I mean, a pecan pie would be good this time of year,
coming into the fall.
Hey, we're coming close to the holidays.
- Everybody would buy that. - This is it.
This is what we gotta make. We've gotta get it sold.
- I think this is a go. - Let's go find some pecans.
Right now, I'm on my way to this motel where this guy's
been calling and ratting me out from,
trying to make us go to prison.
That makes me want to choke a sumbitch.
I got to put a stop to this somehow.
Found out that this guy snitched out a lot of people.
I ain't the only one.
Apparently, he's been calling from this Family Inn motel,
and he's been showing up after five o'clock.
This guy comes around a few times a week about this time
of day. Today, I'm gonna be here.
My plan right now is to follow him, see where he's going,
what he's up to, anything I can find out about him.
We're gonna pull in over here, do a little stakeout,
and if that son-of-a-gun comes through there, we're gonna
be paying attention.
Hey, I love hunting.
It's kind of like sitting in a damn deer stand waiting on
a deer to show up. We're just waiting on a man.
Well, hopefully, he'll come over there and use that phone
right there, and we'll be sitting here waiting on him.
Find out where he goes, what he's up to.
We're gonna put a stop to it.
Normally, I drive a giant, red pickup truck.
Sticks out like a sore thumb.
Borrowed my buddy's Jeep, I gotta be incognito.
I can see the phone from here, but all I gotta do is like this
right here, and you won't be able to tell
I'm even over here.
He drives a gray truck, we know that,
because we watched that surveillance footage.
We know he's coming a couple times a week.
Seems like this guy's kind of got a pattern.
He comes in the afternoons,
which leads us to believe he's a working man.
He's getting off work, and he's coming to use
this phone at a certain time.
Chances are, he's gonna be back with that phone again.
Mark and Digger got a run they're trying to finish up right now,
or they'd be here with me doing this.
So, I'm gonna do the homework.
I'm gonna figure out what the deal is.
If the guy's gonna be coming through like he normally does,
we gonna be sitting here waiting on him.
We're on a manhunt.
We're gonna have to keep our nose and our clothes clean, son,
I'm telling you right now. - Well, it's obviously,
we know we can't go get our normal supplies
in the normal place. I got a buddy down here
in South Carolina we can go pick these pecans up from.
We on our way to get our pecans for our pecan pie
moonshine at an out-of-the-way spot that Jerry knows about.
It's always risky buying mash ingredients
because it can raise suspicions.
But with this reward poster out there with mine and Jerry's picture on it,
we got to be extra cautious.
We got to get this run done.
We got to get these ingredients, get them back.
You know, I got to get $10,000 made up, quick.
I'm fixing to make the liquor and go buy my home place back.
My home place is on the market in Mississippi.
I cannot let this slip through my fingers.
I've got to try to get it bought, quick.
- Here we are. - The Nut Farm.
I've come up with the idea to use some pecans to make
an authentic pecan pie moonshine because my mother
used to make pecan pie drizzled with hot caramel and it would
make you lick your eyebrows.
- It's a little wet out there, ain't it? - It is.
They've got plenty of nuts in here, that's for sure.
They do, don't they?
That's what we're looking for, ain't it?
- Nice pecan. - Can I help you?
- Hey, sir. - Notice the pecans here,
enjoying some of that good flavor.
- Yes, sir. - Would you happen to have
any more than what's sitting here?
Yes, sir. How much would you like?
I'd say 50 pounds is all we need.
Shelled pecans cost a lot more than unshelled pecans.
We're gonna buy 50 pounds of unshelled pecans
just to save us some money. You know, at that volume,
it's a significant difference in price.
It just means a whole lot more work for me and Jerry
to get mashed in.
Pretty interesting machines over here.
- Yeah, it's our cracker. - So, what do you think?
You'd be willing to crack these things for us?
Yeah, I can, I can crack them.
Turns out this guy's got a pecan cracking machine.
He's gonna crack these things for us for free.
That's half of the work done for me and Jerry.
All we got to do is peel the rest of the shell off these
babies and get them mashed in.
We're saving time and money.
Fire that thing up.
Watch those things, Jerry.
Oh, look at that! It's picking them up.
What are y'all doing with these pecans again?
Pecan pies. Let's just say that--
- Pecan pies? - Yes.
Yeah, they'll make good pecan pies.
I just simply told him, look, we're gonna make
pecan pies, pass them out to our friends and family,
and that is no lie. Pecan pie, here we come, baby.
Except for it's gonna be in liquid form.
- Thank you, buddy. - Yes, sir.
That's a lot of pecans.
We got our work cut out for us, Jerry.
You know, nobody wants to shell 50 pounds of anything,
but now these things are cracked, that's gonna save us
a heck of a lot of time.
Boy, got them in, didn't we?
Which I need if we's gonna get this stuff mashed in
and sold A-S-A-P.
Well, we's able to end up getting these pecans pre-cracked.
It's gonna take forever, man.
It's gonna take a good minute, that's for sure.
Man, it's kinda raw on the thumbprint there,
but hey, we're doing what we gotta do here.
There's gotta be a trick to this little ordeal.
I don't know, ask squirrels.
I tell you what, it's gonna make some good
alky rub right here.
And get that down payment put down on the house.
Yeah.
Man, I tell you right now, I'm worried to death
about that.
I would be too, man.
It's not very often you get a chance to get your old
home place back like that. - That's right.
I tell you what, this is taking an awful long time,
ain't it, Jerry? - I know, man.
I figured we'd already had at least a half a bucket
done already.
Oh, it don't look like we're getting nowhere
with these things.
We can't mash in shells, nuts, and all because
the tannins in here would totally ruin the flavor of
our moonshine here.
It'd give the shine a woody, bitter taste.
It'd be just like drinking tree bark.
My fingers already getting sore.
- Yeah, mine too. - These shells hurt once you
go, go to poking your fingers.
You know, I tell you what, this process has been really slow.
If we sit here and try to thumb these things out all day,
we're gonna be here for two days.
Well, man, I tell you what, I think we try to grind these
things up and put them in water and see if this shell will
actually separate or float
different than what the nut does.
I'm hoping that one of them is denser than water so that it'll
sink, and the other one is less dense than water
so that it'll float. That way, we have a natural separation of the two.
If not, I don't know what we're gonna do.
- You got a grinder? - I do have a grinder.
So to speed the process up with these pecans, Jerry's come up
with the idea of maybe we put them in a grinder.
Just catch them in your hand, you ready?
Yeah, I'm ready. We nut-busting now, ain't we?
Grinding them down to a finer granulated pecan,
shells and all. We'll just see what happens.
Look at that.
- What's wrong with that? - That worked out pretty good.
If that would work... Here we go.
See, it looks like the actual good part of the nut's coming
back up, we got cracked out already. - Yeah.
Jerry, that's all pecan, dude. No shell.
That's what we're looking for right there.
- All I can see on top is mainly just the good, meaty, nut part. - Pecan.
- Yeah. - We just don't want the tannins and stuff left behind
in our mash to give, possibly give this drink a bitter flavor.
Hey, that's good. That's good news.
I'm happy with that, man.
I'll tell you what, this right here is a big win for us.
This is gonna save us a buttload of time.
If we can crack these things, just run these things through
a grinder, bust them down real good, put them in some buckets.
Man, our day's finished.
I think that's gonna look good right there.
Can't beat that.
Oh, yeah.
Next, one bucket down and...
However many more it takes.
We've decided we're gonna leave these buckets full of
water with the pecans in there overnight.
When we come back to the shop, we're gonna skim
all the good pieces of pecan off the top, discard the liquid
and the shells that's in these buckets.
Hope you ain't got no squirrels loose.
No, not in here.
First thing in the morning is to the still site, getting them
mashed in, and it's off to the races.
See you in the morning.
Puss, regardless of what happens,
we got to run this liquor.
Yep.
So while Josh stakes out the motel for this snitch
that's calling the anonymous complaints on other moonshiners
trying to get them caught, me and Mark got to run this run
of apple wheat or that mash is gonna ruin.
Once we get this run of liquor done, then we'll go address
this problem with the rat. - We need a payday.
If we don't get a payday, we won't be able to afford
no ammunition to kill this sonofabitch.
This guy has caused Josh a lot of damage and misery.
He's had his whole still site taken away because of this
damn rat.
And Josh will do whatever it takes to get him.
Let's see what it looks like, Puss.
See if we've made any liquor or damn buttermilk.
Oh, looky yonder.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it smells good, don't it?
By God, it tastes wonderful.
It's still working a little bit.
Yeah, it's gassing off.
That's what you call a cat fart.
Get ready to pump this mash over.
I'm ready. Send it to me.
- Here we go. - Boom.
We still got liquor that needs to be run now.
Apple mash isn't real friendly to stay very good long.
We got to get this run done.
We don't have any money to operate off of.
It ain't been an easy year.
I think it ought to be close.
It's hotter than a bitch wolf in a forest fire.
Oh, hell, I thought that scared me to death.
I thought that was Kelly. That's Josh calling.
He might have a little pay dirt.
- Hello. - Hey.
- Hey, man. - Hey, old boy's back.
The hen's in the hen house. He's here.
- He in that damn gray truck? - Yes, sir.
Shoot the [bleep] in the head.
I wish I could.
Hopefully, we can shut this rat down once and for all.
We just want to make liquor and be left alone.
- You got eyes on him? - Yeah, I'm gonna follow him.
I'll find out what's up. I'll get back.
Man, I ain't gonna lose him, neither.
All right, well, you hang in there with him.
We'll catch up with you and
we'll see if we can follow him wherever he's going.
You just keep your eyes on him, boss.
All right, I'll call y'all if anything changes.
Yes, sir.
That's him right there.
He's back over there using the phone right now.
I guarantee he's snitching somebody else out.
Knowing that he's probably ratting somebody out,
it's hard to even swallow that. But this has got to stop.
He's getting back in his truck.
Looks like he's about to drive off-- he is driving off.
This rat bastard, now that I know it's him and he's here,
last thing I'm gonna do is let this fella out of my sight.
I'm gonna stay way back here, keep a low profile,
just kind of tail him, see where he's going,
what he's doing, find out as much information
about him as I can,
hopefully figure out a way to get this son-of-a-gun
to quit ratting people out.
Back in the day, you did something like this,
you'd come up missing real quick.
I don't know what it's gonna take, what we're gonna
have to do, but something's gonna happen.
- Right yonder. - All right.
- It is apple brandy time. - Apple brandy time, baby.
With all the tariffs on American liquor right now,
there's suddenly a huge market for tax-free,
backwoods, American liquor.
And today's the day we run our apple brandy mash.
Henry's got an idea on a way to make this as American
as it possibly can be.
Let's put a little bump to it, man.
- I got this vanilla... - Mm.
...got these cinnamons.
And what liquor's more American than apple pie?
I'll tell you what.
As good as we ground it up, I ain't afraid of using this
submarine pot because I don't
think there's gonna be anything to scorch.
All right, that's there, Henry.
Damn!
- Got me that time. - Did it blow the top off?
- Yeah. - It did.
You all right?
That won't stop us.
Henry's covered in sticky [bleep].
- Yeah. - Being as this thing's low
and it's got a lot of power,
it sucked this hose right up to the side of the tank.
Look, there you go.
I'm glad it bounced off your head, or we might not
have found it. - Yeah.
- I feel the pain, too. - Yeah, I bet you do.
We've got some cinnamon, and we've got some
vanilla beans.
Now, instead of putting these things over in the pot where
the cinnamon and the vanilla can overpower our apples,
what we're gonna do is we're gonna put this stuff over
into our doubler, and we're gonna create
a clear apple pie.
I say we cap her on up.
Yeah, I think I'm getting to the ethanol, so yeah,
let's cap that baby up. - Getting pretty close, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, cap her on up.
We've done everything in our power to make this
a top-notch apple pie brandy.
And I think we made the right choice with killing this
natural yeast with hot water.
I just hope it didn't damage the apple flavor enough
to turn our apple pie into applesauce.
Hey, fellas, we got liquor over here.
Woo. Lord, she's on up there.
Move out of my way, son. Let me get...
But I can taste all of it-- vanilla, cinnamon.
We got this liquor coming out of the worm over here,
and I'll tell you, the cinnamon and the vanilla
are coming in, and nice notes in there.
Yeah, it's a little strong right now.
The more it runs, the weaker it's gonna get.
Then we blend that in the proofing barrel.
That's gonna mellow that baby right on out,
perfect, just the way we want it.
We're gonna have to wait till it gets proofed down
a little bit to see what our actual finished product's
gonna be.
All right.
Another one down.
You just want a hint of it to come through.
A good apple with some vanilla and some cinnamon on it.
I'm telling you, man, you just barely
taste the cinnamon... - Mm-hmm.
...and barely taste the vanilla.
And the apple's coming through real good.
I think we got it, boy.
- Ooh, hoo, hoo. - Smells good.
I feel good about it.
I do, too.
We've got this stuff proofed down, and it is
absolutely amazing.
It is truly clear apple pie in a jar.
Well, so I got nine gallons worth of jars right here.
I figure if I take that up there with Tim, show it to
his buyer, and see what he thinks,
that'll be a doggone good sample set for him to go up
there, pass out to his maybe other higher-end buddies
that he might be distributing to.
I'm gonna take this stuff up there with Tim and see what
the buyer thinks of it.
But I'mma tell you right now, if they don't buy this,
they ain't got no clue what good brandy is.
I know this is the rat.
This is the guy that snitched us out.
My plan is to follow this guy around, find out what
he's doing, find out anything I can to be able
to put a stop to this.
I'm trying my best to keep a low profile and not be
spotted by this damn narking-ass piece of [bleep].
- Digger. - Hey, man.
What do you need?
I broke down out here by this block building.
- You follow me? - Yeah.
I'm calling Digger, but I'm definitely gonna be
talking in code because I know people are listening.
You need me to come out there?
Yeah, come on, come on. I dropped you a pin.
All right.
It tells me I'm 22 minutes from you,
and I'll be there as quick as I can. - All right.
Well he's closed the garage doors, turned the lights off,
and he's getting in the truck.
I dropped a pin to Mark and Digger because I know
the guy's not gonna be there.
If they're gonna go and check it out,
this is the time.
Tell you one thing, we're gonna follow him and find out what
he's up to, what he's got going on.
If he's selling liquor tonight, we're gonna know about it.
There's no telling where this guy's headed or even
if he's got liquor,
but I got to figure it out.
I don't know where in the world he's going to, but if he's got
a dang trailer load of liquor like I think he does,
we definitely don't want to lose him.
I want to figure out where he's going with this liquor,
who he's selling it to, what the deal is.
He ain't getting away.
Look here, Puss, this pretty little fella's getting hit with
the sunlight right on them red leaves.
Looks a tiny bit like a pot plant, don't it?
What's making his leaves turn off on him like that
and turn up red? See, this is pretty and green.
Yep, that's new growth.
But these aphids here, they're eating all
the nutrients of this plant. Well, it can't survive it.
- Oh, them little aphids is eating it up, ain't they? - Yeah.
Well, they'll punch little holes in that stem and suck
all that sap out, well, they end up
killing their host.
This new growth here, there ain't no aphids on that.
Nuh-uh. It ain't attracted them yet.
If it gets plenty of sunshine, it'll survive.
Made them turn a pretty color, ain't it?
Yeah, but that ain't no good. They'll kill that little tree.
- Damn. - Well, let's move on.
It is what it is. The circle of life.
- Aphids just gotta eat, too. - Aphids just gotta eat, too.
We cannot stop nature.
I don't know where in the hell we're going to,
but we're almost in my neck of the woods.
I got this snitch ratting me out, and supposedly
he's ratting out a lot of moonshiners around here.
I'm gonna follow this rat, see where he goes.
He's cost me my underground still site, all my distilling
equipment, a ton of money, and a boatload of sales.
You don't mess with a man's livelihood
and expect to get away with it.
I can't really tell what they're doing.
Looks like they damn unloaded a box into that damn vehicle.
Definitely unloaded a box into that vehicle.
Bet you a hundred dollars he's selling liquor.
That's gotta be damn liquor.
It ain't long before cars start pulling in there and I can see
from a distance that he's taking boxes out of his trailer,
putting them in those vehicles.
He's definitely selling moonshine.
It might not even be worth drinking,
to tell you the truth, because it's fake.
There's another vehicle just pulled in down there.
That's the third one in just the last little bit.
That's five cases of whiskey we've seen him sell
right there.
One thing's for sure, this can't keep happening.
We've got to figure out a way to take this guy out.
What did he tell you when he called you back?
"I broke down up here at this block building,"
is all he said-- yeah. - That's all he said.
Well, that's good. You know what he meant.
We got word from Josh.
He'd staked out the phone at the motel.
Sure enough, the rat showed back up, and Josh followed him.
He gave us some information on the location that he left from,
so we're gonna go check that place out.
You know, the thing about it is, he wouldn't have sent
you this pin, Digger, if there was somebody still there.
If the guy's left, Josh is still a-following him.
- I guarantee you he is. - Good.
Up, up jumped the devil.
There's a damn block building, Puss.
That's the only one I see right here.
Get up there before I lose my nerve.
I tell you...
looks kind of deserted out here, don't it?
I don't see no cameras anywhere, Hattie.
So, our job out in front of us now,
we've got to get in this garage.
We've got to figure out as much stuff as we can about this guy.
Oh, yeah, we're in business.
I seen the ladder laying right back there when we come around.
I'm gonna go fetch a ladder.
You hold that ladder for me, Puss,
and I'll sling my leg over up here.
Let me see what I got. They's a sink right there.
Step in that sink. It'll hold you.
All right.
Let me see, I'll let you in.
- Looky here, look over here. - Uh-huh.
There's his tempering water jug.
Yep.
Look at that, look here.
Boxes of jars.
Oh, looky there.
Shew.
- I know what that is. - That'll light your world up.
God, that's 190-proof.
Look here at all these flavorings, Hattie.
Mm-hmm.
Look what's empty right here. Corn.
This is nothing more than the mockery of the craft
that I dearly love.
I mean, these people, what they do, they go out,
they buy them a bottle of cheap GNS, grain neutral spirits.
It's 190-proof industrial alcohol.
Water it down, flavor it down,
then go out and tell everybody, "I'm a moonshiner."
Well, no, you're nothing more than a fraud and a fake.
What's that right there?
A damn work lanyard, Digger.
Look yonder. Highway Chemicals.
Hell, we know where that's at.
That's that place down there that makes hand sanitizer
and that degreaser. That's what they use.
That's what they-- I thought they always used, like, acetone
or something, but hell, they're using a cheaper alternative.
- Alcohol. - GNS.
Industrial alcohol is used for everything on the planet,
from medicines to cosmetics to cleaning supplies.
This guy's stealing it from where he works, doctoring up
a little bit and selling it as true, homemade liquor.
He's nothing more than a thief and a liar and a rat.
We need to set this boy up on at least 1129 vacation.
I ain't sure of a lot, but one thing I can promise you,
this man ain't gonna walk around a free man much longer.
Next time on the season finale of "Moonshiners"--
Last time we came, Tickle, there was a guard at the gate.
Tonight, we're gonna make our first delivery to
a Canadian buyer at the airport.
We got a problem with our old buddy again, the thief,
fake liquor seller.
So what's that got to do with me?
We got a plan to get this thief busted.
What the hell are you guys doing here?
You're fixing to get your [bleep] head busted.
- You got my money? - Ain't no money, boss.
Come on, guys.
You don't think I'd come alone, did you?
You burned our [bleep] down, we're owed this.