[narrator] this time on moonshiners.
[man] here we are team, let's go work.
[tim] I'm tryin' to learn more about mezcal.
Ready to go.
This agave, if you get close to it, it's gonna poke you.
You know, this plant is mean.
[richard] this is tomato juice, paprika, chili powder.
We're makin' 'em a high proof, bloody mary moonshine.
It's so good, it should be illegal, it kinda will be though.
-[mike] by god, they's ain't wantin' to do it. -[jerry] no, they sure ain't.
[mike] we gotta run a sweet corn mash or it's gonna be ruined.
[jerry] blow on it and see if it makes a difference.
In my mind, the only way I can make a fire burn hotter is to give it more air.
Oh yeah man, feel like I'm in a wind tunnel.
[mike] this is how we make the moonshine.
[tim] ah, another distillery right there, how about that.
Mezcal everywhere.
[narrator] after distilling tequila in the highlands of jalisco,
Tim travels south to the tow of santiago matalan in oaxac
To get hands on experience making mezcal.
An agave spirit with its own outlaw tradition.
[tim] everything you see here, mezcal, mezcal, mezcal.
What I'm told it's like the roots of mexico really.
[xaime] so this is the entrance to the distillery,
To the palenque, we call distilleries over here palenques.
We're meeting with xaime niembro, part owner of gracias a dios distiller.
We want to show you some agave we have over here.
[tim] you know, I'm tryin' to learn more about mezcal
Tryin' to learn more about the process in mexico
Because this can make me a better distiller.
With tequila you can only use one kind of agave, blue agave.
-Mmm-hmm. -But we can do mezcal from any kind of agave.
And we have such a big diversity of magueys in mexico,
For me, that's what makes mezcal the best spirit.
So it looks like it's all kinds of agave plants here,
It's not just one breed.
There's a lot of different breeds and types of agave plants.
With mezcal, there's so many different taste profiles, it's just an endless thing.
-We have produced mezcal from 13 different... -13.
...Varieties of agave.
-It's amazing how diverse mezcal can be. -Mmm-hmm.
-Like it's one thing over here in oaxaca... -Mmm-hmm.
...But then you can go to durango and then you can go to michoacan.
It's like wine actually.
So that's the beauty of all mezcal.
In my country, just the same with moonshine.
Different states, different regions and different grain.
I've travelled sometimes to get a different grain.
Certain regions grow different grains and you wanna get that taste profile.
So that's what they're doin' here, the same thing
But in agave, you got a little bit more variables really.
And you know, there's also people outside the low...
-Mmm-hmm, yeah. -...Making incredible mezcal.
You look to communities, two hours down from here
That they're in dirt roads and everything and you hit the road
And there's amazing maestro mezcaleros doin' an amazing job.
We have the same moonshiners do the same thing.
They're not legal, they're not on the shelf like myself
But they have really, really good moonshine.
Well, you know, people that's makin' homemade mezcal,
It's almost like they're moonshinin'.
You the moonshiner of mexico.
So over here, this agave will give you a lot of flowers in the palate.
It usually takes 12, 13, 15 years to mature.
-How old now? -Six year right now.
Six years now.
But then, for example, you have a tepextate over he
And you can see the different colors and everything.
And tepextate it's crazy because it usually takes 25 years to mature.
-Wow! -Yeah, yeah, it takes a long time to mature.
[tim] corn liquor and moonshine, couple a months, we plant the seed,
We harvest the crop, you know,
It's only a 4, 5 months and we done made a batch of moonshine.
And this will bring a lot of peppers into your palate.
Mezcal? Some of these agave plants that I'm lookin' at, as old as my son.
We're gonna be actually harvesting an espadin tomorrow.
I'm excited! Tomorrow xaime's takin' me out to the fields
Where we're gonna actually harvest the agave plant.
-I will recommend to wear some long sleeve shirt. -Okay.
-Yeah, it's gonna be tough. -Okay.
Freakin' cold out here buddy.
I tell ya what, this weather's changed since we mashed in.
I know it.
[narrator] in sevier county tennessee
With two barrels of sweet corn mash ready to run
Mike and jerry have a short window
To turn it into a late season payday.
Let's see what this mash looks like.
You gonna run a sweet corn mash
You got two barrels mashed in, 100 gallons worth
And we got a 50 gallon still
So we basically got two runs of the sweet corns to run.
Got a nice cap on it.
Smells like thems sweet corn, boy.
Man, this mash looks phenomenal.
It smells just like the sweet corn you'd pull straight off the stalk outta the field.
I can tell you one damn thing, it's cold.
My god, she's got the alcohol to it, don't it?
-It's got the damn alcohol to it. -And the taste.
I'll tell you what, boy.
Yee-haw!
-Full of alcohol, ain't it? -Son of a gun!
You squeeze that damn cobb right there, you'll get drunk in a damn hurry.
Well now that I've taste this mash, it was worth all the effort to me.
All we gotta do is get this stuff pumped over,
Fire this bad baby up and get some liquor runnin' off.
-[jerry] you hear it flutin'. -[mike] time to pull away.
It's tryin'. Boy, sure guess she's cold.
Yeah, it's cold.
Normally, you know, before when you hit it with a fire, in two minutes, it's burnin'.
The problem with this still is we gotta a core runnin' through it from top to bottom.
And just like in a chimney,
You've gotta get that flue hot for it to draw 100 perce the way it's supposed to.
So we've got 55 gallons a liquid surrounding this core.
And by god, it ain't wantin' to do it too quick, is it buddy?
No, it sure ain't.
You know, in the summertime our mash runs a lot warmer.
So it don't get as cold and this mash is just pullin' all the heat out,
And it's not allowin' us to get that good chimney fit
Well what are we gonna do, jerry?
We gotta run our sweet corn mash or it's gonna be ruined.
I know.
[jerry] this sweet corn mas is ready to run.
Tell you what, I'm startin' to get a little worried.
Blow on it and see if it makes a difference.
In my mind the only way I can make a fire burn hotter is to give it more air.
Man, I can tell a huge difference just right there.
Ah, you're doin' good I'm gonna watch the rest of it now.
Well I ain't damn gonna sit in here and do this all damn day.
Well just 'till you get lightheaded. [laughs]
You know one thing about mik he is full of a lot a hot ai
But there ain't no way he can keep up and do that all day long.
I'm almost wonderin' if we couldn't just make us a really small fan
Where we could blow into that thing,
But you know our biggest holdup is power,
We don't have no power up here.
You know a battery ain't gonna last very long.
By god, we got water.
If we had like a little squirrel cage fans.
If we had a couple a those we could just put 'em together on the same shaft.
Squirt water on one side and just let that thing turn,
And let that other side just blow a little air.
We gotta do somethin' to save our mash.
'cause it damn sure ain't gonna run when we're not standin' here.
-No. -It ain't gonna run at all.
No, it's gonna go out without the air.
Tell you what, let's run into town, scavenge a few parts
And I believe we can knock this out pretty quick.
[richard] it's all kinds of stuff in here.
Bay leaves and gumbo file, paprika.
[craig] time out. You're cooking gumbo?
We're gonna make a high proof cajun, bloody mary moonshine.
Since we tapped into the new orleans market,
I mean, I've been meetin' a lotta new people, I've met bartenders and chefs.
This guy wants to taste a bloody mary and he wants it clear
So we're give it a shot.
We're gonna need everything that's in that bag.
-[craig] pickles? You're gonna need pickles? -I need pickles too.
This is our first time makin' a bloody mary moonshine.
We wanna make sure we get it right.
I mean we can't make alcohol without knowin' what it taste like.
First thing we're gonna do is make the salt for the rim.
Paprika, dried basil, chili powder, dried thyme.
I've been doin' a lotta research.
We're gonna take a typical bloody mary recipe.
This calls for gumbo powder, gumbo file.
But with a little bit louisiana heritage.
This rim mix ties it to louisiana, I mean, this is truly cajun.
This is just a garnish.
You know these high end restaurants in new orleans,
These guys are not buyin' a bloody mary mix.
This is tomato juice,
Parsley, apple cider vinegar, worcestershire sauce.
They're makin' this from scratch.
That's good.
All a these ingredients that look kinda crazy they actually taste good together.
If we wanna get that same essence in a clear alcohol,
We gotta figure out how to take a red drink
And make it clear but still have the essence of our red form.
So what we're gonna do tomorrow, we're gonna come in here.
We're gonna grab a ton a tomatoes,
And we're gonna use fresh onions, fresh garlic, fresh basil, fresh thyme.
Cook everything down and we'll get it going from there.
I'm startin' to like mary here.
-Bueno dias. -Bueno dias, amigo.
How are you?
I'm good, morning.
I see the truck is ready, do you have a plan today or we just gonna go and...
Chop, chop.
Chop, chop and drink some mezcal.
-Yeah? -Yeah.
-So you're driving? -Yes, I am.
Okay, I was hoping I was gonna drive.
You want?
Nah, you better drive.
[tim] today, xaime and I we're going out to the agave fields.
We're gonna be harvesting the espidin agave plants.
There's a lot of agaves out there, uh, espidin is the most popular
For making mezcal.
[xaime] so, you know, we usually start this
Chopping the agave
-Early morning, like 6 o'clock in the morning. -[tim smith] uh-huh, uh-huh.
[xaime] so we go to the fields
We cut it and by noon
-The agave should be here and... -[tim] back.
-...In the palenque. -[tim] mmm-hmm.
[xaime] we call the distilleries, palenque.
The beautiful part
Of this little town,
Matatlan.
I bet you that almost every house
It's a distillery.
Because after all, there's a lot of
People that they don't produce
To sell mezcal.
-So only for themselves? -They produce-- exactly.
It's their heritage.
It's a mezcal town.
Because if you don't sell mezcal,
You sell the bottles
Or the corks,
Or the food for the mezcaleros.
What about the farmer
For that agave?
[xaime] uh, yeah.
[tim] well we see a lot of agave.
Well as we're driving out,
You know, as soon as we get out of town
And all you see is agave, everywhere.
[xaime] it's incredible
That it's your first time in mexico and in oaxaca
Because it doesn't get more authentic than this.
[tim] it's really rural, it's mountainous.
We in agave country here.
-This is me? -Yeah.
[tim] oh, I got the heavy one.
[xaime] of course.
And the machete?
So I have to go get down [whooshes].
-It's gonna be a long day. -Let's go.
[tim] let's bring this.
Gringo gets these tools.
Yep. [laughs]
-[tim] tools for gringos. -Let's go.
I gotta stow it somewhere.
This morning, xaime is
Gonna take me out to harvest some espadin agav.
[xaime] so here we are tim.
This is where we're gonna be working.
[tim] this is what they gonna make the mezcal from.
This is where you learn
How it's made.
-We're gonna-- exactly. -This one we need to chop.
We're gonna chop this.
Do you save this?
-You keep this and just drop... -We keep this
And we actually we dry this,
And then we use it as wood for cooking.
-Basically-- -so I need to chop and collect this.
Exactly.
That's the beauty about agave about maguey
That basically you're using everything.
We as mexicans
We are very proud of this plant.
It's something that has bee in our culture
For centuries.
It's textiles, roofs,
Alcohol,
For us agave's everything.
-Yeah. -[xaime] that's why mezcal
In my opinion
Is the best spirit in the world.
-Feel it in your heart. -It's beautiful.
These plants are wonderful.
[jerry] all we gotta do is have just a little bit of air
Blow it in there to kind of force that heat
On up to that chimney.
[mike] we gotta come up with somethin'.
[jerry] little place on out here.
Those are just junk cars so...
Guy's going to let us just pull out what we need.
[mike] me and jerry, we're o
The hunt for some motor fans
Pull out of old junk cars
And put more air flow to our rocket jet burners.
Problem is
It's just burning way to slo
We got to run a sweet corn mash.
We just got to get this stuf done and we're running out of time to do it.
So, jerry, he's come up wit idea to use some old
Car motor fans.
Where you want to start this?
There's several cars here, brother.
See, let's check that little bug over there.
[mike] I've always wanted to meet one of them.
There'd be access
Right under here if it's gonna be.
The fans that are under the dash of a car
They're designed to move high volumes of air.
So that I think is what
We're looking for, they're compact, they're small.
And that's exactly what we need.
-See... No. -Nothing?
Have to tear the whole dash to get this fan out of here.
You know, sometimes these fa
Especially, if they're underneath the dash
Is they're about dang near impossible to get to.
So that's what we're doing right now.
We're actually trying to find one that's gonna be easy accessible.
These old cars here, could be a good access.
Take a peek down there.
I'll get under there.
[jerry] I think with mike's size
I think he'd be able to fit
Under the dash of this thing.
Ooh.
It looks like we got one here, jerry.
Tend to do
A dance to get under the sea
And lay on your back and slide up under
The dash to get it out.
-[jerry] what you got there? -Lookie there.
Oh, that's perfect, man.
You know, the way this fan is designed
I think this is gonna be the perfect fan to catch our water
And make that wheel spin.
We'll shoot water cross this way
Where to catch these blades and turn this one.
Then we'll have this one this side that'll be blowing,
You know, it'd be turning the other way.
-And blow the air right on the fire. -Yep.
All we need is to have another one.
Let's check one of the other cars
Over here on the other side and see what they got.
[mike] all righty.
I hate that we're burning ti here looking for the parts
But in the long run
If we can get this thing built and it works the way we think it'll work
It's gonna cut our time in half.
Yeah, no, this one's, this one's good and accessible here.
I love the damn price of these things, you know.
Oh yeah.
[mike] of course, we can go to the parts house
And tell them exactly what we need.
But if we can save that money and put that money in our pocket
We're gonna do so.
[jerry] there we go.
See what you think about that one.
Dagnabbit, looks just like the other one, don't it.
[jerry] that's all we need, huh.
That's what we gotta have.
Now we got both of our fans that we need
Put 'em together and see how this bad boy works.
-[jerry] wasn't too bad, was it? -No.
Sure ain't bad
For free. We gone to just
Head over the jerry's shop
And put this thing together
And get it back to the still site.
Get to make that liquor quic and get some money in our pocket.
[richard] oh, my goodness, man.
These blocks are heavy.
I know, I wish I could have got a forklift in here.
Today we're back at the still site.
Gonna start building our brick oven.
We have 100 pounds of tomatoes with us.
Gonna cook this down
To turn this down into a real nice tomato paste
To start as a base
For our moonshine.
We're gonna come up with something clear,
High-proof in a jar that tastes like a bloody mary.
Using tomato paste does a lot for us.
Not only is it gonna be a nutrient
For our yeast, but it's way beyond that.
It's gonna be the flavor
Of what this moonshine actually is.
We're gonna heat it with woo
Oak smoke,
Cajun bloody mary moonshine
It's never existed.
I kind of want it to be
-Proved, man. -Raw like the woods here?
[richard] I'm gonna start packing that with dirt, man.
[craig] yeah, you said
It don't have to be pretty.
But I'm just having fun here, man.
We still got to cook now.
I want to be the first one to make a
Bloody mary moonshine.
That's gonna trap a lot of that
Heat in there for us.
Man, this is not an easy task.
[craig] me and richard are almost
Finished making this
Bayou side oven.
Start making a fire.
It's looking real good.
I think it's gonna be real efficient.
We're good to go.
Bring in some tomatoes.
Let's start chopping tomatoes.
[richard] homemade tomato paste is a lot different
Than ones you can buy in the store.
I mean, it has a real mellow flavor.
It has a real caramelized
Earthy flavor.
We're gonna drop some of these other ingredients in here.
We're gonna do
Fresh herbs as opposed
To those dry ingredients.
We're gonna let that marry into this flavor, this tomato paste.
This process actually takes a very
Long time.
Jalapeno.
No need to chop parsley.
It's 200 degrees
That we're gonna have to cook
This paste at
For, like, four hours.
We're gonna be able to
Achieve a lot of flavor.
This looks like a lot right now,
But this is gonna cook down in a little bit.
It's smelling good.
Still has some liquid in it.
But that's what that oven is for.
So I'm a get this into the oven.
So we're gonna do a couple of pans of this.
10 pounds apiece, that's wha they're gonna dry into
And we'll be able to start dealing up with our mash tomorrow.
To be able to say, you can
Pull off the essence of a bloody mary,
I don't know of too many moonshiners
That are playing with something like that.
It should be okay.
I'm not even gonna open it anymore until I put
The second pan in, in a little while.
So, tell me what is this worth?
Is it like a...
1,0000 pesos, uh...
Once you take off all the leaves...
-Mmm-hmm. -[xaime] ...It can be
Between 50 to 100 kilos.
Every kilo
It's worth around 15 pesos,
Which is like 75 cents.
So you're talking
About 75 dollars each plant
And then
For every between 10 to 11 kilos of this plant
You get one bottle
-Of artisanal mezcal. -[tim] oh.
-Mmm-hmm. -And that's why it's not cheap.
So each plant, like--
Like five bottles from this.
-Five bottle, five bottle, five bottle, five bottle. -Exactly,
-Exactly. -You're rich.
-Uh-huh. -[both laughing]
You know, xaime is very passionate
In this business
Because, you know, he's in the field.
He's watching the plant being planted.
It's grown, it's harvest.
[xaime] things that I actually
Admire the most...
This is a semi-desert plant.
-It's made for holding water. -Mmm-hmm.
[xaime] for example,
In the mornings when the dew comes over here...
-[tim] it catch it. -[xaime] you don't need water
Because of the dew.
Could this plant survive in the cold?
Yeah, if you go
Like 10 hours northern from over here
To durango, which is another mezcal region
You see the agaves over there, they're called cenizos.
And they're like huge agaves beautiful, the leaves are very thick.
They can give you, like, a cheese note.
-[tim] okay. -Because they develop more fat
In order to protect themselves from the weather.
You know, agave
Is really tough.
It gets cold, it gets hot
And it can take the heat.
What do we do? Let's... How do we chop
One of these things?
[oscar hernandez] hola.
What we got here?
-Hola tim. -[xaime] oscar hernandez.
-All right, tim. -[xaime] oscar is my partner.
Four generation maestro mezcalero.
[tim] what do you have?
[in spanish]
[xaime] oscar, now we have 10 years working with him.
He learned how to take care of the agave in the fields.
And then he learned how to take care of the mezcal
In the palenque.
Every time you sip a drink
Of gracias a dios
You can actually taste
Oscar experience.
Honestly, I don't think oscar is my partner.
I think he's my brother.
That's a dia de muertos bre.
-In there? -[xaime] mmm-hmm.
[in spanish]
[xaime] so this is how
An agave jima star.
Chocolate,
Bread, and then you start to work.
The most incredible part of this
Is that the chocolate that we're drinking
It's a chocolate made
By oscar's mom.
You know that cacao, chocolate, is actually from mexico.
So in these regions
We have a big culture of cacao.
So what they do is they go to the market they buy the cacao
They toast it in the comal,
They put it with cinnamon
Then they crush it.
-[tim] mmm-hmm. -They put water
And they make the bars.
-And that's it. -[oscar] okay.
[in spanish] tim, let's finish our hot chocolate
And get to work.
-Okay. -[xaime] enough chocolate--
[oscar in spanish] come on, guys.
Some of the things that I love
About oscar's philosophy is that
He always says that, "a good mezcal
Starts in the soil."
You need to have a good agav so 8 years old
Agave espadin,
And he's gonna take off the leaves...
-[tim] mmm-hmm. -[xaime] ...So we can make a good mezcal.
You're looking at a plant that took eight years to get to maturity.
You know, I'm used to having corn.
It takes three or four months.
Oscar, he started
Working the mezcal when he was 12.
His dad was bringing
Him to the agave camps.
So,
He's a four generation mezcalero.
[tim] oscar, he kind of reminds me of myself a little bit.
He's doing the same thing
With his mezcal.
He watches the agave plant all the way through the process.
He has hard working ethics.
So he's passing
All the knowledge that he has into
Pepe, his nephew.
He wants to keep
The tradition alive.
-[tim] so the same, same story with a similarity. -[xaime] basically.
I started at 5 years old
Son of a moonshiner.
My father says, "you should do something better in life."
"this is illegal. You're gonna go to jail. You're gonna be in trouble."
So my uncle on the side
Teaching me everything because I want to be like my father.
So then later, my father says I am good at this
Because it's in my heart.
So now 50 years in the business
And you have to get your hands dirty
To learn this and you find out fast.
Do you love it or you do not love it?
I love it.
-[tim] so you love it. -Yeah.
[tim] pepe, he's a young mezcalero
And he's like the next generation.
So he kind of reminds me of my son.
You know, he has that discipline.
He wants to be involved, and he's gonna
Work and he's gonna earn it.
-Mmm-hmm. -[xaime] this is just five bottles over there.
So we're hoping it's a 50 tons agave open.
So basically we need 150 of this agave hearts.
-[tim] by the end of today? -[xaime] so... Today.
Okay.
So I'm gonna start here.
You know, this plant is mean.
If you get close to it, it's gonna poke you.
And I'm talking about poke y
With a sharp needle.
I'm hot.
Harvesting blue agave
For tequila is nothing like this.
It's real easier than harvesting
The espadin.
For the mezcal
It's really difficult and it's hard work.
[tim] whoo.
That's a lot of work.
I can understand that, that one bottle
Mezcal that you make.
Those are valuable.
Harvesting this espadin
I've learned a whole lot.
And some of it is in my back.
[in spanish] let's get going.
Xaime says, "go get some rest, and tomorrow
We're gonna learn how the mezcal is made."
But tonight I'm ready to taste some of it.
I'm ready for a drink.
[richard] perfect timing.
-[craig] what's that? -[richard] I need to take this out.
So we making a high proof
Bloody mary moonshine.
There's a lot going on here.
Oh, yeah. That's good.
You got a little smoke flavor to it.
This cajun tomato sauce
It's so good, it should be illegal.
It kind of will be though.
I'm ready to get on that
Second one, man.
Now we got to do the second tray and let it cook
At 200 for four hours.
But most importantly, we need to mash in.
That's hot right there.
This is by no stretch of the imagination
A simple recipe. You really have
To do some work to get this to be
Where we need it to be
For our run.
This cane sugar is just
Something that used to love.
I'm gonna show you the old method
Of dealing with this.
-What's that? -[richard] rolling pin.
Parchment paper.
We don't have a sugar cane press.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back
To the old school.
I'm just gonna get a rolling pin
And then roll it out.
Come on, roll it.
All right, hold on.
Let me see that.
Oh yeah. We got some good liquid here.
That was one little pressin'.
[craig] hey, man, don't drop none of that.
That's my blood, sweat, and sugar cane tears, man.
-Roll that. -Oh, man.
[craig] I'm getting too old for this man,
And rich is kind of
Dodging work and everything,
But I guess it was his idea
So I gotta do the hard work.
[richard] that's about all we need.
That's a full bucket down there.
All right, so let me get my oven mitts.
[craig] now that we have enough
Clear cane liquid extracted,
And we have our tomato paste done.
We're gonna mix all of this together
And pitch our yeast.
In this mash barrel we're putting in
Tomatoes, our cane syrup,
And we're gonna add some wat to give ourself some volume
So we want to make sure that everything that we have in here
Is enough to do a 20 gallon run.
Stir that up good.
That creole cajun,
It's time to add this yeast to it.
It's already cool.
[craig] this one smells more like bread than ever.
[richard] yeah, this one smells good.
[craig] it smell like a bloody mary to me.
There was a lot going on in here.
I know that when you have a lot of things going into a pot,
It's kind of dangerous.
When we come back here, man, this oughta be standing straight up in the air.
I'm scared that I might have overpowered some things.
I spent a whole lot of mone just getting all of these ingredients.
There's a lot at stake here.
I mean we got this client waiting on us.
I can't mess this up.
All right. Let's go.
[in spanish]
I'm glad you ordered that.
Well, you know, we've been o in the fields all day.
We've been cutting agave.
And you know, it's time to taste some of this stuff.
I order three different mezcals from different agaves.
-Different regions. -Mm-hmm.
I always say that mezcal's more like wine.
You have a lot more possibilities to have something...
-Beautiful in your glass. -Mm-hmm.
-So that's what we're trying. -I got you. I got you. I got you.
[in spanish]
So this is, uh, a mezcal made
From a plant that took 25 years to mature.
[tim chuckling] 25 years!
[xaime] 25 years. Just think about where you were
25 years ago.
And all the flavors that you have in this glass,
-They come from the soil. -Mm-hmm.
They don't come from a barrel,
They don't come from other sugars,
They come from agave.
-Wow. -I mean there's a little bit of the smoke,
-Because we cook the agave in a wood oven. -Mm-hmm.
But it should not be the protagonist.
Protagonist... Should be the plant.
The maguey.
-I understand. -[in spanish]
I can smell the smoke.
Mm-hmm.
It's very present,
But in your mouth,
If you can taste it,
It's not overwhelming.
When you're speaking about mezcal, everyone thinks about the smokey taste.
I'm getting a little hint of it,
But it's balanced out perfectly.
There's a lot of notes that I'm picking up here.
Now we're gonna taste the madre cuishe,
And you're gonna see another totally different expression,
Different nose, different taste.
Everything is going to be so, so different
From the tepeztate.
This one, it's very peppery. [in spanish]
Then you have the madre cuishe.
[tim] I can tell the difference.
This one's like a little fruity tasting.
This one's more...
Maybe like hot pepper?
Yeah, this has a lot of green pepper.
-But you don't put pepper in it, right? -No, no, no.
This is the plant?
The plant. The ground.
[tim] so, you know, I'm tasting it.
I'm understanding now, it's a total different profile than just blue agave.
Because these agave plants are all different shapes and sizes and colors.
It's totally different.
We're gonna take the third one.
-Everything's 45 proof. -[in spanish]
We're not gonna be able to walk when we leave.
[all chuckling]
You're in matatlan, you need to drink mezcal.
So this is a third one. This is a mexicano.
The agave of the mexicano comes from san pedro mixtepec.
A region going towards the coast.
This one comes from the central valleys of oaxaca,
And the tepeztate comes from the central valleys of oaxaca.
-This is 25 years old? -25 years old.
-14 years? Ten? -14 years old and this is like ten, eleven years.
-So... -Still, ten years a long time.
-Exactly. -I can make corn liquor in four months to finish.
That's the thing, you have corn grains,
-You know it's an annal thing. -Yeah.
Over here, it's not.
You sit down, you wait for eight years.
-All right. -And then after eight years,
You sacrifice that plant in order for you to make a bottle.
To have a sip. To drink something.
And I love the fact that more people
Are actually being aware and appreciate this kind of spirits.
In mexico, like my parent's generation,
They think mezcal is for poor people.
-They don't know what they're drinking. -Yeah. Yeah.
They're the-- "yeah, yeah that cheap thing."
-It's illegal, homemade. -It's illegal. They're so wrong.
A lot of people think moonshine's like make you go blind,
-It's really strong. -Mm-hmm.
It doesn't taste good.
-You know? -You know what?
We're exactly the same,
-Because mezcal was exactly like that. -Yeah.
Salud, tim from mezcal.
Welcome to matatlan. I hope you enjoy it.
Okay.
-It's good, right? -That's the third one.
[both laugh]
Any more distilleries open now?
-Oh, there's like plenty of distilleries over here. -Maybe?
I mean, you're here in the capital world of mezcal.
-Yeah. -Somebody's got something somewhere.
-Okay. Let's go. -Let's go.
I'm thinking about it is getting a little bit late,
But I wanna see a real distillery.
Is there one in walking distance?
And he's like, "sure. There's like 500."
And we gotta like, pay the bill, right?
Uh, we'll deal with this later on.
-[laughs] yeah? -You're in mexico.
"in mexico." okay, that's the way we roll, huh?
-[xaime] yeah. -[tim] okay.
[mike] well, let's see what the hell we gonna do with 'em, brother.
We'll get pretty much the basic parts we need.
[jerry] we're here to shop today to build a water powered fan.
We got two barrels that we need to run
And we really need to run 'em right away.
That's how we're gonna do. We're gonna make a box for the shaft to sit in,
You know, put all these wheels on one side.
[mike] and one on the other.
Right now it's taking hours to get our mash up to temperature to run.
With this thing here, it's gonna cut our time in half. I hope.
So basically it's gonna be, we'll shoot water into this blade here.
And we'll encapsulate this thing here in kind of a little box.
Any daggum we can come up with to make the runs happen quicker.
It makes our season go better.
Let's start getting it done
Our plan is, we're gonna bui a couple of boxes.
One to put our water jet power through.
And the other side, we're gonna build a contraption.
So we can just blow air right up into the rocket jet burner that we've got.
You know, we may be spending a damn day building this
But it's gonna save us probably another couple of weeks in time.
When you figure if it takes our day from a-- say a
A 15 or 16 hour day to eight hour a day.
We're gonna save the day just in one run.
[mike] you know, we investing a lot of time right now.
But when we get this thing built and it works the way it should work,
We gonna gain that time right back in a day's work.
That's air coming off of it now.
Just wait until we get the squirrel cage built around it.
[jerry] basically on the other side, we're just gonn put a little squirrel cage.
Basically what that does is you know the wheel actually blows air
In many directions.
What we gonna do is, we gonna channel that air,
Where it goes in one direction only.
That way we can force it right into our coals.
On the side of that cylinder, gonna have a hole cut out.
Just pulling air into the side.
Pulling and feeding all at the same time.
Come on, jerry. Let's try it out.
[jerry] we know now with this together.
We don't have water here at the shop.
So what we gonna do is, we gonna throw a drill on it
And just see what kind of air this thing can potentially move.
-Lot of air, ain't it? -Yeah, boy.
[mike] oh, yeah, man. I feel like I'm in a wind tunnel.
I put my pretty, little ponytail in behind m
And it just blows it in the air.
This thing's gonna work the way it's supposed to.
[laughing]
Look at that wind, buddy!
You know, we know it actually works with the drill in the shop, we know it moves air.
But until we put it on water and actually see the difference on how hot it burns
That's gonna be the real test.
I think we done good, brother.
-Now let's get it to the woods and see how she works. -Heck, yeah.
Let's get it.
[richard] oh, boy, they got mosquitoes all around here.
That smells like good stuff.
Mm-hmm.
It's not over-powering,
It's just right, man.
That's a good drink right there.
This tastes like tomatoes. So there's this sweet residual taste to it.
And there's the burn that gently follows it back
And this is in the wine form.
I mean, I can't wait to we can get to work on this run.
It's a lot of tomato in there.
Our next step is drag this barrel over to the still.
This is a small order.
So we're gonna do this in the small pot.
Now stir that thing. I know you can reach that.
Make sure you touch the bottom.
There's a lot of tomato in here,
And the that's the stuff that sticks to the bottom of your pot.
This is definitely not a normal mash.
With this, in this pot, we have to keep stirring.
We can't scorch the bottom.
That would ruin this whole run.
We let the steam a long time,
'cause we don't know what we had trapped up in here with all these herbs,
And all these different ingredients.
The alcohol that we're going for,
We wanna make sure it has no methyl.
So we make sure those are gone in the beginning.
Come on. We took clearly enough out. We're gonna cap this off.
Thing's hot, huh?
The pot's starting to roll. We let enough heads off.
We gonna cap it off.
And hopefully soon,
We have some clear, high proof bloody mary alcohol coming out the other end.
Yeah, you feel that thumper's starting to thump?
We're getting a little drip right here.
It's starting to run.
-She sure is running. -All right.
No heads coming off. So we can taste that.
I'm too anxious. I'm about to take a taste of this, man.
You got to see what we working with, man.
What do you taste?
Tomato?
Everything.
Tomato, pepper and the spice comes last.
I could taste the burn in this,
I can taste the tomato in this.
And this is at a really high proof.
And there's not a one scorch flavor in here
So, I'm stoked.
I got a customer waiting on this
And I'm happy to tell him,
"boy, I got what you wanted in a jar."
This a winner, boy.
How much you think this is right here?
-It's about 165, I say. -It's about--
[richard] that's 160. That's some real, good liquor right there.
Nobody ever did this before, craig.
That's unique. That's right here, new iberia, louisiana.
This is the essence of a bloody mary.
This is the true thing.
This is a town where everybody lives for mezcal
-And then doing mezcal. -Yep.
Me and xaime are actually walking along in a town,
And we're looking for you know, a distillery.
-[xaime] you want a taco? Let's go. -[tim] sure.
[in spanish]
[xaime] so this is a very special place,
Because this is a taco place,
But also you're in a distillery.
-And a taco place. It's amazing, right? -Nice.
So would you like to try his mezcal?
[tim] sure.
[xaime] this agave, they make very good pulque from that agave.
-Puka? -Pulque.
-Booka? -Pulque.
-Puka? -P-u-l-q-u-e.
Pulque?
We call the distilleries palenque.
-Balanque? Balanque? -Palenque. Yeah.
-Palenque. -So is that distillery?
-Palenque? -Yeah.
[xaime] distillery it's a palenque.
Maybe I should drive.
Now you get to drive in oaxaca.
Yeah, I drive in oaxaca.
Palenque.
-Another palenque. -Another palenque.
-[tim] this is-- -[xaime] those are nopales.
-Nopa-- noplaes? -Nopales.
What is this mountain?
[xaime] la sierra madre de oaxaca.
-[tim] la sierra-- -[xaime] oaxaca.
Loco amigo.
[both laugh]
Oh!
I don't care. I still like driving here.
[mike] it's pretty.
You know, now that mike and I have got this fan built,
We're gonna test this out on our fresh corn run.
[mike] you know if this thing works,
The way it's supposed to wor
It will save us so much more time.
So we can get back on track,
Start making liquor twice as fast.
Get two runs out in a day's time.
And double the money in our pockets.
[jerry] mike, the damn thing fits like a glove.
So far it's fitting pretty good.
Just a matter of getting the water to it and see how she going to work.
You know our water source is coming from the waterfall of course.
On the water powered fan itself,
We even go into like a quarter inch line.
And then we gotta drain it until it shoot off the excess water
Right out of the still site.
Looks pretty sitting there, don't it?
Let me have that hose right there and I'll connect it.
[jerry] you know, mike and I we tested this water powere fan out,
But we've not actually put water to it yet to see how it works.
This don't work,
Yeah, we're gonna kind of be sunk,
You know, we're back to square one.
All right, mike. Let her rip.
[mike] there it flies!
[jerry] mike turned on that water
And it doesn't seem to wanna start turning right away.
[jerry] there he goes!
But then instantly, it just starts to move.
And, man, what a relief.
[mike] hot diggity dog, baby.
-Check that out, son. -Hell, yeah.
[mike] I'm tickled to damn death.
[jerry] that's gonna do 'er.
[mike] it's spinning, sucking air through the side
It's pushing air through the rocket jet burner.
All we gotta do now is feed this thing pellets.
We're on to success.
[jerry] wonder if we could stick a flame to it, son.
[mike] fire this bad boy up, see what it looks like.
[jerry] this is continuous air flow
And you can actually hear those coals starting to roar now.
Come over here and look inside.
She's just a glow in there.
[mike chuckles] oh, yes!
[jerry] can actually feel the heat coming off of it.
It's radiating from everywhere.
The barrel, the flue.
This is what we needed. Just a little bit of air. It works perfect.
That old barrel's getting warm.
I'm gonna tell you what she is.
[mike] our mash is getting warm too.
So we won't be long. We'll be capping her off.
That's right, buddy.
You know, as this thing's starting to heat up,
This heat's come off at leas half the time.
We're starting to see steam coming out the cap.
It's ready to get this thing capped off and get to collecting this alcohol.
You're getting pretty excited. I'm ready to taste this.
Me and you both. [laughs]
[mike] we got liquor, brother.
[jerry] there it comes.
Yes! We finally got liquor coming out this rig, man.
We have succeeded in half of the daggum time.
-[groans] -here we go!
[mike] sweet corn in the mountains of tennessee!
Mm-mm. That is delicious.
This has got a flavor like none other.
I mean literally it tastes you're taking a sip right out of a pot of sweet corn.
That's truly some fresh corn squeezing right there.
That's what it's supposed to taste like.
You see the difference. But corn liquor's good,
It's phenomenal.
But this is so much different than that.
It's sweeter, it's more flavorful.
We got a full run done, baby.
I say we knock the plug out of this thing.
There we go.
Time for the second run, baby.
Now that we can get two runs done today,
From here on out, man, this is going to be smooth sailing.
And I'm tickled to death that we got this damn thing figured out.
It's doing what it's supposed to be doing.
It just took a long time to get it there.
You know now that we've made this still more efficient,
I'm pretty confident we gonn make hell of a lot more mone this year,
And all we gotta do is just keep mashing in and keep running damn this thing.
Making money now!
This is a taco place but also you're in a distillery.
-So you get a taco and a shot of mezcal too? -Yeah.
Here we are at a taco joint.
He's got his little distillery going on.
[xaime] this is the way most of the houses in matatlan are.
Mezcal made in all these different buildings around the area.
This is actually part of their culture.
It's all about mezcal.
What about this? What's this?
-This looks like me back home. -[in spanish]
So that's the still that his dad was using for making mezcal.
But this is too old to use it.
-Yeah? -But he has it over here,
Because it's a good memory.
He wants to keep it to remember his dad.
[tim] you know it's really cool, both of u in different countries,
We grew up in the heritage of making alcohol.
We still carrying on that tradition,
You know it's kind of exciting,
Staying right here in the middle of this small little town,
Little village in mexico.
And these guys have got the still running.
So this is a maguey cuishe.
It takes nine years to grow.
It's a wild agave.
So they bring them from the mountains.
[in spanish]
[tim] wow.
-[in spanish] -yeah.
He tricked me. We gonna get a taco.
[in spanish]
-It's nice, right? This is the beauty of matatlan. -Yeah. Yeah.
-This is the beauty of oaxaca. -Crazy. Crazy.
You know so far with xaime, I learned how they plant it,
How they grow it, how they cultivate it.
How they harvest it.
Got to visit a distillery a little bit.
But now I wanna know how they make it into mash.
How they gonna distill it? How we gonna get it in a bottle?
I can't wait to see what's next.
I have to say this is the capital of mezcal.
I never been nowhere else like it.
Salud for that.
-[in spanish] -yeah. Yeah.
Gracias!