We got one ready to load up.
[narrator] on this episode of moonshiners.
Our first run,
we got run in on and lost everything.
We gotta do everything we can, to make it back on top.
Because right now, we're scrambling.
Oh, baby.
[richard] we're cooking, baby.
Absinthe is a crazy complicated drink.
This is only our second time, doing this run.
This is a much larger run that the first absinthe run we did.
Taste a little different, than last time.
We got a problem.
We promised beaz 100 gallons, rapid aged,
five-year-old liquor.
[mark] it's a $22,500 payday.
We don't know, if it will work or not.
[man] this is how we make the moonshine.
We're ready to start pumping water.
-All right. -Ignition.
[cell phone ringing]
yellow.
[beaz] hey, man, what are you doing?
What's up, beaz?
[beaz] um, it's been six months
since I placed the order for the 100 gallons of the tennessee whiskey.
[narrator] in tennessee, on the cocke county line,
just as mark and digger mash in their first, large scale run,
with world-class limestone creek water,
an anxious client calls, to check on an overdue order.
You know, time has a way of getting away from me, and he reminded us,
that it had been six months,
since we promised him, a hundred gallons of aged tennessee whiskey.
[beaz] can I come, get that?
Well, not today.
But how about, about a week?
[beaz] okay.
Well, here's the deal.
You wanted five year aged, right?
[beaz] that's correct.
All right. Well, to get six month liquor,
to match up to the flavor profile,
and the color of a five-year liquor.
We had to take it to the east coast, and put it on a boat.
[beaz] you did what?
I need some product.
You just promised, two barrels of five-year-old liquor.
You ain't got nothing.
I got a process, sea-aging.
Put it on a boat, in that salty environment, bouncing around.
One month's equivalent to one year.
We're almost there.
[grunts]
we barreled it up,
hauled it to north carolina coast.
And then, we put it on a shrimp boat.
And it goes out twice a day.
[beaz] I had no idea, you could do that.
Well, we don't either yet.
[beaz] so, you don't really know, if it turned out.
I know that other companies have made sea-aging work.
Whether we have, it's rather remaining to be seen.
[beaz] is it still $225 a gallon?
Is it more because you had to put it on that boat?
We priced it at that point because of that.
You know, at $225 a gallon.
That's $22,500, we got on the line.
On some liquor, we haven't even tasted yet.
[beaz] all right, brother.
See you in about a week or so.
All right. Be safe.
Yes, man. Old digger's going south.
We're gonna go, try to retrieve our tennessee whiskey.
That's been sea-aging for six months.
Place is looking little naked, ain't it?
Yes it is.
David is on the way.
He'll be here in a little bit and get two more.
Well, which one of us is gonna work with him?
-He's gonna be by himself. -All right.
[narrator] across the state line in franklin county, virginia,
after unknown intruders, raided their still site.
Tickle, henry, and kenny,
rebuild a full-scale moonshine operation.
While trying to keep low profile.
This year, has not started off good for us at all.
We've really got ourselves in a hole, that we got to climb out of.
-How does that look? -That looks good.
Gonna do a little thing, that my dad used to do, all the time.
He never put all his eggs, in one basket.
He would have four-five pots, here.
Four-five pots over, here.
We're gonna do the same thing.
[narrator] henry's father, amos law,
was one of the most infamous moonshiners, in virginia history.
The feds estimate, that he produced,
half a million gallons of liquor, in the 1990s.
He distributed risk by operating a fleet of small teams,
in multiple locations.
Each running several submarine stills,
and delivering the product back to it.
That way, if one site got raided,
it didn't disrupt the whole operation.
Our first run,
we got run in on, and lost everything.
So, we're gonna divide up, our big still site,
and we're just gonna conquer this season.
Josh is taking two stills, down to north carolina, with him.
-David. -Henry, how are you doing, mate?
[tickle] henry called old buddy, david.
He's old moonshiner from the past.
He's going to run two of them for us.
And then, we're gonna keep running on the four big ones,
that we got.
And that right there,
that ought to really put us, over the top.
-Looks like the old days, ain't? -Yeah.
-Here, got them stretched out. -Yeah.
Brings back old memories.
-Some good, some bad. -Exactly.
So, we got two of them, josh got two of them.
We downsizing this forward.
Okay.
David, he's a hell of a worker
he pulled time, three or four times, for making liquor.
He knows what he's doing.
Take it across there.
The best part of it all, he's reliable,
and he keeps his mouth shut.
-We got one ready to load up. -All right.
-You checked your rearview mirror? -Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, most definitely.
I'm just now meeting david,
but henry, and kenny assure me,
that he's a moonshiner, that they've known from way back in the day.
That's all I need to hear.
All right, easy.
[tickle] now, we gotta find, david,
a place, to set up a new still site.
-Hey, david, you following them? -[david] yes, sir.
I think, I found a good location for these two subs
a buddy of mine, owns a land.
Should be fairly safe. But--
david's gonna be there, by himself.
Come on here, david.
Yeah, man.
That can be good water down.
We come up here, to the still site, that henry wants to show us.
This thing is looking good.
-It's ice cold. -Ice cold.
[tickle] there's a beautiful creek, here.
There's plenty of water, flowing through it.
This still site, it will work just fine.
David, who you think about here, with you running by yourself.
You know, normally,
-we start from the side of this creek. -Right. Water.
Where we turn it, the burners around, fired from this side.
Mmm-hmm, and put your thump over on the side.
-Water box over, here. -Good, right here.
One man can see the whole operation.
And not have to worry about nothing.
All right, that's the plan then.
-Start digging the main boil. -All right.
[henry] we've decided, when he runs the subs,
he's gonna bring out the liquor,
leave it at a drop site.
We're gonna come in,
bring the sugar, propane, to put in for the next run.
And then we're gonna pick up the liquor.
We'll give, david, a third.
When he's done with it, we'll pay him the money.
And everybody's happy.
Well, one more thing, a little high-tech.
-We want to show you. -All right.
We'll set this up here, somewhere.
And it give us a real time.
-Anything moves in here, it'll call us on it. -All right.
On our phones.
And we'll know exactly, who's in here.
-We'll be able to look at it, right on the phone, man. -All right.
-Well-- -now, with that said,
you got to remember, to turn it off, when you come in here.
-Yeah. All right. -If not--
-they will have hours of you taped. -Yeah.
-Okay. -And then, they won't even have to chase you.
-They'll have you. -They'll have me.
-[laughing] -okay.
Everything has moved ahead with the times.
And moonshine has followed suit.
And now we've got this trail cam.
I'll be dogged if anybody's going to get in here, without us knowing.
Look like, it's getting about time to mash in, ain't it?
I'm ready.
Welcome to paradise.
All right. Now, the hard part begins.
[narrator] down south of new iberia, louisiana,
richard and craig are breaking out the big guns.
Setting up their 200 gallon submarine pot,
for a tenfold increase in their productions,
of absinthe, for a big city buyer.
We're building decks.
We got all this money, invested in this copper.
This is a much larger run that the first absinthe run, we did.
This guy, he really liked this absinthe we made.
So, we're gonna run it on the big still.
We have enough to fill this order,
and have some for ourselves.
We can, you know, start some new clientele, with this.
Hopefully, everything works out well.
Copper's real shiny, on this still.
We gotta camouflage this thing, immediately.
Welcome to louisiana.
We gonna make sure, it's understood,
you come up in here, you're trespassing.
[craig] you got your knife?
[richard] do I have a knife?
We're from new iberia, man.
Everybody got a knife.
Yeah, I think, it's looking pretty good.
You shouldn't be able to see anything, when you're on the bayou.
I'm excited to get the still out here.
The hard part is now, we gotta scale up our recipes.
We're used to doing things on a smaller scale,
but this is a big order.
That's perfect.
That's just enough room under there, for our burners.
If this run works out,
I mean, we could be getting in the bigger sales, new sales.
New orleans is a city, that has a lot of money.
Let me see that burner.
We'll be ready to go in a second.
The clock's ticking on this one, now.
Now, that we got our still site setup,
we'll run our sugar wash.
As I noticed this mash is working.
A perfect, base purified absinthe.
All right, let's go you ready?
[richard] this is one of the biggest runs, we've done.
Woohoo.
Going from 20 gallons to 200 gallons.
That's a tenfold increase.
With that comes,
increased profits definitely,
with absinthe is a crazy complicated drink.
We're cooking, baby.
We're gonna try to stay as close to the original recipe,
that we have, as possible.
There is no room for failure. We have to get this right.
Look at the steam coming off of that.
Yeah, starting to really come, now.
Man, this thing hot, man.
Hopefully, by the time we finish running this,
we'll have enough to sell, enough to keep for us.
And it could spread the word about absinthe.
A good racoon died for the sake of us making good liquor.
I'm sorry, old fellow.
It's something that coming back now and--
hopefully, we can be in front of the market, with it.
There we go.
Man, we gonna get out of here, before dark, it's look like.
Now we got to deal with this maceration, man.
I think, that's enough of the head, right down. We'll take that off.
This is the easy part of the process.
The hard part is maceration,
and putting all these herbs and botanicals in.
And getting it right, where it'll be palatable.
I got everything already measured out,
like we needed it to be.
I have a recipe we did last time.
We scaled up five times the amount of ingredients,
that we used last time.
Star anise.
Gonna have anise, anise tea, fennel.
Gotta have wormwood.
Throw them in the bucket. Shake them up real well.
We'll come back tomorrow, and we're gonna run that again.
And turn that into our white absinthe.
Let's get out of here.
[mark] on our way to the beach.
Pick up our sea-aged liquor.
Damn. I hope it's done something worthwhile.
Six months ago,
we put a 100 gallons of our tennessee whiskey,
on our friend, shorty shrimp's boat, to rapid age it.
You know, we gotta compensate shorty a little bit
-give him a gallon of the liquor and a thousand bucks? -Yeah.
We promised beaz,
a 100 gallons, rapid aged, on the sea,
five-year-old liquor, the equivalent of.
Kind of concerned about we go pick it up, if it worked.
We got a lot riding on this.
It's a $22,500 payday,
and we've never done this.
We don't know, if it'll work or not.
-What's up? Well, look who it is. -Captain.
Good to see y'all. As always.
Just got these bad boys unloaded this morning.
Back in here, it's a little dock and sure enough.
There is two barrels of liquor,
sitting under some shrimping nets.
This was a long six months for us, shorty.
We can't wait to see, what it tastes like.
[shorty] good to see y'all. As always.
[digger] we roll up to shorty's dock.
Hid under some shrimp net, is our liquor.
Coast guard, gave me a little scare.
-Oh, really? -Hey boy, how'd you get out of that?
I just told them, I was using that for balance, on either side of the boat.
That's what I like about you,
you do business the right way, thinking on your feet.
I tell you what we're gonna have to do.
We have to siphon it out.
So, we'll get one of them on up on the truck,
and we'll see what we got.
Shorty has been babysitting, these two barrels, for six months.
I think that he's looking forward to having amount of his possession.
-[digger grunts] it's coming. -Easy.
-[digger] lucky arm. -[mark] there she blows.
Oh, damn.
Damn, shorty, look what you've done.
Oh, that's what heaven smells like.
Phew. Damn. That's something else.
Right here, is where the rubber meets the road.
We'll sap it a little bit out.
Get in a jug, give her a taste.
[mark] oh my, look at that first.
The bung smell great, on the barrel.
So, we know that the nose is there.
We're nervous.
You know, if this is not good liquor,
we will not put it on to a client.
Holly moly.
That all big in the wild.
We taste right out of the jug.
You've got strong vanilla.
You've got a light cinnamon. You've got a little leather.
Man, that is super, super good.
Look at that.
It's that deep mahogany color.
It's just deep rich browns.
So, it's phenomenal.
Heck, yeah.
Goodness. I'd say that's it, fellas.
We want you to have that.
We want to settle up with you, with some cash too.
We was thinking, that jug, and maybe a thousand bucks.
I'm not even really interested in the cash.
I'm more interested in more of these.
-We should never let you had a taste. [laughs] -what are you thinking about?
I'm thinking, six.
[mark] what do you think?
I mean without him, without shorty, we wouldn't had it.
[digger] I'm good with six.
Six suits you, no cash?
[shorty] no cash.
We both agree on six gallons.
[mark] well, sadly,
we have less than a 100 gallons, now.
We lost maybe, five gallons to leakage, to the broken bunk.
When we put it on the boat, initially.
Now, that's ten percent of what we brought.
And, you know, that kind of puts me and, digger, in a little bit of a bind.
This was an experiment that succeeded, past our expectation.
Care if we do a couple more of these?
Maybe six.
Six could be a lot, that could be pushing my luck.
There's no doubt in my mind,
that this needs to be in our quiver of how we age some liquor.
Two was a big enough risk, as it was.
But two ain't worth our time and money, coming over here.
How about four?
[shorty] no.
[digger] so, you're saying no.
-Yes, sir. I don't think that's gonna work. -Yeah, but, there's a maybe.
[chuckles]
not ain't even a definite maybe?
Not even a definite maybe
you know, sea-aging worked so good for us,
on this limited run, here.
That we want to continue doing it on a bigger scale.
We're open to ideas.
Maybe another way of creating the same effect,
you know, we thought about. We don't know yet.
Moderation. Moderation. Moderation.
-...Moderation. -That's exactly right. Especially with that.
Y'all be good. Be safe man.
[digger] all right, brother.
[mark] tell you, I couldn't be happier
with the way, that liquor turned out.
[henry] I got my cold storage back here.
[tickle] they just gotta roll it in,
that's when I get happy
[henry] that's it.
[tickle] henry got a call,
and somebody needed to get rid of a lot of peaches.
We gotta do everything we can,
to make it back on top.
Because right now, we're scrambling.
[henry] they look good.
[tickle] oh, yes, sir. They look good.
And so, this couldn't fell into our laps, at a better time.
The laws they are known, for their peach brandy.
We can make quick work of this, right here.
And in little bit of time,
we'll have some good, high dollar liquor.
We had a real rough start to this season.
Our very first run this year,
we got run in on.
So, we've really got to get this operation in full swing.
If we don't make liquor, we don't make money.
Well, most little too soft.
Oh, actually, all right. That means, they're good and ready.
-Amazing, ready then-- -yes, sir.
What you gotta remember now, paige.
A lot of times, you pick them up,
from an orchard, they'll be a little too hard.
You gotta wait for them to soften up.
-If you want that juice, out from them. -Yeah.
And you can't beat them up, if they're too hard.
-We're just gonna mash them up in that masher. -Yeah.
We'll try.
We let this down, with his teeth on it, right here.
It's gonna mash the peaches with force.
We'll be able to grab this.
Pull it up.
Dump it right in.
55 gallon barrel.
Drop it back, throw another bushel in.
Bam!
-[tickle] just keep going. -Keep on going with it.
Here we go.
Josh built this machine,
and it's basically, a fruit smasher.
See what you got.
This thing,
boy, it does what it sets out to do.
Let's spin around, a little bit.
[tickle] on a normal day, if we was to beat in this many peaches by hand,
it would be an all-day job.
Oh, yeah.
Got it done in what?
Seconds.
-[chuckles] seconds. -Seconds.
This plan,
boy it really cut the time down,
to really matter of hours.
Oh, yeah.
This fruit smasher
it's shooting peaches, everywhere.
It is really messy.
But I ain't gonna lie to you.
If I had to beat these things in by hand,
I'd eventually got this dirty.
It'd just took me all day to do it.
Look it, yonder.
That'll do, right there. Won't it?
That ain't tore up, I don't know what is.
[kenny] all right, get us some water, tickle.
We got these peaches mashed in.
David's calling.
He's ready for us, to pick a load of liquor up.
And bring him, some more supplies, down there.
[richard] we got the fountain,
to make sure it does lose right.
Craig and I are at the still site.
We have 15 gallons of high-proof macerated, base spirit.
Oh, yeah, it's green.
Wooh, it's strong.
We're gonna run our white absinthe.
[craig] all right, I'm start handing these buckets off to you.
We've invested a whole lot of money, into this run.
We put a whole lot of money, into this deck.
We put a whole lot of money, in securing the spot.
This is a real, real complicated drink, that we put together, here.
Oh, yeah, it smells so good.
Everything is on the line, here.
Everything!
We're gonna put 55 gallons of water in here, also.
Oh, yeah.
-Ready? -Come on.
Down side of throwing all these botanicals in the pot,
is you can scorch the bottom of the pot.
That's it.
You gotta stir it, now.
This ain't no crawfish pot.
Gonna take a little while to get this heated up.
Its gonna start to roll on its own.
We don't have to worry about anything sticking.
You got to make sure that you stir it.
So, nothing settles at the bottom.
And when this thing starts to boil,
convectional heat kick in, and it'll roll around.
With lot of wood going in it,
actually started to steam good.
Just starting to roll.
We gonna go ahead, and cabinet.
Because right now, it's ready to go.
Make sure, that's in there good.
Absinthe has this mystique to it.
It's probably way more potent back in the day, then it is now.
And I think, that's why my connect is coming to me.
He wants to get something,
true and consistent, to a real recipe.
Oh man, still is hot.
Yeah, we hot down into the thumper.
And that's what we're gonna give him, a true absinthe.
Now, we're flowing good.
And here, it's gotta go.
That's a nice drip she got right there.
Taste a little different, than last time.
-How so? -I don't know, but this--
I don't know.
Come on, man. Don't tell me that [bleeps]
we got a problem.
[mark] we've sure spent a lot of time on this damn liquor.
From the time we made it to where all we hauled it.
We made it back from the east coast of north carolina.
Got all our barrels picked up, and now we're back.
We're gonna outfit beaz with some of the finest,
sea-aged tennessee whiskey, ever seen.
[mark] killer.
[digger] beaz.
That was fun, running up them stairs, just then.
[mark] you look almost 60.
You needed to.
[chuckles] I did need to.
-Hey, buddy. -Hey, man.
-Good to see you. -Good to see you, man.
Man, when it comes to upper end clients,
beaz is the guy.
He's connected with the music industry, deep in nashville.
Look at this.
Holy cow.
And that also gives us a chance to,
sell a little bit of liquor at a little more of a premium.
Wow!
Look at that.
And you did that in like, six months?
-Six months. -Six months.
Can I taste it?
-Well, yeah. -We recommend it.
Look how pretty that is. Ain't that a good liquor?
That is gorgeous.
-[digger] what a nose, it's got. -Wow.
[digger] easy, now.
-[mark] who in the world would have thought-- -[exclaims]
they are gonna love that.
The flavor profile is right in line with the five-year-old liquor.
You got your tobacco's. You got your cinnamon. You got your vanilla.
It's all across the palate, for your nose.
I'm as proud of that as any as we've ever done.
-[digger] yeah. -Oh, my gosh.
They're gonna be out of their gourd.
-Sea-aged, tennessee whiskey. -Yeah.
And this is the first time you've done this.
[digger] oh, yeah.
Now, just a little bit of update.
We had a little accident.
We had a busted bunk, that leaked out.
And we had to give the boat captain six gallons,
for his role in this sea-aging process.
I mean, honestly, your takeaway here,
is gonna be about 90 gallons.
Wow.
I mean, this ain't our first rodeo,
-and we still make common boo-boos too. -Gotcha.
-Nothing is ever. If you need 100 gallons. -Gotcha.
You don't just take a 100 gallons.
I get that.
All righty, so--
so, is this it? Let's load it up.
It is not.
It's still in the barrels.
Ready for you, to put it in the jars.
Wait a minute.
Did I not tell you that they wanted bottles?
You did not.
We gotta have bottles.
This is a well-known arena act.
Their tour bus is tricked out.
-And they don't want-- -I don't give a damn, who they are.
-We don't have bottles. -They don't want jars, on there--
you know, these guys spend a fortune, on their bars.
So, I'm sure they just don't want a lonely mason jar,
that looks like, they dip something out of a bucket.
Do you know, how hard glass is to get right now?
No matter what it is.
There's legal distilleries, can't get bottles right now.
Bottles are more expensive.
If digger and myself, can even find bottles,
that's on you, because you gotta pay for that.
It's gonna be a tough find beaz. I mean that's--
it was just an oversight, not telling you that.
-You gotta bring the stuff to the table immediately, beaz. -Dang.
All right.
[mark] we'll start, what we know, to start for bottles.
Let's do a loose test. See what's going on with this white absinthe, man.
So, we ran our white absinthe and something's off here.
I'm missing something, that's mystery.
Just want some drops.
[craig] yeah. I see all the oils, just dancing around.
We're gonna do a loose on this.
And we're gonna taste this, like it's supposed to be tasted.
Where you take cold water,
and pour it into this, very slowly.
The oils separate, and starts to present themselves.
That's how it's supposed to look.
[richard] the oils are starting to release.
It looks like a proper loose.
I'm hoping some of these flavors that we're missing,
are gonna present themselves.
Something's just not quite right, man.
These flavors are not balancing themselves, together.
They're not marrying well.
I don't know, if I want to give this into that--
our guy, man.
This guy, that we're dealing with in new orleans.
He knows, what absinthe taste like.
So, I'm scared to present this to this guy.
He'll tell me,
"man you did something, last time, that you can't do again."
maybe it was scaling up, such a big run.
Maybe we scaled up too high, on some of the botanicals.
I'm definitely tasting more wormwood.
It's there. Big time.
It's present.
Mmm-hmm.
When we scaled up this recipe,
we didn't take into consideration the fact,
that wormwood is real powerful. It's overpowering.
400 grams.
-That's a lot. -That's 14 ounces.
Maybe we could have cut back on some of that.
[craig] that's a rookie mistake.
I ain't no rookie.
We can just dump all of it,
or we put it back into the still,
run it again.
Try to bring it back to as close to its original recipe as possible.
Lemon balm.
The citrus flavor in it, cuts back on that wormwood.
That's why, it's so potent in there.
Wormwood is so bitter.
Lemon balm, helps calm it down.
Help to tame it, with this citrusy flavor.
You have to have a perfect balance of this.
We're gonna re-run it and we gonna double up, on lemon balm.
We'll go ahead, and mash back in, and start over, man.
This liquor, ain't gonna go to waste.
We're going to put it back in there, run it again.
And again and again until we get it right.
Got so much money tied up in this, man.
Between the deck and the botanicals.
Man, we gotta get this run right, man.
Let's go.
Take that long trip.
[tickle] alright now, he said he's gonna be somewhere around here.
After this raid,
we're being as cautious as we possibly can be.
We're not even gonna meet up with david in person.
Right here. This way in.
All right, down in here.
This old road bed.
[tickle] david, give us a call, and he said,
he's got a great spot picked out.
He's gonna park his truck, full of liquor, right under.
-[henry] oh, man. -[tickle] here you go.
And we're gonna bring, our truck in.
That's got the mash ingredients, and the propane he needs.
And we're just gonna swap trucks out.
[kenny] that there looks darn good.
David has got a really nice run up some mighty fine liquor.
It looks like this operation is really gonna work good for us.
Tickle you take this truck, you and kenny back it out.
Leave the other vehicle, with the sugar, and the tanks in it.
We really need to get out of here before the storm hits.
You got that right.
[grunts]
[tickle] you know, we're busy with our own four pots.
David is busy with his two.
We're running, two of the stills in north carolina with josh.
We really gonna have to keep it going,
to get ourselves out of this hole, we got ourself in.
[henry] sizing down the way we're sizing down.
It's gonna make it a whole lot easier.
We're making money.
Man, finally, things are looking up.
What you think about it, tickle?
I think it's a damn good stash site.
Look we got a secret passageway, going into it.
Nobody ever know the doors here.
[tickle] we get here, to our stash house.
This is a perfect place for this.
Let's do it.
Ain't she pretty?
It was a rough old hole to get into,
but I think it's gonna be safe.
I think so, too.
-[henry] right here. -[tickle] good deal.
But look, we got us some nice dry storage bomb.
But what are we doing with this stuff, now?
The plan is now, we got a truckload of damsons, man.
It's like a plum.
Used to grow in the mountains, around here a lot.
The blight or something, supposed hit 'em, killed most of them out.
We'll mash them in, right here.
We want to take one gallon of this liquor,
and make two gallons.
[tickle] turning into two. Gonna start infusing.
Gonna infuse it baby.
-They'll pay three times of price with the damsons in it. -All right.
Damn right.
Damsons are very special.
These things ain't been seen, in many, many years.
And we've got a lot of money, we need to make up,
from the downturn that we had.
And one of the best ways, to do that,
is by infusing fruit into our liquor.
Should be just about it.
Anybody, that's ever had damson moonshine, will tell you,
this right here, is a high-dollar commodity.
-It's gonna take about a month, for it to infuse-- -like it ought to be.
Yeah, like it should be.
It couldn't happened any better time.
That we can take that same liquor,
and turn into a lot more profit.
So tomorrow, we pick up the jars we need, sugar.
[kenny] and the fruit.
-[henry] get back in here. -[tickle] rock and roll.
Let's do it.
[digger] if anybody in the country got any bottles, it'll be him.
[knocking]
bottles, they're in short supply.
Everything seems to be.
There's one person, in our area, that uses lot of bottles.
So, we're coming back to our friend, john.
At english mountain spring water.
[digger] we need 500 glass bottle.
That's a big order.
[john] hey guys.
-How are you? -Hello, john.
Well, all the resources we know, that provide bottles.
You know, they're non-existent.
[mark] well,
man, this is a massive building.
You've been wanting to learn how to rollerblade, mark,
this would be the place, for you to come.
-[laughing] -[mark] on about that.
[digger] the upside is, we ain't looking for a place to make no liquor right now.
-[john] well. -But we're kind of up a stump on another situation.
Okay.
We've got a guy, that's been a little difficult.
And he wants bottles, and not mason jars.
We need 500--
okay, I've got a few.
That what you're looking for, I thought you need more.
500 is just a drop in the bucket.
[digger] those glass?
Those are not glass, those pet.
Uh, plastic.
Honestly, I think glass is really what we need.
I might have something, that you can look at.
We've always been taught,
if you proud of your liquor, you won't put it in plastic.
Plastic degrades with alcohol.
Leaching something, in your liquor, you don't want.
[mark] well, look at these damn bottles there.
[digger] electrolyte water.
[mark] ain't that something.
There's you, some caffeine water.
I don't need to go no faster, I'm already going fast--
you go any faster, you gonna be stopped.
[laughing]
I don't even know why I'm friends with him.
[chuckles]
well guys, here's I think, what you might be looking for.
This is the actual bottle.
It's a 750 milliliter.
And we ended up with these--
uh, we had a customer, that pulled their project.
-You just inherited them. -Just inherited them
and so--
does that look like something, like you got in mind.
-Looks a lot like, what we need. -[mark] exactly.
And--
that's what they call a bar top or a tea cork.
What we need to be inquiring about now,
is what we're looking at, cost wise.
You know, I mean,
I know what you're doing.
Or I think I know what you're gonna do with them.
-I'd say, you got a pretty good idea. -So--
I'd be willing to do some trading.
[digger] john doesn't want money for these bottles.
He wants some of this tennessee whiskey.
But on top of that,
we lost five or six gallons.
We gave six gallons to shorty,
for doing what he did for us.
So, that's cutting into the liquor even more.
But we got to do, what we got to do to get these bottles.
Right now, we can probably shave--
what close to six gallons, off of that.
I think that's fair.
Consider them yours.
We couldn't be any happier with all this.
-It's outstanding. -Oh, yeah. Well.
[digger] all that's left to do now,
is get some of these bottles loaded up on the trailer,
get them back to headquarters.
Bottle some of beaz', liquor it.
Get them on the way, down the road. Get rid of these.
Beaz just has to understand that,
he lost six gallons of it, on his own by insisting that it go in these bottles.
[richard] oh, I like the look. I like the smell.
On the last white absinthe run,
it was too much wormwood.
So, we had to go through, the process again.
Another base spirit, another maceration.
And twice the lemon balm, this is strong.
Doubling up on the lemon balm.
Giving it more than it needed.
Because we're gonna dump that back, into the pot.
We're gonna take the spirits, that we ran already,
that didn't have any lemon balm in it.
This is the last piece of the puzzle.
This is our white absinthe, from the last run.
Getting all this together, for just this one run.
There is thousands of dollars, invested.
We've got to get this right.
This right here has to work.
I've never worked this hard, for an alcohol.
I put my blood, sweat and tears, like, I have with this product.
It's starting to get warm too.
That is a little workout.
In the end, we hope to achieve,
a 160 to 140 proof.
If we're in that range.
It would knock it out of the park again.
Let me get some more water, in that barrel.
Watch that alligator, out there.
[richard] I ain't, but a snack for him.
He ain't gonna waste his time, with me.
He might like absinthe too, though.
There's a lot at stake here.
It's not only money on the line.
I mean, it's our reputations in the city like new orleans.
I mean, phew.
That's not something we want to play with.
Oh, yeah, she's running good, now.
Once, we throw the heads out,
I get a chance, to take the first taste of it.
See, what our brand-new, white absinthe taste like.
This is what it's all about.
Mmm-hmm.
Yeah. Ooh, yeah.
That's sweet citrus flavor, man.
That calm that wormwood down.
You got that lemon balm.
Mmm-hmm.
[richard] this tastes good.
This is the absinthe, that we were looking for.
I can taste that the flavors are not crashing into each other.
That they're layering. That they're marrying each other well.
That's the stuff.
That's what we could sell a customer right here.
After we make it green.
It's gonna make us some green.
I see the customer in the big city,
you know, and he really likes our liquor.
Is that a green absinthe.
That's green absinthe.
[richard] I hope, that he asks us for some more.
Something, more challenging than this.
That way we could get our names, out there.
Let people know we're capable of pretty much anything,
as far as liquor goes.
This guy's gonna go crazy, when he see this.
He's gonna go nuts.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
All right. Let's see if we can do this without breaking no bottles.
[mark] just through the luck of the moonshine gods
we was able to locate some bottles.
So, we're gonna be able,
to give beaz his liquor, in the bottles, he's requested.
And today's the day, he's coming for it.
[exclaiming]
look at that.
[mark] don't that pretty?
It looks like little soldiers, lined up to go to battle.
Getting the liquor bottle up.
We've got these big fermenters.
They've got a spigot on it.
We put a hose and the bottling wand on it.
And we're moving right along, here.
[mark] we are.
[digger] you stick the wand in there,
pull it out quickly and it leaves enough headspace,
that the cork won't blow out.
Liquor this fine,
deserves this fine little bottle.
Now this honestly be a good time, I guess,
to sing, "99 bottles of whiskey on the wall."
I'm just really seeing,
a wonderful product, and dollar signs.
83 gallons is what he's got here.
He's thinking, we've got 90.
But actually, we've got 83.
I'm telling you harry we we ought to save us,
a box of this piece.
We worked way too hard for it, not to reward ourselves.
It's the first sea-aged liquor,
that he and I have done.
So, of course, we want to save us a little memento.
He said that he'd be here, in 20 minutes.
We're not gonna be greedy.
But we want a little memento,
of the first, sea-aged liquor, we've done.
Hey. Hey, buddy.
-Good to see you. Hey, man. -Hey, man.
-How are you? Good. -I'm good, man. I'm doing great.
All right, gentlemen, well, let's get this knocked out.
So, we got it all in bottles.
[mark] got all that we got in bottles.
All right. Now, what did those bottles run me?
Uh, them bottles had a net cost to you,
of six gallons of that liquor.
So, why did you trade the liquor,
instead of just money, to get the bottle?
Seems like, the liquors harder to get for us.
The guy that owned the bottles thought so too.
-He didn't need the money. -Okay.
He didn't want the money.
He wanted the liquor.
And honestly and truly,
it's just so good,
digger and I are gonna keep, two and a half gallons each.
So, with all said and done, at the end of the day,
we only have 78 gallons.
78?
[henry] is that a whole deer on the road?
Yes they are.
You couldn't pay me to shoot one of them.
Now, I just don't like the meat.
Just depends on how it's done.
I done heard them stories all my life.
How it's done, nothing.
You grind it up, with some beef fat or something like that in it
and a ittle bit of seasoning.
It's good like that
and depends on when they kill that deer too.
If you got those in a rut.
Meaning, they ready to mate.
And you kill a buck.
That sumbitch is gonna taste so gamey. It ain't funny.
They got his nuts full ready to roll.
You know what I'm saying?
So, there you are.
Are you painting another one of them pictures for me?
[laughing]
what the [bleeps]
[laughing]
[tickle] all right.
It seems like all of our small still sites,
are really paying off.
The stash house is filling up.
We got hold of some damsons.
Makes a very good tasting, smooth liquor.
That sells for a lot of money.
[henry] it's been ten years since we've got lucky enough, to get these boxes, here.
At least ten years.
So, we're excited about.
We got a secret mix, we've been doing for years on this.
Can't let too many people know about it.
What I do here,
put the sugar in, we're gonna throw, liquor in there.
We're gonna throw those damsons in.
Now, these are beautiful damsons.
When you start infusing fruit with your liquor,
it's a lot of money to be made.
And you turn it into two gallons.
You know, do the math.
You take some good moonshine,
and put it with a quality fruit.
You talk and you got some big bucks.
I mean big bucks.
You taking a case, make it two cases.
And you're tripling, the price of a gallon liquor.
You hear rumors about, if people put fruit in to shine,
they covering up bad shine.
Well, you know what?
Maybe somewhere else,
but this is franklin county.
This is henry law, tickle, kenny law.
We don't even know, what bad shine is.
That sugar is gonna still settle at the bottom.
We'll come back a day later.
And we'll shake that baby again.
And by then, the sugar should be dissolved enough for--
it will start infusing the berries and juices from these damson, right here.
People gonna beg for it.
We started out real rough this year,
but you know, now things are starting to look up.
We've got still sites all over the place.
We got peach brandy on the way.
And if it keeps on going the way that it is,
I can really see us, pulling this thing off.
Should listen to the sound. Listen.
What does it sound like?
-Sounds like money. -Sounds like money, huh?
[chuckles]
78?
-Yeah. -Oh, my gosh. Y'all, that--
that sucks, man.
-That makes me look bad. -[digger] I get it but--
of course, what we're keeping, the five gallons collectively,
between me and mark.
We'll absorb that.
Yeah, I shouldn't--
we'll absorb the problem with the bunk leaking.
Because that was on us.
Let's do this, 78 gallons.
How about, I pay you--
$17,000?
-Uh-huh. -We told you there's no more aged liquor. Okay.
And when I called you later to ask.
When you called back, I said, we could have it in six months.
-All right. -That involved the rapid aging process,
done on the ocean.
-That was-- -so--
-I didn't know, what you would do to age liquor. -You wanted to age liquor.
-It don't matter. It's our liquor-- -now, listen. Tomato. Tomato.
[mark] we can go around here, all in all, together.
It's your fault.
My fault. It's his fault.
It's everybody's frigging fault here.
I'm gonna make an executive decision here.
When I say this, this is it.
18 grand. Not negotiable.
Take it or frigging leave it.
-It is what it is. -It is what it is.
I'm gonna take that deal.
One of the reasons, is because--
they are gonna love that liquor.
Looking to the future.
I don't want to be the guy, that didn't show up with anything.
-I understand. -I get that.
You know, things happen sometimes.
You don't get your full shipment.
-Let's put your liquor in your truck. -[beaz] all right.
I am thrilled to know, and to be done with this tennessee whiskey order.
Your account just went down, another gallon.
They're down to 77.
[sighing]
just take the rest of these, and throw it in the damn dumpster.
And get it over with.
If he don't hurry and get out of east tennessee,
he ain't gonna have enough damn liquor,
to take a pill with, for a snake bit.
[bleeps]
[laughing]
I give up.
[digger] oh, god, beaz.
[laughing]
-what, he break another one? -He broke another one.
Haste makes waste.
That's definitely, on his hands.
Literally.
And his feet.
All right.
You get on out of here before you cause my building to fall or something.
-[chuckles] yeah, no kidding man. -[digger chuckles]
[digger] now, at the end of the day,
it was a learning experience, for all of us.
And we've come upon something,
that we might put into use, from here on out.
We have got to try to figure out something.
To replicate that sea-aging, in the mountains.