[laid-back music playing]
we've been through bit of a rough spot.
But things are starting to pick back up again.
The economy is starting to rebound.
Folks are out and they're ready to celebrate.
Demand's high for premium liquor right now.
It's boom time for moonshine.
[narrator] on this season of moonshiners...
[mark] it's coming on good, chris, let's put some grain in it.
People are working again,
they've got money to spend. So I'm ready to do my part,
see that they have plenty of spirits to celebrate with.
[henry] that's good.
There's more pots right here
than most moonshiners could ever hope to cook
through in their life.
[digger] I'm taking you to the shrine, boys.
[mark] oh, my god! This is where you
and popcorn sutton made his last brandy.
[mike] this is where the infamous popcorn sutton's from,
but it's mine and jerry's turn now.
[mike] man, look at the waterfall in there.
-[henry] I like it. -[mike] I do too.
Oh, I can see the fairy.
The green fairy, that's it.
Changes right before your eyes.
The mad scientist came through again.
Then we got something out.
You make sure you get between them little toes there.
-[laughs] -pretty good.
-Bigfoot moonshine. -[laughs]
-you've been with me 12 years. -Twelve years.
Keep up our anniversary date.
I didn't know we had an anniversary.
[brian] what's in the edibles barrel?
[josh] pineapple.
Wait, that says "non-edibles."
-is it sweet? -Yeah, pretty good.
Burns hotter than a nanny goat in a pepper patch, picking six rows at a time.
-That's pretty damn hot. -Don't splash that on your leg.
Could be doing the burnt sack boogie.
[laughs]
you done skinned a gator, josh!
One thing's for sure. My name's not good luck chuck.
-[tires screech] -whoa!
God almighty!
Son of a bitch!
Burn it down!
[mike] okay, come on. Let's get on up there.
It's like a crime scene.
You go back for that bastard.
That's when 90% of the time you get caught.
The police is coming back with a vengeance.
[police chief] what's going on, fellas?
[officer 1] check them barrels.
I'm gonna solder it from the inside.
Oh, damn!
When it starts squeezing down, slow down on it.
-Ahhh! -Son of a bitch.
See, that pandemic, it was like the great depression.
Now that everybody is coming out of it,
it's gonna be like the roaring '20s all over again.
[mark] this is how we make the moonshine!
[narrator] as the icy shadow of winter fades
and the last frost melts away,
a spirit of renewal
fills the vast expanse of appalachia,
and like generations before them,
moonshiners spring into action.
[mark] here we are,
make us a little more tennessee whiskey.
Oh, yeah. Still around and pretty.
[narrator] in cocke county, tennessee,
mark and digger return to the limestone spring
that makes their outlaw tennessee whiskey possible.
-[mark] it's backed up a little. -Yeah, let me get the shovel.
That'll bring it out there once I shovel that sediment up.
[mark] okay.
Damn.
Boy, getting older ain't for sissies, is it?
No, it ain't.
During the winter months, we rented a little warehouse from a friend.
It's right next to the one of the finest limestone springs we know of.
[mark] if there's just a leak right over here...
So, mark and I got to develop this tennessee whiskey.
Everybody's wanting it, so we're gonna run hard with it.
Well, let's give that time to clear up, let's go inside.
[mark] see what kind of mess we got inside to clean up.
You know, last year we cut our prices.
We were trying to help folks out.
We stuck with simple corn liquor and sold a lot of it.
Sure am spooky in here.
[digger] this year, things are better.
People are getting out and they've got their pockets full of money.
Everybody's wanting to spend that money on a premium liquor
and we're at a fever pitch to make 'em some.
Do you hear anything, you feel anything?
[digger] nope.
[mark] pretty good ways over here.
[both] there we go.
We got to run this pump for a few minutes to clear out muddy sediment
and once we get clean water,
make us a little mash, get ready to start making
little bit of tennessee whiskey mark and digger style.
[digger] that's still working.
[mark] yeah.
[digger] three more barrels filled up,
that ought to be about right
and rotate them coming off three or four at a time.
That'll be good. I mean, I ain't greedy, but this year is a lot different than
last year, people has got a little money now.
Yeah, boy.
You know, last year was a whole different animal for us.
We were all about making cheap liquor to what people could afford it.
This year, we're going to make top-shelf liquor
that we can charge a premium price for.
Oh, it's ready to go, ain't it?
It didn't get no mildew or nothing.
We got enough grain here to make one run of mash, you think?
[digger] with that barrel of white corn in my truck, we're ready to rock and roll.
[mark] let's get the pump and stuff first.
Get those drying.
Hello, fellas.
We had a pretty good winter.
For the first winter you've ever had?
-[brian] yeah. -You got a horseshoe
stuck in your ass.
[laughs]
[narrator] in polk county, north carolina,
josh and his partner brian are on the hunt
for the season's first harvest of fresh berries,
so they can truck it 220 miles north.
I'll tell you what really helped us was henry and kenny and tickle.
You know, they... They helped us a lot.
[josh] working with henry, kenny and tickle
has been one of the greatest things
that's ever happened for me.
[narrator] last winter...
[josh] all right, boys, here it is.
[narrator] ...Josh hauled eight submarine stills to virginia...
Hell yeah!
There's a whole lot of subs right here.
Whole lot of subs.
[narrator] ...To join forces with tickle, henry and kenny
and capitalize on a windfall of malted corn
for a big winter payday.
[josh] this year, we're going to keep working with henry, kenny and tickle.
We got these ginormous stills, killer still setup,
but we're gonna do something a little bit different.
Well, last year, with you,
we basically only done grain. With fruits coming in,
we can make some high-end brandies
and we'll be able to charge a little bit more for it.
Lord knows everybody's out spending that money right now.
Last year was like the great depression,
but this year, people are making money.
Everything is just packed, everywhere you go.
I got a lot of 'em down here.
Some strawberries have come in.
We're going
to make some killer strawberry brandy and...
How many strawberries you got lined up?
Enough to run all those stills, you know.
Hell, we're gonna have damn arthritis
by the time we get done cutting all them tops off.
[laughs]
[josh] right now, strawberries have been in real high demand.
I've called all over the place,
haven't been able to hardly locate any quantity anywhere.
But our boy colt come to the rescue.
We're here to pick 'em up.
What's up, man?
[colt] not much. Staying out of trouble?
-Trying to. -[laughs]
-[brian] staying out of trouble. -[josh] yeah.
-Show us what you got. -[colt] ah, let me go get 'em.
[engine starting]
what do you think about these?
[josh] I'm excited.
-Hell yeah. -[brian] oh, man, they look good.
-They're perfect. -[josh] all right.
If you don't mind, we'll take this one barrel in there first,
and then we'll put the bulk of them on the truck.
Wait a minute.
They're not exactly perfect.
They're soft.
God, that one there is rotten.
Some of them are just ripe,
and some of them are damn near just plum rotten.
[brian] how long do you think before these are mush?
Maybe a couple of hours, maybe tonight, I mean...
Yeah. Some of them don't even have hours, they're gone.
It ain't nothing for us moonshiners to use some overripe fruit.
But when you got to bring it to virginia in the heat,
then there's black, moldy spots all over 'em,
they're just not satisfactory.
The next time, if you can hook us up
just before it gets to that point, that'd be great.
Henry, kenny and tickle, they're totally expecting strawberries,
but these strawberries will not work.
If you got something else in the future,
man, and it ain't quite ripe,
and we definitely... You've got our number, hook us up.
I promised henry, kenny and tickle
I was gonna get 'em a huge load of strawberries.
Well, I'm a man of my word, so I got to come up with some fruit.
I got to deliver.
I'm about tired of making corn liquor,
I want to make a big run of something special, you know.
[brian] I got you.
[laid-back music playing]
[mike] I tell you what, boy,
if it wasn't for knowing how to plant your own groceries,
man, we'd have starved to death last year.
[narrator] it's sevier county, tennessee.
After police paid a visit to a stash house last winter,
mike is keeping a low profile to avoid getting caught in a sting operation.
[mike] we're talking over a 150 gallons alcohol in that barn.
When the law found our stash house,
we went from wide open to a dead stop.
-There's damn cops up there, man. -Holy damn.
-Just drive by. -[bleep].
They're gonna get our asses for sure now.
That's our whole damn season gone to hell.
Ain't been back, ain't made another dollar.
Ain't made no liquor. Ain't sold nothing.
So what little bit of pocket change I had left over, is gone.
I've not even been back to my still site.
I've been laying low, staying at home, trying to can up canned goods.
We can a little bit of everything,
homemade barbecue sauces, pepper relish, whole tomatoes.
We've just been relying on what we got at home, you know, to get by.
You know, me and jerry, we hadn't made or sold any liquor for months.
I'm broke as a joke right now.
[horn honks]
jerry.
Mikey-mikey, what's up, buddy?
Been laying low about you say.
-I know the feeling. -Good to see you.
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get started.
We took a serious hit last season.
Yeah, we did.
I don't know if I'm about ready to get back in the woods or not.
You haven't been back to the still house, have you?
Ain't been no damn where else.
Not to the still site, the stash house, nothing.
I say we go down there and check it out and scope it out
and see what we can come up with.
You think it's been long enough?
[jerry] if they found anything, they've got it and gone.
And it's done and over with.
That's 150 gallons, if it's still there,
we got a damn good start to the season, you know.
It's against my damn better judgment,
but if it is in there boy,
we'd have some money in our pocket.
Damn right.
I got a damn notion
we ain't gonna find nothing over there.
I hope like hell that liquor is still there,
because if it is,
we're pretty much where we left off,
you know, we'll be in good shape.
But the law was there,
chances are that liquor is gone,
unless they're just waiting for us
to come back so they can bust our asses.
Oh, boy, I don't like this damn idea.
We just need to sit here and scope this place out a little bit.
I hope like hell, there ain't nobody stirring around.
Should've brought a damn roll of toilet paper.
We've got to go back to that stash house,
we've got to see for our own eyes if anything's there or not.
But, you know, we're not just gonna pull up
in the front damn door and walk in.
We're gonna scope this place out.
We're looking for activity of any kind whatsoever.
We gotta watch for people, come by and see our asses.
Oh, yeah.
Hmm.
I hope there ain't nobody up on that damn bank up yonder.
I am a little paranoid,
but you got to be if you're gonna be in this business.
You think we ought to just get out and see what we can find out?
We're gonna hug the edges of them bushes
right there by the creek, slipp in there on the back side.
A little bit more incognito.
-Might as well do it. -Let's do it.
[mike] wait here a minute, jerry...
It seems like there's nobody around here,
but they could be hoarded up inside that stash house
waiting for me to unlock the door.
[jerry] is it just me or has someone been cleaning up in there?
Somebody has done some cleaning up.
That whole hallway looks like it's cleared up, gone.
Let's get on up there.
-[jerry] let's go for it. -[mike] yeah.
[tense music playing]
[tense music continues]
[breathes heavily]
okay, jerry, nothing.
They took every damn bit of it, buddy, like I figured.
[jerry] holy cow.
-Nothing but dirt. -The cops got it.
Somebody got it. It ain't here.
We can spend all damn day long about who may have it,
but it's... It's theirs now.
But we got our answer and I don't want to be here no damn longer.
-Me neither. -Let's go.
Damn.
[jerry] I tell you what, they're pretty hot on us here.
[mike] oh, tell me about it.
[jerry] yeah, we haven't been to the still site yet, it may even be worse.
We ain't been to the old still site since the whole law incident,
but we left everything over there.
I hope everything's still there,
but it won't be our damn still site no more,
that's for sure.
We'll go drop off this old truck, get in our other...
And get her cleaned up and move on.
You know, a fresh start might be a better start.
Maybe a blessing in the damn skies.
[dramatic music playing]
[police chief speaking]
ah, nothing, little spring cleaning.
[police chief speaking]
we don't know. Everything was here
when we got here. It must be some sort of water filter.
[officer 1 speaking]
[police chief speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
yeah, those are empty barrels.
[police chief speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[police chief speaking]
-[mark] I understand. -[police chief speaking]
yes, sir. Yes, sir.
[mark] fair enough.
[digger] son of a bitch. This day didn't start like I wanted it to.
[mark] no, but thank the lord, it ain't tomorrow.
[digger] if it'd been tomorrow, baby boy,
we'd have had an allergic reaction.
We'd have broke out in handcuffs.
As far as making liquor goes right now,
there will be no liquor
made inside the corporate city limits in newport.
Now, are we going to stop altogether?
Quitters, they have to go to meetings, we ain't quitters.
We're gonna get the hell out of here, and we ain't gonna look back.
[kenny speaking]
[henry speaking]
[narrator] in franklin county, virginia,
after distilling over 600 gallons
of malted corn liquor in a friend's barn last winter,
henry and kenny break down the eight-still operation
to make the springtime move back into the woods.
[sighs]
it's gonna be very dangerous this year.
The law is getting out again,
so we got to move to a new site.
We're gonna be able to use it the whole season.
All right.
Wow, looks like you boys are busy already this morning.
Made a pile.
-[henry laughs] -made a pile of money.
We're not staying at this still site.
It's gonna be too much traffic coming by with these horses,
people cutting hay and all that.
You know what?
I'm good at building, but I can tell you something
about all the pieces, ain't got a lot, do you?
Well, you know, you set up eight subs,
takes three or four days to set them up,
it takes 30 minutes to tear them down.
[henry speaking]
[tickle] even though I don't really want to tear this still site down,
moonshiner's got to do what a moonshiner's got to do.
Let's face it, it was a beautiful still site, but we've got to move.
All right.
That's a pile of them right yonder.
Henry, have you given any thought to where
we're gonna put these things at?
[henry] you know I have.
But I'll make sure we get the right spot
-and everybody's happy with this. -[tickle] right.
If we ain't at the right spot, ain't no sense in even starting making liquor.
Before josh gets here with all these strawberries,
we got to find someplace else to put these things,
'cause when he gets here, we need to mash 'em things in.
We can't have 'em going bad on us before we can even get them in the pot.
[henry] a good quality still site, that's what we want.
There's a lot of things you got to look for.
The biggest thing is water.
Of course, the next thing is seclusion.
Last year, it was very easy to find still sites, 'cause nobody was out.
Now, everybody's out hiking, everybody is out kayaking, full willing.
You name it, they're out doing it now, especially now.
I tell you what.
That's a nice hole of water right there, henry.
[tickle] we come up here to the still site
that henry wants to show us and tell you what,
this thing is looking good.
It's coming down through the ice.
Ice cold, too.
[tickle] there's a beautiful waterfall.
There's plenty of water flowing through it, and it tastes great.
You want to check out down here, a place to set the pots?
Yeah, let's do that.
All right.
[henry] a buddy of mine owns the land.
He gave me permission to go in there, check it out.
And, you know, you've got to be able to have these people
to trust you to come onto their property,
make your liquor, not trash your property up.
If not, you're not going to get your sites.
-What do you think, henry? -I think it looks good, man.
That waterfall's up there about a 100 yards, we can take gravity water.
The best part about this still site,
it's on the backside of a farm.
Take us four, I thought maybe here,
right in the middle, set the thumpers.
Take four more, stretch them out a little bit further.
We'll be able to back right up here to the stills.
It's easy access, in and out.
Nobody's going to be watching our traffic.
You know what this site's missing?
-Some pots. -I hear you, brother.
-Yes, sir. -Well, get on with it.
Let's get on it. Let's get on it.
Only one way we're gonna get it done.
[dramatic music playing]
you know, these guys talk to the county officers
and the state officers on a daily basis,
so I'm sure they've been updated on our situation.
Oh, I'd almost bet on it.
I'm sure that our local sheriff's department
knows the same thing now
that our police department knows.
They know who we are, they know what we drive,
they know where we live.
So the best thing to do, we're gonna get as far as we can
out of cocke county, I believe.
We got to go far.
But I don't know where to go.
Places have been developed, houses built,
I wonder if jb knows any place.
He made liquor at a lot of places with popcorn.
You wanna ride over and see him?
I mean, if he don't, we ain't lost nothing.
Jb, back in the day, he spent a lot of time
in maggie valley, north carolina, back with popcorn.
They made a lot of liquor in that area, and jb is very familiar with it.
Jb, I'll tell you what, he's looking better than
he's done a long time, ain't he?
I think getting him new teeth has helped him out a lot.
What are we gonna do if he ain't got nowhere in mind?
Repeat after me.
You want fries with that?
We're gonna learn here in just a minute
what jb might or might not know.
[mark] hello there, jb rader!
[jb] hey!
[mark] how you doing, brother?
[jb] I'm doing damn good.
-[mark] good to see you, brother. -Yeah, good to see you.
Rader's my name, liquor's my game.
-Yep. -You look like you're feeling awful good.
Best I've felt in years.
-He's a rutting buck. -[laughs]
[mark] oh, yeah? That's a good thing for what we need.
Yep. We're... We're... We're kind of up a stump, jb.
-Are you? -We got paid a visit by the chief of police.
-Oh, hell. -He put us on the road.
We need a new still site.
We know you spent a lot of time on the other side of the mountain over yonder.
Oh, yeah. I know the other side of the mountain real good.
We made a lot of runs up and down the mountain, but it's been so long.
I'm hoping you still got it fresh in your noggin.
Not too fresh, but I think I can come up with it.
-You got anything to do? -Nah.
Can you go with us to scout a few places?
-Oh, yeah. -Let's go do, let's go do a little scout.
All right. Let's do it.
[mark] we might even buy you a hotdog while we're out.
[laid-back music playing]
-[mike] we lost 150 gallons of good liquor. -[jerry] I know.
[mike] we can't afford to lose our still and everything else too.
But the damn law, they're like a blue tick hound
they'll lay up and wait on you, boy.
You see the dirt road going, you see any tracks in it?
It's all growed up.
One good thing, I can hear the damn birds are chirping around.
You know, if you see some animals down and close...
There ain't nobody down there.
Let's get the truck, get in here and get this out of here
and get done with it.
[mike] going back to the still site,
I mean, I'm as nervous as a damn cat
in a room full of rocking chairs.
Because it's like a crime scene.
You go back to that bastard,
that's when 90% of the time you get caught.
Let's just go for it.
Let's just get the damn pot, the tanks and the stuff that we need to use right now.
We got to get the hell out of here.
We need to get and go and be done with it. Come on.
We're happy to see that nobody's been here.
It looks safe.
But me and mike don't feel safe right now, so we're going to just pack up and move on.
[jerry grunts]
I don't feel real comfortable about brewing liquor in this area right now.
We know that somebody has ratted us out
and we know that the cops have been to our stash house.
To me, that's just too much heat in one area to be hanging around.
I see nobody.
Huh!
I'm gonna make liquor, but I don't know where to do it at
at this present time.
Well, you may not be too keen on it, but I got an idea.
I think we should go over the mountain,
get closer back to my hometown in north carolina.
I don't know a damn soul over there.
That ain't my territory over there.
You know, sevier county in tennessee, this is home to me.
This is where we make the liquor.
I'm used to everything and everybody around.
[sighs]
but there's a good possibility the law knows exactly who I am
and I really don't think it'll be a smart move
to start our season off right here
where we've been or even in the same damn county.
You know, we've got to keep our operation going,
that's for damn sure, but, I mean...
I've got good contacts over there.
-I don't know, man. -Good sources of people we can rely on.
But we ain't got a hell of a lot of damn more choices, do we?
If you know the contacts and you know
people to get hold of
and that another, I mean, hell, why not?
I'll do it.
You know, jerry being from north carolina,
you know, he knows those woods over there
as good as I know these over here.
Maybe we can be out of harm's way.
But I can tell you this, we're not carrying the stills
we've got over here across that damn mountain,
'cause when you go across the state lines, it becomes federal.
We'll go to north carolina, but we've got to start from the ground up, brother.
-[jerry] oh, yeah. -[mike] get set up,
be good. Who knows?
[laid-back music playing]
did you fart?
God almighty, son!
[brian laughs]
you [bleep].
[bleep] damn.
I told henry I would get some strawberries,
but I've called all around from here to timbuktu,
and I kind of missed the boat on it.
Colt called and says he feels bad about the strawberries,
but he's got lots of other stuff we might can use.
He ain't gonna be here, so he just told us to run in,
get the forklift, run to the cooler, get it out and rock and roll.
That's easy enough.
[josh] henry, kenny and tickle,
they're moving the eight submarine pots,
getting them all set up,
and we're gonna make lots of brandy and stuff.
And with that being said, it's gonna take massive amounts of fruit.
All right.
There is the forklift there.
Come in here.
Heck yeah.
-[brian] it's nice. -Look at all that.
My dad used to make this recipe,
the true watermelon brandy without using any sugar,
you know, just using the fruit.
[brian] them babies are ripe.
[josh] so now that we've got some watermelons,
I'm really wanting to make this really high-end,
frickin' really good brandy.
[brian] that's awesome.
What's in the edibles barrel?
[josh] that one says "non-edible."
[brian] oh.
[josh] it ain't pineapples, but it's the cores and they just...
All they do is core 'em out and frickin'...
Is it sweet?
-Yeah, pretty good. -Really?
That'll make good moonshine then.
How are we gonna use this?
There's not even much meat on there.
I know, but there's still sugar in that right there.
I haven't really heard about a whole lot of other people doing pineapples,
so I don't even know how that's gonna turn out.
But it's important to me to do things that other people aren't really doing.
You want to load the pineapples first,
so we can put them on the back of the truck?
Yeah, you may have to ride on that pallet and hold that barrel
while we get out of here.
Why, you're going to drive that fast?
Well, I might.
You ain't gonna be breaking the sound barrier, are you?
[engine starts]
we hit the mother lode on these watermelons.
We got a lot of fruit, and one thing's for sure,
I'm gonna have to come up with a way
to turn all this fruit into pulp.
[brian] I'm gonna go get the watermelons, I'll be back.
So I'm thinking about, just like a beer-can crusher, you know,
but like a beer-can crusher for fruit.
Oh, man, watermelon goodness right there,
that's gonna make some good moonshine.
[laid-black music playing]
it's time you take these little babies out of here.
-[tickle] that's right. -It's time to be getting 'em moved.
[tickle] now that we got our still site,
we've got to move out of this still site
that we had these eight pots in over the winter.
All right.
Josh, well,
he's coming with a bunch of strawberries to mash in
and we need to be ready when he gets here.
[engine rumbling]
hell!
She cranks up, that's half the battle.
We've got all these stills busted down
and in about an hour, it's gonna be dark.
-There you go. -That's good there.
[tickle] I see you, big boy.
It's there!
We'd be fools to run out on the road with these stills when it was daytime.
So, once the night comes, we're gonna start heading down the road
and I'm willing to bet this is gonna take all night.
[henry] I think what we need to do is get moving before it gets dark.
[tickle] we've got our first two pots loaded up.
We're gonna have to do this in shifts.
We don't have a semi-truck like josh brought these things over in,
so we're just going to take them over a couple at a time.
It's gonna take several trips to get them all,
but being dark like this,
we'll get these things over here and won't have any problems.
[henry] well, I reckon it's a good place as any.
All right. That's one.
These 800-gallon pots, I mean, these things are heavy.
They're built like a tank and they weigh just as much.
But luckily, we got experience on our side.
We know how to move these things.
Let's go and grab two more.
[josh] damn, why don't you just get...
Get in your lane, dude!
Damn!
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa!
[mark] man, this is damn hallowed ground.
I'm still seeing some gun dancing right there.
If there's a holy grail of moonshine, it's right here.
[josh] if we're gonna make brandies and stuff,
it'd be great to have like
a ginormous beer-can crusher to mash up all this fruit.
I've never thought about that. It'll probably work.
[josh] but we're gonna go over here to my buddy tooth
and we're gonna get some metal and stuff.
He can fabricate anything.
If we can't find what we need here, there's something wrong.
Hey, what's up, fellas, what's going on?
What y'all into?
Man, we're working on a crazy-ass project and we need some help.
Think you can help us out?
I'll see what I can do.
All right, tooth.
Now, I ain't no artist.
I can't sing and I can't dance.
But let's just say that somewhere in here,
I want a piece of metal that stays there all the time,
and then I want some kind of handle that comes down to a plate.
And so when you move this handle up and down,
it smashes this piece of metal against this piece of metal
and then I want some sort of way to capture the juice.
And that's the basic idea.
[tooth] okay.
I think we can come up with what you want.
-Show me what you got. -[tooth] so here's a piece of plate that might work.
That's perfect right there. You got two of them?
-I got two of these, for sure. -Perfect.
Look here, josh. Catch everything coming out at the bottom.
[josh] that's good. That's good.
That'll work perfect.
[tooth] so, I have a piece of stainless pot,
might be about three foot you can have.
What's something like this cost?
You're looking at about $1,100, $1,200 for what you need.
[josh] just for two or three foot?
-[tooth] yeah. -[josh] I can't afford that.
[tooth] I'll tell you what.
I'll hook you up if you hook me up when you get the product done.
How about that?
Hell yeah. Perfect.
[tooth] let's get you boys loaded up.
Tooth has all the right stuff.
Heck yeah, man.
I can't tell you how much this means to me.
[tooth] I'm just glad. I can help you out.
[josh] oh, you done hooked me up.
We came to the right place.
-Are you ready? -Yeah.
One, two, three, go.
All right.
Well, now that we got all our supplies, we need to be going to virginia.
I owe you one, brother.
I'm really nervous showing up with these watermelons instead of the strawberries.
They're totally expecting strawberries.
We got a really good operation going right now,
and the last thing I want to do is screw that up in any way.
[instrumental music playing]
[henry] what do you think?
[tickle] what do you reckon, kenny, all the way back here to the back?
[kenny] all the way back.
We've got a huge task in front of us.
Josh, he's coming with a bunch of strawberries for us to mash in
and we need to be ready when he gets here.
We've got to set eight pots today,
get all these blocks built up that our stills will actually sit on.
[henry] I'll tell you what, me and kenny first met tickle right here.
We had in our mind that he was lazy, especially just getting out of penitentiary.
We were dead wrong.
He's about as hard a worker as you ever want one in your life.
We take pride in what we do.
You can't just bring eight pots in here
and just throw 'em up any way you want to.
These still sites, they need to be straight in line with each other.
They need to be level with each other.
The stills got a 2.5 inch piece of wood for the sides.
If you move it over too far,
this damn block will start pushing up
against that metal and it'll warp that metal.
[kenny] that should roll well, mate.
[henry] looks good, too.
[kenny] real good.
[tickle] you know, this still site is absolutely beautiful to me.
There's more pots right here
than most moonshiners could ever hope to cook through in their life.
Way back in the day,
people were putting these still sites up
even bigger than this.
That's what made it franklin county,
the moonshine capital of the world.
And I'll tell you what, this thing,
it's not only gonna pump out moonshine,
it's gonna pump out money.
You know what we need now, right?
-Yeah. -You gotta have some water.
We can't do nothing else till we get 'em.
It's time for the next part of our operation.
If we don't get water,
we ain't gonna have nothing.
-This stuff gets wet, it gets heavy. -[henry] yeah, it's heavy.
We're gonna be using gravity water.
When you find water and it's uphill from your still site,
what that does is, it takes the weight
and the volume of that water and transfers it to power.
It's just gonna be real silent.
We won't have no noisy pump giving our location away.
Oh, yeah.
Now she's got some force behind her.
Okay.
Hook another line to the end of that
and we keep on getting it.
I never had to worry about a pump.
Never had to worry about gasoline.
Gravity water, brother.
Well, we finally got everything set up that we need in our still site
and we got it before josh got here.
He should be pulling around any darn time.
This truckload of strawberries he's bringing us,
can't wait.
[instrumental music playing]
[josh] I'm on my way to virginia.
Last time we were here, we were making grain moonshine.
I made all these stills for making brandies,
and all we got to do was run grain till the end of the year.
I'm really looking forward to getting back up there,
where I could get those stills rolling again
and start cooking down some of this fruit.
You know, brian could be my right-hand man when I'm in town,
but most of my work is gonna be in virginia
and he's gonna be coming back and forth.
He's got a good grading job that he just can't let go.
I know henry, kenny and tickle,
they're expecting strawberries.
I might not have a darn trailer load of strawberries,
but I got a trailer load of watermelons.
Hopefully, these guys will go for it when I get here.
I got a plan to make some watermelon moonshine,
we're gonna call it green lizard.
This watermelon moonshine recipe goes back hundreds of damn years.
Back then, they didn't have the sugar to add to it.
They made some high-end brandy,
they just might not have got a big yield out of it, or a big return.
My dad and my buddy tony
used to make this stuff all the time
and that's how I know about it.
Super excited to try this recipe out.
Make something that
these guys ain't never seen before.
I guarantee you it'll make you do the watermelon crawl.
Damn, what's this guy...
Get in your lane, dude!
Damn!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa! God almighty!
Ah, son of a bitch!
Ah, goddamn!
So you just put that on there, lock it,
and then you got to wrap that wire around.
Josh owens, the moonshiner necklace-maker.
I'm not a necklace-maker, man.
You got enough sea turtles here to make you another necklace.
I got that stuff for reese.
Oh, no, I think I might have to call reese after a while
and ask her if she likes sea turtles
or does dad like sea turtles?
[laughs]
and I'm pretty sure I know what she's gonna say.
-[josh] oh, yeah. -"those are dad's."
[josh] "yeah, those are dad's."
I'm all about it. I love it.
[brian] oh, it's so beautiful. Put it on. Let me see.
Is it a choker?
You're making fun of me right now, that's embarrassing me.
Seriously.
-[laughs] -I will kill y'all.
That's gonna look great.
[josh] damn, why don't you just get...
Get in your lane, dude!
Damn!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa! God almighty!
Ah, goddamn!
Son of a bitch, burn it down!
This is a mess.
Damn, we lost pineapple too.
I'm on the road
and all of a sudden this van just damn
starts coming over into my lane.
Think this guy was on the phone or something,
I'm not really sure, but if I hadn't been paying attention,
it'd have been a head-on collision
and the watermelons wouldn't have mattered.
Thankfully, only a few of the watermelons busted.
I frickin' damn salvaged what I could of the watermelons,
pushed the boxes up on the trailer.
What the hell is that stuck on?
[grunts wearily]
now what am I going to do about this?
It's split right apart.
They're not supposed to do that.
Maybe there's some tape in the truck.
[breathes heavily]
ah!
Ninety-mile-an-hour high-speed duct tape right there, buddy.
One thing's for sure.
My name's not good luck chuck.
Never in a million years
would I have thought I'd have to strap those things down.
When things go right, it's almost odd.
I really started noticing this about the time I cut my fingers off.
Every time I started to feel like I'm hitting a home run,
I needed to go get in a bulletproof room
or something because [bleep] about to hit the fan.
[exhales sharply] golly, look at that.
I can't believe that it took these things
busting all over the highway for me to taste one.
God, that is sweet!
That is the best watermelon I've had in years.
That'll taste almost the same
when we turn it into whiskey. And juicy, look at that.
Yeah!
That is gonna make some good whiskey.
But now, we're gonna go to virginia.
[instrumental music playing]
damn, it'd be awful to go to penitentiary
this late in our lives, wouldn't it?
Oh, hell, yeah.
Oh, I'm way too purdy.
-You're way too purdy, digger. -[laughs]
I'll become a victim immediately.
Oh, yeah.
You know, after our little visit from the police,
our plan is to go across the state lines,
go across the mountain, get over in there somewhere in north carolina.
You know, popcorn had a lot of haunts over there that he frequented,
and jb claims that he remembers
where we need to go over there.
It's starting to get less and less populated, ain't it?
-Oh, yeah. -[digger] we'll let him lead the way, I'll pilot,
he'll navigate and we'll see if we can't get there.
There's the last line on electric here.
-Yeah. -That pole right there deadens it.
From here on out, there ain't no electricity.
-[jb] yeah. -I like that idea.
Oh, yeah.
-[mark] damn, jb. -[jb] yeah.
We get a flat tire or broke down back in here,
we'll have to walk 47 miles to get out.
[jb speaking]
[digger] I don't want to get over here close to the edge and look off.
Hell no.
[jb speaking]
-[mark] jb? -[jb] yeah.
[mark] where the hell are you going with this goat trail?
[jb speaking]
[mark] there's one thing about it,
if we do end up here,
there ain't nobody going to bother.
Normally, we feel more safe at home,
but right now, we're under the microscope.
And under these circumstances,
I'm gonna feel a little better
up in the mountains in north carolina.
[mark] you know where we're going or are you guessing?
I know where I'm going.
Well, it gets a little better now.
[digger] it's hard to tell at this point
whether jb's covering for his lack of remembrance
or does he have something up his sleeve.
Well, I will be damned.
[mark] are you teasing me? I swear cold chills just run all over me, jb.
[laughs]
[jb] I'm taking you to the shrine, boys.
[mark] oh, my gosh.
This is where you and popcorn sutton made his last brandy.
[digger] ain't that something.
I never thought we'd be up here thinking about making liquor.
[mark] jb rader.
Man, this is damn hallowed ground.
I still see sutton dancing up there.
If there's a holy grail of moonshine, it's right here.
[narrator] next time on moonshiners...
[mike] way up on the mountain up there.
We just crossed over into north carolina.
We've got to build something new.
Oh! Oh, god!
You're gonna do what I'm doing, for a while there
it reminds you of being a teenager again.
The recipe that jb wants is all corn and no sugar.
Get that worked in.
This is insane.
No, it's science!
That's the biggest damn green strawberry I've ever seen in my life, josh.
This is only gonna make one still full of mash.
So what we're gonna do is go back down to one of our old still sites
and we're gonna run this green lizard there.
It won't be long.
[indistinct shouting]