[narrator] this time on moonshiners...
-[mark] now, them's happy cows. -[digger] well, hello, girls.
Any of y'all got any whey?
-[mark laughs] -mark he's been skeptical about making some milk liquor.
But I think we might onto the next big thing for the liquor world.
[mark] damn milk. God almighty.
250, 250, 250. That's 750 gallons.
Now that we have this sea-aging process,
I want to do something that nobody's ever done before.
I wanna do manglier tea whiskey.
Can't let anything stick to this pot.
You cannot scorch this.
Man, are you serious?
Ready, jerry?
Just got a big order from a guy in south carolina.
He wants 60 gallons of flavored-infused vodka.
We've got alcohol now, jerry.
We getting there.
Whoo!
There's something not right about it.
[bleep]
[man] this is how we make the moonshine!
I can't imagine whatever gave you the idea that you can ferment milk.
I read too much.
[narrator] in cocke county, tennessee,
After successfully convertin milk into alcohol,
Mark and digger head out in search of more of the raw ingredient.
What's the name of this place we're going?
-Sweetwater valley-- -[digger] sweetwater valley--
-Dairy, -dairy.
You know, digger and I, we learned that once you separate the curds from whey,
That actually you can ferment milk whey.
-The whey is where the sugar is still in, right? -Yep.
We're gonna get it right down here, I do believe.
If we're gonna upscale this, we're gonna have to have a whole lot more whey.
So today, we're making a field trip to sweetwater valley farm.
They've got a big cheesemaking factory.
They'll have plenty of whey.
Look at that damn outfit. Now, them's happy cows.
[digger] well, hello, girls.
Any of y'all got any whey?
[cow mooing]
-They're kind of like us, they're slick and fat. -[laughs]
[digger] you know, we pulled in, there's cattl for days around here.
If you're gonna be a dairy cow, you wanna be at this place.
You got it going on if you get born into this tribe.
-[john] what do you say, guys? -How you doing?
-Well, hey, john. -[john] what're y'all into?
Well, I've never met john.
Digger has been here before
He knows who we are and he... He knows what we do.
You all make cheese here, don't you?
We do.
That means you got a bunch of whey, don't you?
We've got a little bit of whey.
Well, we'd like to have a little of it.
You got hogs you're feeding or what?
Yeah, let... Let's go with that.
[mark laughs]
How much whey are you needing?
I don't know, depends.
How much you produce a day?
A semi-load. 50,000 pounds.
[mark] 50,000 pounds?
We were just thinking about maybe one of them totes full of it.
-The plastic totes. -The big 275 gallon totes.
You reckon you'd let a man talk you out of that much?
We can do that probably.
Let's go see what you need.
All right, we'll follow you, john.
Let's go up the road here.
For making cheese, we'll produce about 4,800 gallons of whey.
And we normally feed it bac to our animals
Since it's a pretty good source of energy and protein.
Why are you not using corn?
Well, everybody uses corn. We wanna be different.
Well, I've been reading a little bit.
-There's a few places trying to make vodka. -That's right.
They're actually making a vodka out of it over in europe.
They're several places in...
In the european nations that make a liquor out of whey.
So, you know, people want something new.
It may be the next big thing
How many head of cattle do you milk in here?
[john] we're milking about 1,600.
-That's right smart. -1,600?
-Wow. -[digger] that's a big deal.
John says they're milking 1,600 head of cattle.
That's a tremendous amount of whey, a few hundred gallons.
That's not gonna tax him too bad.
[john] come on in, guys.
[digger] well, I can see this is where I need to be.
[mark] wow, that's insane.
Well, they're ready to get her maxed in.
We're gonna cook some rye.
[jerry] let's get to her and get her done.
Me and jerry, we just got a big order from a guy in south carolina.
He wants 60 gallons of flavored-infused vodka.
Charleston gold rice.
Basically, what we're doing is a flavored-infused vodka.
He wants six different flavors,
But he wants his base mash to be made out of this carolina gold rice.
One of the first domesticated type of rices in this area.
Maybe why he's want it so bad is this stuff here's got a lot of earth tones to it,
-Kind of a nutty flavor. Yeah. -Nutty. Nutty flavor.
You know, pretty much you can make a vodka out of anything.
So this customer here, he said, even as a kid,
That's he wanted the base mash made out of.
Let's mash it in, son.
We got her burning, bud. Come on, let's get her up there and get her hot.
That's some cold ice water, buddy.
Whoo.
We gonna mash in six barrels of mash of the rice that we've got.
That's two runs on this pot
And that's gonna give us about 15 gallons per run, 30 gallon output
By the time we temper it down, that's gonna give us our 60 gallons of product
That we need to deliver to this guy.
[mike] oh, [bleep].
We're gotta have a bigger stirring stick.
I got the short end of the stick, jerry!
When you're boiling down grains that's got starch in it,
You can't just pour your gra in there and fill it up with water, yeast, and sugar
You've gotta cook this stuff down.
-I've got the bottom. You ready? -You've got her bottom.
You gotta extract the starch out of this grain
And turn it into a consumable sugar
So you can ferment it and get all the flavors
And all the natural sugars out of the grain that you're working with.
We'll pour it into the filter.
Mmm! It puked on me.
About ready to pour over.
Let's do it to it, baby.
Our customer, you know, he's a pretty big high-roller in a lot of different things.
With these 60 gallons, if he's satisfied with it,
He could be a potential big buyer for us
And could keep us set for a long time.
[mike] smoking!
You know, around the end of the season last year,
We had our stash house compromised.
It's a risky move to be set up inside.
But time is not on our side here anymore.
We've gotta make a big run, put some money in our pocket,
So we can set up for the winter.
I'd say this pot is ready for damn sugar, don't you?
It is ready for sugar.
You know, we're gonna mix an extra 50 pounds of sugar to each barrel that we've got.
We want as much alcohol by volume in these barrels that we can possibly use
'cause we gotta have it to make this order.
Tell you what, we ain't got no room for air.
We're cutting it really damn close.
We've mashed in just enough to do what this guy's asking for.
That's all we can do.
If we start screwing up and having a lot of issues--
-We're done. -...We're sunk.
I tell you what, me and jerry's never done this before.
We've got six different flavors to do at one time.
That's a big order to fulfill but we intend to get it done.
A lot of mash, ain't it, brother?
That's 300 gallons worth of mash right there.
Hurry up and wait, let it work off.
[craig] how do you like my little spot right here?
[richard] I love it, man, it's beautiful but where are we?
[craig] in the middle of nowhere.
[narrator] in iberia parish, louisiana
Richard returns to a friend's houseboat
Where he's sea-aging a barrel of prized liquor.
[craig] that's it?
[richard] in plain sight, hidden in plain sight.
[craig] look like firewood, you had a log in front of it.
There it is.
A little while ago, I got the chance to go work with mark and digger.
[mark] it oughta be really good liquor right about now.
I did some cherry cognac with them.
It was much lighter coming in here when it was just cherries and sugarcane.
[mark] you ain't [bleep].
[richard] I brought some of that back with me.
It's been sitting on a houseboat doing a sea-aging.
I wanna taste this thing.
It was a really good liquor before we put it in the barrel.
And I'm anxious to see what it's like when we take it out of the barrel.
Here, taste that.
-Give it the first taste test. -Look at that color in the sun.
[richard] nice amber color.
In the past, we've used toasted oak chips
And things like that to get a brown color in the liquor
But this is the first time I've actually gone through
A process of aging liquor in a barrel properly.
[craig sniffs] I smell...
Money.
That first, number one.
But I can smell the cherry.
I expected to taste the cherry in this, definitely.
But the notes of the barrel definitely come through
Because it's different than when we put it in there.
This is real, real, real good.
Any whiskey, any brandy, has to sit up for three years,
Four years, some five years.
But mark and digger taught m about sea-aging,
Putting a barrel on a vessel so it ages faster.
This is what six months did? That big difference.
Just those slow, repetitive movements.
I never wanted to do any barrel-aging
Because you have to wait so long and I get impatient.
After a couple of years, I'm gonna be like,
"no, man, we're drinking this right now."
But I can give my customers the exact same results
By putting it on a houseboa for six months.
I can wait six months.
I think we get $8,000 for that 30 gallons right there.
Well, hell, if it's like that, we should make some of our own.
We should, man. I've been thinking of doing something different, man.
Well, what you been thinking about doing?
About a year ago, we made a manglier tea moonshine
And it's been one of our best sellers since then.
All right, the moment of truth.
Our winner is...
Richard.
-Congratulations, brother. -Wow.
What did you use to make that?
This is actually a tea, I fermented a tea.
Manglier tea is an indigenous plant to my state, louisiana.
It's delicate, it's floral, it's fruity.
I love how it felt on my palette.
I've been thinking about taking some of that manglier tea
And that corn,
And, man, mixing them two together and doing something.
Oh, that would be awesome.
I'm gonna take two really good recipes
We're gonna merge them together.
We're gonna put them into this barrel and come up with something special.
Everybody's gonna love this
[john] yeah, they're about finished with the first vat of the day.
How many gallons of raw milk do you start with in this vat?
-[john] 3,000 gallons. -[mark] 3,000 gallons.
We end up with about 2,500 pounds of cheese.
What do you actually do with your whey once you have it?
[john] we send it all back to the barn and we feed young stock with it.
Now, initially over here, you heat that raw milk and do you put some...
-[john] we put cultures in it. -...Cultures in it to start the curdling process.
And, uh, take it up to about 90 degrees fahrenheit.
About 30 minutes after he puts the rennet in, it'll be set.
It'll be a solid mass.
-Kind of like your vinegar did. -The vinegar did, yeah.
Cause it to coagulate.
Now, right in here, this big heated tank holds 3,000 gallons of milk.
Then, they'll dump some enzymes in there,
Which start the coagulation of the fats and the solids to make the curds.
Then after that, drain the whey off
And it heads up to where we need to go get it at.
-Kind of like walking into an operating room. -It is pretty much.
[john] fellas, that's whey.
And our curds are a little heavier so they're on the bottom.
Today, we're at sweetwater valley farms.
They're a great, big dairy operation
We want some whey to try to make liquor out of it.
[john] all we're doing, we're cooking.
So we take the temperature up, and that just makes the curds expel that much more whey.
And that's what you want right there.
-[mark] oh, yeah. -[digger] how about that?
[mark] it's very tender, though, isn't it?
[john] very tender. So they're fragile now.
They'll just... They'll crush.
[digger] so, you know, this big stirrer,
It's coming around and it whips the curds up off the bottom
Where they're heavy and sink
And you can just reach in and get them.
It's the same thing that we had produced on a smaller scale.
John, we appreciate the grand tour.
You know, we toured the farm and saw a lot.
Now comes the $64,000 question.
How do you feel about us maybe getting a tote of your whey?
Well, I think we can work it out.
I think we can trade on that a little bit.
-Oh, ain't no doubt in my scientific mind. -Let's get it done.
-We appreciate you. -All right, we got a deal.
We'll send the young man down here to pick a tote up.
-Thank you for your hospitality, sir. -You're welcome.
The way it stands, you know, we're getting they whey for free.
But, you know, we'd like to give a gift for a gift.
So we'll give him a little sample of alcohol, as well.
If the situation warrants it, and this liquor turns out good.
We might have an ongoing friendship here,
Coming and getting some whey out of his way.
[richard] it's a lot of tea, man.
Now that we have this sea-aging process,
I wanna do something that nobody's ever done before.
So I wanna do manglier tea whiskey.
[craig] oh, man, why you gotta put so much?
Manglier is a herb that grows wild around here.
It's good for respiratory ailments and infection.
[craig] I forgot how much hard work making moonshine is.
[richard] yeah, but you're about to do it on another level today.
We're gonna have to make 2,000 gallons of a manglier tea corn mash.
I've never done anything like that before.
We're gonna fill up this pot, we're gonna fill up these two tote tanks with mash.
Every few days, we'll come in here,
We'll do a mash, and we'll do a run.
You're talking about two, three weeks here.
[richard] yeah, it's gonna take a little while to do this, man.
Filled about 25 gallons of run on our still.
So we're gonna have to make 10 runs
On a 250 gallon submarine still.
Switching over.
We can't waste no time today.
Very first thing we gotta d is we gotta make this tea base.
Let's start breaking up some manglier, man.
Basically, this is a corn ru
We're not gonna use water.
We're gonna use our manglier tea.
We can't just drop all that in there.
We're gonna use this, craig.
Oh, yeah. For the pots. I never thought of that.
[richard] tell you what, we got some more of that screen material.
We gotta make our tea bag.
We're gonna go roll this up.
This is our key ingredient right here,
So we wanna make sure that this is really presented well within the drink.
That's gonna be more than enough.
You see the color of this water already?
Now we can get to work on the rest of it.
I'm gonna put these two colanders together.
I'm gonna make this like a tea steeper.
You know the little thing that, you know, takes the tea
And picks up the tea and you can put it in the hot water?
Well, we made something like that with some colander
If you make moonshine, you're gonna have some good ideas in your head.
Every last one of these things is gonna have one of these in it.
[craig] oh, it's starting to steam a little bit.
[richard] we're gonna start dumping some corn in there.
Usually, you make a mash in water, just clean water.
We're gonna use this manglier tea as our water.
It's stirring good, make sure it ain't gonna burn.
And we gotta get some corn in that big pot.
You cannot scorch this.
If you do, it will carryover to your final product
And that's not something we wanna take the chance of doing.
We're gonna drop a little bit of malted barley.
We don't wanna drop a lot but I got a killer malted barley.
Malted barley is the enzyme that we're gonna use
To convert the starches that are within the corn to fermentable sugars
All right, craig, I'm gonna drop some of that malted barley
In on the big pot.
You're gonna be tasked with the responsibility of stirring everything.
-You're gonna have to move fast. -Yeah, yeah.
But you gotta move out of my way, though.
This is just madness.
We've never worked with this large volume befor
And we're trying to watch five pots at one time, a still.
It's... It's just crazy.
I didn't think scaling up would be this much worse.
We can't let anything stick to this pot.
[craig] it's just the volum that we have to put out.
You're gonna bucket it out, we're gonna start dumping into these totes.
Anything worth having is worth working for and waiting for.
Why don't you get a bag and do those other two over there.
Okay.
And this recipe calls for just that.
Working on it and waiting for it.
250, 250, 250. That's 750 gallons we got already.
Come on, we'll come back in a few days and run this [bleep], man.
We'll get... Run this money.
-That's what we're gonna do. -[craig] yeah. I still smell that manglier tea.
[mike] I'll believe I'll just eat this damn watermelon.
And the pineapple.
[jerry] get this stuff cut up and get her fired up and ready to rock and roll.
Got a customer who called me.
He wanted six different flavors of a good high-end vodka.
[mike] I'll tell you what, that's a pretty good array of flavors right there.
We're gonna do 10 gallons of each fruit,
Which is pineapple, cucumber, watermelon,
Grapefruit, oranges, and lemons.
Let's check this damn mash out and see what it looks like.
So it looks like our damn big heater
Done the job keeping that stuff warm.
It's lighter than a damn feather, boy.
Mmm!
Stuff's good ain't it?
They've got alcohol in there.
It's ready to pump over into them pots.
She's ready. Let her fly, jerry.
-[jerry] coming at you. -[mike] whoo!
Yeah, we've gotta run 5 gallons of high-proof flavored alcohol.
Then, we gotta temper that down to an one-to-one ratio.
So we'll have 10 gallons of each flavor to give this guy.
[laughs]
Lemonhead.
-[jerry grimaces] -that take all the enamel off your teeth.
[jerry] we decided to put the lemons in whole.
You know, that's where most of your flavor's out anyway.
Success!
Only got one on here.
Now just think, we only have to do this five more times. That's all.
You know, we have to do all of this from ladders and on the ground,
And it's a lot of work.
-Mike, we're getting alcohol in this first jar. -[mike] all right.
Time for about 5 good gallons of high-proof lemon vodka.
Yeah, she's percolating, brother.
Just a little more and she'll be to the top.
-It's getting there, ain't it? -Well, it's kicking the hell out of them lemons.
When the steam transfers to one of those jars,
It's cooking those lemons down
And it's drawing and bringing out the flavor
And throwing it into the other jar and so on all the way up.
It's getting up there to that last column now.
It's starting to bubble.
We better get us a damned bucket lined up.
[jerry] we need to, won't be long now.
It has to come off the stil at over 190 proof
To get this stuff started to where we can actually really call it vodka.
-[mike] there she comes! -[jerry] there it is.
-Smelling good, ain't it? -[mike] yeah, buddy.
Them damn lemons are in there.
I think we're out of the heads already.
[jerry] go and check it at the end.
We let it run down and let the proof come down just a smidge.
It's running in the bucket right now,
And it's doing a damn good job.
It's pure damn lemon.
[chuckles] damn! It almost tastes like it's got sugar in it.
By god, it's good, ain't it?
Kill the fire.
You know, now we've got our lemon run-off,
We gotta move on to our second flavor.
We gotta take the jars down dump them out,
Pack them full of the next r we're gonna do.
Fire it right back up and we're back in business.
By god, they're percolating, ain't they, bubba?
Tell you what, she's running good.
You can smell damn pineapple in the air.
When you start smelling the fruits that you've got in the jars,
It's just a matter of time we're gonna have alcohol.
-We're running her now, jerry. -[jerry] coming off there, huh?
We've got to taste each and every damn one of these flavors
To make sure they're right.
I think we're out of the heads.
[jerry] good deal.
[spits]
[jerry] tastes good but something's not right about it.
There's lemon in it.
That lemon and pineapples blended ain't it.
[sighs]
[bleeps]
That ain't gonna work, man.
-Dang it. -We cleaned all the damn jars out.
You know them plates hold probably a half, three-quarters inch of liquid.
We cleaned out all the jars but we also have plates,
And there's lemon flavor all in the nooks and crannie
We screwed up on this.
The man don't want damn pineapple and lemon.
[jerry] that means we're gonna have to stop it,
Tear it all back down, clean it all up.
I... I'm not taking all them damn columns loose and trying to... No.
We ain't got that kind of damn time, jerry.
-Well, we ain't have enough alcohol to do it to each run. -I know we don't.
And every time we're taking them jars down,
-We are losing some damn alcohol right there. -[jerry] oh, yeah.
You know, we got just enough mash to make two runs out of this thing.
We can't afford to waste any of it.
Is there any damn way we can post-flavor this alcohol?
It's not gonna be clear, we gotta have this stuff clear.
[groans] oh, my god.
We better cut it off right now and save the damn alcohol.
We got figure something else out, and quick.
[digger] what're you doing there, boone?
I know I went and got a load of milk whey.
And I know you're wanting to make liquor out of it or I wouldn't be here.
Well, there are sugars in whey.
You gotta treat them like you do fruit or grain with some enzymes.
But it'll ferment.
-And it makes liquor? -It makes liquor.
I've never heard of anybody, um, making liquor out of milk whey.
But I'm always up for something new.
And with digger, nothing ever surprises me.
Where's mark wayne at?
Well, mark wayne has come up positive for the covid.
-[daniel] is that right? -Yep.
So, out of precaution, he's staying at home.
There's a good reason mark's not with us.
He's positive for covid.
You know it's too cold to do [bleep] out here,
So what're we gonna do?
You sure don't wanna put it on the damn roof do you?
Come down one level.
[daniel] oh, on the top floor, huh?
[both laugh]
[digger] may take us a little while
But we can pump it up there.
Do you want me to pull over and get a little closer?
I think you ought to.
Let's get with it.
-We ain't gonna get done if we don't get started. -All right.
The fact that it's wintertime around here,
We're gonna go inside
And we're gonna work a little bit.
All right, we're primed, baby.
Anybody that's ever made any liquor knows
You gotta have a little warmth to make the yeast happy.
-All right, you ready, boone? -[daniel] send it.
[digger] at the end of the day, 275 gallons,
That's nearly 6 full 55-gallon drums.
It's too heavy.
Away we go!
Bring it!
Daniel will stay downstairs
He'll run the pump,
Make sure it's doing what it's supposed to,
Not overheating.
And I'll be on the hose, filling these barrels up.
Once we get all this pumped up,
We're gonna get that burner and move it over here,
Put a pot of water on it.
We're gonna fire up the hillbilly water heater,
Put it in each one of these
Till we get it to about 75 degrees.
We're gonna pitch some yeast
And let it work like hell, we hope.
When it comes to this milk whey mash,
What we're after is the smoothness,
The buttery texture of the mouth feel.
If we can get a little bit of those profiles
To come through in a distillation,
We might be onto the next big thing
For the liquor world.
Hey, daniel?
You'll just cut that spigot off.
Yes, sir!
[digger] I'll get started on the lactase.
What this lactase does,
It breaks the milk sugars down
Into a fermentable sugar.
The way they are as they sta when they come in here,
They won't firm yet.
They're bonded together,
Which yeast can't get a hold of.
Oh, you're just in time.
You can stir while I pour in this lactase.
Well, that oughta help keep me warm, won't it?
Yeah, it will. It'll build up your energy.
When you've got a molecule of lactose,
What you have is this right here.
It is a disaccharide, which is two molecules,
Different molecules bonded together to make one.
That's them fart-killing pills for people lactose intolerant.
-It is. -That's what it is.
Now, when you use this lactose intolerant medicine
To break that down,
It breaks it down into a glucose sugar molecule
And a galactose molecule of sugar.
Galactose will not ferment.
Glucose will,
And that's what we're after.
Then I'll set this in this barrel here,
Just so it'll stand up on its own.
Now, can you smell what I'm cooking here?
[daniel] yeah.
The next issue we face here
Is this whey is about 35 degrees.
We're gonna have to heat that up
To make the yeast work.
[digger] oh, it's warming right up. Oh, yeah.
We're ready to move this one over one.
We got a kettle of boiling water.
Hot water will circulate from the pump into the coil,
Heat that mash up,
Come back into the pot to get reheated again.
We'll give it a good, healthy dose.
You can't never pitch too much yeast.
[daniel] you know, I'm real skeptical,
But milk has a good, sweet, and smooth taste.
If we can incorporate that into some alcohol,
It could be some of the best stuff
That you ever put in your mouth.
We're gonna put some of this barley in here
And it's not gonna give anything to the mash.
It's there simply to build a cap.
When all that sugar's gone,
The gravity's out of it,
Boom, it goes to the bottom.
That shows your fermentation's done.
This is all of it, daniel.
[daniel] this is it right here.
We're gonna keep a little heat running on these rascals
And we're gonna wrap them up in moving blankets,
And hopefully we'll have some liquor here
In six to eight days.
-Let's get out of here and call it a day. -[daniel] say we did.
[digger] appreciate you helping me out, brother.
[daniel] yes, sir.
[craig] why you tuck your shirt and your pants
When we in the woods over here at work?
'cause this is my job. This is my uniform.
I take pride in my work.
I'm bringing these barrels in here
So I can recreate what I tasted
Out of this cherry cognac.
With our manglier tea whiske
I got some barrels from a distillery that's taken them
Out of service in their situation,
But we're gonna put them in service in ours.
They should have some reall interesting flavors in them
Man, these things are heavy.
[craig] 200 gallons right here.
[richard] that's a lot of money.
[craig] we'll get to running and we can start filling them up.
[richard] let's fill these barrels.
All right, we gonna fire this thing up.
We got liquor ready to run today,
We're gonna run it today.
This is getting hot fast.
This the first run we're making of 10 runs.
We've never done anything like this.
So we gotta run this,
Pump something out of here,
Mash again...
See that? That's menthol alcohol coming out of there.
We gonna stop this right now, 'cause we losing alcohol.
You got my paste?
[craig] yeah, that's it right there.
Man, this look like a dough, man.
This allows steam not to evaporate from your still.
I mean, any way it leaks, that's money leaking out.
-Is it getting hot? -Yeah, it's getting hot.
-Ah, yeah. -It's hot all the way over here.
We gotta do it a bunch more times,
But I'm excited.
We never ran nothing like this before.
I'm still nervous about what this could taste like.
I'm worried about this big sheer volume.
Can we pull this off?
[richard] we're about to find out right now.
We gotta fill four barrels with this stuff.
That's a lot of work we got in front of us.
Hey, come here, man. It's running.
This is the moment of truth.
[richard] aw, when it starts running,
I mean, I'm just anxious.
I almost wanna put my mouth underneath
And start tasting it.
-Man, look how pretty that is. -Right, that's what I've been waiting for.
-That's clear clear. -All right, let's see.
You know, it still smells so much like manglier tea.
Yeah, it still smells like tea.
It's like you wanna see green in here.
Yeah, but I smell a lot of corn liquor, too.
It's exactly 130.
This the first manglier tea corn moonshine
Ever made in the world.
And ever tasted.
It's pretty damn smooth.
Oh, goddamn. That's good.
I can't believe we pulled this off.
This is a real good whiskey
Aging this is only gonna do it better.
That warmed me down all the way to my stomach.
I know, it's still warming me right now.
Man, we finally get to enjoy this damn liquor, I mean...
And it's good!
I'm looking forward now to doing all of this work.
The first five gallons going in.
-First of many here. -Yep.
We gotta do this 40 times.
We'll keep this process going
Until we fill all four of those barrels.
It's gonna be worth it though,
'cause it's a really good drink.
We doing it big. We could make some money with this.
[narrator] on the season finale of moonshiners...
[digger] we got all this liquor bottled up,
200 gallons worth.
[sirens approaching]
-Oh, no. -[sighs]
[mark] god almighty.
[man] so, mezcal de pechuga has a turkey breast.
[tim] the vapor of the mezca is boiling through the meat
So when it turns back into a liquor,
You got that flavor.
I feel like we killed that flavor of corn
With too much of the oak.
-[rogers] you ain't taste too much corn there. -No, no corn.
I feel like it might be ruined.
[mike] I ain't about shutting that bastard down
And reloading it six different times.
[jerry] it's just, that would be too much of a damn headache.
We've got a order for six flavors
Of infused vodka here.
This rig, it's got plates,
And the plates are holding the leftover lemon flavor
That was in the previous run.
So we've gotta come up with another solution
To do this run.
[jerry] I got an idea that might work.
My thought is if we can actually post flavor,
We'll temper with the flavored water, per se.
[mike] that'll be hunky-dory with me.
I mean, how are we gonna separate the old
From the water, the flavored water?
You know, when you're steaming off fruits
Or stuff with a lot of rind,
It's gonna give off an aura
It makes it cloudy or the color of the fruit
That you're mixing with it.
And this guy wants a good, clean, clear alcohol
[jerry] here's an idea, though.
You ever heard of an essential oil still?
[mike] I know people make them oils from fruits and lemons and stuff.
[jerry] so what we're more after
Is actually the hydrosol,
Which is good, clean, and rich flavored water.
I think it's gonna behoove us
To actually build this essential oil still.
Five-gallon will be plenty big enough,
Basically, we'll just have, like, a little grate
That'll sit right here like this.
And then we'll pack this thing right here
Full of all different botanicals and stuff.
That steam will just rise up through all that
And then come around the condenser.
All of our oils and waters
Just gonna travel right around.
It's gonna drip right here in a oil separator.
We know oil's lighter than water.
It's gonna float to the top, and then we'll catch our hydrosol
Right here in a different container.
-Well, that looks simple enough, don't it? -Yeah.
[mike] we ain't got but one more damn thing to do.
Let's get that picture, turn it into something, get it built.
[jerry] let's get to cutting some material. We'll be good.
We don't have a lot of time to get this fulfilled.
You know, it's getting late in the season.
This customer's wanting his alcohol.
Guess it looks like we're gonna be somewhere
In the neighborhood of about 12-inch diameter
And it's gonna be 10-and-a-half inches tall.
It's just gonna look so cute.
Of course it is.
We're gonna use a smaller still
To be able to strip the flavor out.
We're gonna pack this thing full of fruits and vegetable
That water afterwards is where all of our flavor's gonna be,
And we'll use that to temper our alcohol with.
We can fire this thing up while we're actually running.
-We'll put this on a little side burner. -Mmm-hmm.
Jerry's idea is to use two stills,
Instead of one, to create these flavors.
We'll use our column still to run the rice-based vodka
And then build a separate still
And just making a flavored water
To temper our alcohol down with.
-I like it. -I like it.
If it works, there's endless possibilities with this little rig.
The essential oils and hydrosol comes off.
It'll go into our tube right here.
-Mmm-hmm. -As the oils build up, the oils' wax will
Float on top of the hydrosol.
This actually gives it time to separate from the water.
I ain't never run a damn pot before without any alcohol in it.
-It is kinda weird, ain't it? -It is.
I'm ready to see this bad boy percolate.
We got work to do, brother.
[richard] it's been a crazy ride, man.
It sure is. It's even better to be on the last run.
This is our last run of this manglier tea whiskey.
We been doing this day and night.
We'll fill that barrel up,
We'll load them on the trailer.
We're gonna run this to the houseboat tonight
And get it over with, man.
It's been a long journey.
Waste none of that good stuff, man.
We have been mashing in and mashing in,
And running, and running, and running.
It seems like it would never stop.
[richard] that's it. It's all in there.
We just gotta cap this up,
And then we can get these barrels out of here, buddy.
[craig] sure that's nice and tight?
-Man, that's good, man. -It's cold?
One, two, three, four barrels.
Manglier tea whiskey, 200 gallons.
This feels awesome to be finished with this finally,
Getting this in barrels and getting this to the houseboat.
[groans]
I'mma just tie it up till we get those on here.
We're moving these barrels and these barrels are heavy.
I mean, we gotta push this through the woods,
We gotta cross over cypress knees and stumps.
We're sweating doing this.
We got 200 gallons of alcoho on the trailer.
That's a felony.
It's starting to feel real now.
We had the safety and security of the still site,
But we're moving into uncharted territory
Going to bring this liquor where it's gotta age,
So we gotta watch ourselves.
Man, this gonna be some wor
Getting this stuff out of here.
So we get to the houseboat,
Look, make sure nobody's around.
Now the hard part starts.
Oh, if I let this rope go, it's all hell gonna break loose.
Pull that one barrel.
I'm truly nervous that this can go wrong.
We're on a deck the size of the barrel itsel
There's no room for error here.
We have to do this the right way.
What is this on the ground?
Oh, [bleep].
-That's liquor. -No.
That's liquor, man.
Damn it, it's spilling.
We get three barrels loaded up.
We get to the fourth barrel and it's leaking.
I see liquid all over the ground
And I can smell alcohol.
Man, are you serious?
Oh, we got a piece missing out the bottom, man.
How in the hell did this happen?
Look, a whole chunk's missing out of this thing, man.
[craig] I thought you beat it in there good.
[richard] we done lost two-thirds of this, at least, man.
I can move the barrel around.
My suspicions are that when we were rolling it through the woods,
Probably hit a stump or something on the ground.
It's gone now, so there's nothing I can do about it.
-And that was about $1,500, $1,800 worth of alcohol. -That was a lot of money, man,
That we just let go down the road.
Man, let's just get this thing on the boat, man.
-All right, let's go. -Let's go.
All we can do now is just continue on,
Roll it on the deck, and just let it sit and age with the rest.
[richard] so we got all four barrels loaded up,
We'll come back in a few months,
And we'll check on our manglier aged whiskey.
Let's get out of here, man.
Phew, I could sleep right here.
[mark] what's up, girls?
[daniel] what you think about this, digger?
Well, how about that?
-We were just talking about you. -Where's your mask?
-Where's your rubber gloves? -[mark] hey, listen, listen, listen.
I just got my second negative test.
I'm clear as a damn sewing machine.
Lo and behold, here comes mark wayne ramsey
With a brand-new negative test in his hip pocket.
-You're ready for action. -I am.
You get me started. Show me what we want.
[daniel] well, let's get it.
All right, we gotta get this in the house first.
[daniel] I'mma shut this door.
Well, today's the day.
Our hope is we're gonna get at least two runs
Of this liquor done today.
We got a 50-gallon still.
Time to run some milk whey.
[mark] I wanna see what that mash looks like.
Damn milk. God almighty.
Mark and daniel, they're a little skeptical about this,
But I'm pretty stoked up about making some milk liquo
I'm kinda curious as to how it's gonna taste.
Look here, deader than last year's calendar.
All the caps dropped and fell back in.
There ain't no sugar in it though, right?
Nope, nothing but what carried through in that whey
When we pulled the fat out of it.
-Now, let's get with it. -All right, show me what you want me to do.
Digger chose to see if we could ferment the whey
Without adding sugar to it.
That looked pretty good, don't it?
We're gonna see what it turns out on its own merits.
[digger] here she come.
Nailed it.
You know what I hope?
All my heart,
That this milk liquor tastes like liquor.
Milk's good, but it ain't no count for liquor if it tastes like milk.
Wouldn't it be something if it come out tasting like french vanilla clear liquor?
[mark] I don't know if it come out of a french vanilla cow or not.
Well, we're gonna put the flame to this batch.
We're gonna see what we can get out of it.
Hopefully, we get a good yield.
Come on here, liquor.
If we can carry through just some of the characteristic
Of a milk-based product,
You know, I think that's our goal.
But honestly, I don't have a clue what it'll taste like.
Woo-hoo! We got liquor out there now.
[coughs]
Yeah, it's fixing to time.
We'll know in a few minutes what liquor we're drinking.
There it comes. There you go.
Boy, don't know if you do this 10,000 times
It's always exciting when it starts coming out.
-Every time. -Every time.
Catch that glass full of it there.
-Pretty clear for heads. -Yep.
[digger] you couldn't have asked
For better-looking liquor.
[daniel] popcorn always said, "you gotta get it to the top of that a."
That's one gallon exactly.
I thought he was full of crap,
But you pour it out in four quart jars, and it's right.
-[daniel] fill her up. -Yeah.
But he still filled his on up.
He said, "you gotta give them a good, honest measure."
Man buys a jar of liquor from me, he gets a full measure.
He said, "they'll never say nothing if you give them an extra drink,
But they'll raise all kinds of hell
If you cheat them out of one."
[all chuckle]
That's a good-looking jug of liquor, ain't it?
We're getting into this second jug of liquor
And the proof's coming down.
-Smells so good. -It does. It's got a...
...Caramel nose on it, real pleasant.
It's time to taste this and see what we got.
You know, anybody that's ever tried milk,
You know, sometimes it tastes good,
Sometimes it tastes just like funky water.
[mark] look at this.
There's been somebody here, sometime.
A damn old blue jar.
-Look at it. -Uh, that's a '40s era jar there.
[mark] my own perfect mason.
Oh, hell no. Uh-uh.
-It's a 13. -[digger] so what?
[mark] no, you don't fool with a damn 13 jar.
-That don't mean nothing. -It does.
You know, the damn liquor people back in the day
Would not put liquor in a number 13 jar.
-[digger] I'm taking it. -You ain't a bit superstitious about nothing, are you?
I got bad luck all the time. It don't affect me no how.
[mark] you know how superstitious I am?
[digger] I know it. Damn black cat, broke mirrors.
[both laugh]
[mark] and it smells good.
Pretty nice.
That mouth feel's totally different
Than anything I've ever made in my life.
-[mark] it's smooth, buttery. -[digger] yeah.
It is soft on the palette.
-Velvety. -Yeah, that's the word.
-Yeah. -Velvety.
Man, it's wonderful.
It really surprised me.
I didn't expect this good a taste out of this liquor.
Of course, you know, it's first time.
We don't know what to expect.
I'd have never thought in a million years
That you could make doggone liquor out of milk.
[mark] man, that's good.
It's a nice, even sensation from the front to the back.
I think it's got potential.
Time we temper it, we're gonna have two, two-and-a-quarter gallons.
[mark] it's gonna be 2 gallons, around.
2, 4, 6, make 12 gallon.
Honestly, I think it's a success,
But it ain't a big yield.
But there's no reason for it to be a big yield.
We didn't put no sugar in it.
[digger] if we had added sugar to this,
Then we wouldn't know what the true flavor of that lactose alcohol is.
For it being as good as it is,
And all a man has to do is put yeast and stuff in to make it,
It'd probably be worth fooling with.
Need to amp the abv up on the mash.
It's low yield, but if we can find maybe corn sugar
That won't take away from that flavor
But just boost the alcohol,
We might very well be onto something.
What is it that you call that beer that they make it out of?
-It's a milk stout. -Well, that's pretty damn stout.
That's liquor stout right there.
Our milk's stouter than theirs, I bet.
-[all laugh] -yeah.
This right here give you four-wheel drive.
Nobody ever accomplishes anything if they stay static.
If you don't take chances and try new things,
Nothing new ever comes of it.
Let's cut this water off and jar up this liquor.
Call it a night.
[mark] all right.
-[mike] that didn't take too damn long to build. -I told you it wouldn't.
We've got our essential oil still built.
We're gonna pack it full of fruit
And see if it solves our problem.
I'm just anxious to see how it's gonna separate those oils from the hydrosol
All of our alcohol's gonna be made on the column still
And all of our flavors gonna be made
On the essential oil still.
[jerry] this'll actually work out pretty good
Being a five-gallon pot.
We can run it all the way down till about dry.
We're only running five gallons per flavor
And we're gonna temper our alcohol down with it.
I hope it works.
You know, we've got to make this order turn out really well.
This is one of the biggest orders
We've had in a long time here.
-Check this out. -Good old hydrosol, baby.
My gosh.
-Tastes like damn pineapples, don't it? -It sure does.
There's no pulp. There's no oil.
It's clear as a bell.
This is gonna be some good water
To cut our alcohol down with.
You can tell right there on top,
There's a little bit of discoloration.
But that's okay. That's what this oil separator is for.
[mike] oh, crap. The still's running.
[jerry] here she comes. All right, fool!
[mike] we got alcohol now, jerry.
We getting there. Whoo!
I think we out of the heads already.
-Wow. -That ain't that alcohol, son.
Wow! Just good, clean, clear vodka right there, son.
All we gotta do is take this 190 proof
And take this hydrosol that we made up
And we're just gonna use it to temper it down
To a good 80 proof drinking proof.
You got the water and I got the 190.
-A high proof. -A high proof.
We're gonna temper our vodka down,
1-1 ratio, so we'll have 10 gallons of each flavor to give this guy.
-Moment of truth, brother. -Moment of truth.
You know, this is a big test here. It's gotta work.
-That's it, son. -Man, perfect.
-That is pineapple alcohol. -We couldn't have asked for no better flavor.
-That's an infused vodka, I mean... -That's infused.
So that tells me that other four flavors,
All we gotta do is get them chopped up.
We'll just move on.
If we get the rest of our flavors
To turn out this way,
We have got a satisfied customer.
Ready to rock and roll.
We've got it all figured out
We can run our alcohol, we c infuse it with our flavors,
And we've got it.
That's about all we need. That's the end of the run.
-That's it. -Let her fly.
Time for a payday, ain't it, brother?
We got 10 gallons each flavor.
60 gallons right there for him.
You know, this could open up a lot of doors for us
If we could do small-batch infusions like this.
All we gotta do is set this little 5-gallon rig up,
Make the flavor they want,
And send them on their way.