Original subtitles

This is 250 years in the making, boys.

Fire!

Huzzah!

On July 4th, 1776,

the United States of America

was founded on life, liberty...

- Ah? - That's real good.

...and the pursuit of tax-free liquor.

- Hip, hip. - Huzzah!

250 years later...

This is a great spot, dude.

...Moonshiners across Appalachia

embark on a new season...

Whoo, son, that'll tickle your innards, won't it?

...to defend those freedoms

while facing obstacles that would be

familiar to the founding fathers themselves.

They're watching everything we do.

Right now, they don't know where we at.

- Big tariffs on us right now. - I'm desperate to make a deal.

Turning frontier hardships into innovation.

Oh, smells like a fart.

This thing belongs in like, a museum or a distillery.

Taking risks for potential profit.

He's not gonna fly no more.

He said he'll take it if you bring it to Canada.

We've got to figure out how to get it there.

We've got just under two months to burn through this

$70,000 worth of corn.

Yeah, boy.

Using backwoods know-how...

Tariff-free, tax-free, all right?

That's too bad, baby.

Oh, God!

That liquor ain't going to be fit to drink.

...to outsmart the law.

You guys ain't out here doing no shining tonight, are you?

It's a helicopter, man. Boy, that thing

is right on top of us, let's go!

And when alliances crumble under pressure...

- Oh my God! - God almighty!

I'm done-done! I'm outta here.

Get your ass on that four wheeler and get outta here!

You ain't gotta tell me what to do.

...and turf battles force neighbors to take up arms.

I got a gun! Who's up there?

- Oh my... - Get the dynamite.

Backwoods distillers still light the fires of freedom.

- All right, y'all ready? - This is retribution.

Son of a [bleep] bitch!

If you really love your country,

you're gonna have to love moonshine.

This is how we make the moonshine!

What are we actually here for, Tim?

I don't know. I mean, he told me to come by.

He wanted to talk to us or whatever.

I mean, I'm hoping that he's made another deal to where

we can, you know, provide him

some more moonshine is what I'm hoping.

In Culpeper County, Virginia, with the legal liquor

market in free fall due to trade wars and changing

consumer tastes, outlaw distiller Tim Smith

and his longtime partner, Tickle,

pursue tax-free profits by smuggling backwoods moonshine

into a largely untapped Canadian market.

Oh, you've got somebody flashing at you, Tim.

- Yeah. - All right.

That must be us right yonder.

Well, we're on the way to meet my Canadian buyer.

Last year, after a decade of being legal, you know, I went

in the backwoods for this guy.

It's all about the taxation, trying to make the ends meet,

trying to make some money. This guy's a great customer.

He gives us half up front to make the order.

And then he pays the rest when he picks it up.

You can't get no better than that.

And he calls me back again.

And I'm thinking, wait a minute, it's not even

moonshine season yet.

Oh, he's shutting the door on us, man.

Oh.

He's got a mess of moonshine jugs in there.

Well, I hope ain't nothing wrong with it.

No, ain't nothing wrong with that moonshine.

I've been in the business my whole entire life.

I never had no one bring a whole load of jugs back.

You know, this doesn't happen, right?

So the first thing I'm thinking, must be something

wrong with the moonshine, it's not higher proof.

Or even got busted, and I'm getting set up.

You scaring me over with these jugs.

Yeah, ain't nothing wrong with it, is it?

Ain't nothing wrong with it-- we need more of it.

I need more shine. It's empty.

- It's been a long winter. - So you bring the jugs back?

- We brought the jugs back. - Never heard of such a thing.

That's the first time I ever had anybody return a jug.

The Canadian buyer, he tells me that, you know, the guys

love the moonshine. And he sold it all.

So he decides to put the jugs back in the plane, bring it

back like I'm gonna refill them or something.

Oh, now you know there ain't no such thing as a free refill

when you bring the jug back, right?

- Well, that's OK. - I don't know how to tell this guy

that we don't have a $0.05 deposit on bottles

here in Virginia.

How quick can we get it?

As fast as we can get back

and we can make it. - As fast as we can get to it.

It's a little early in the season,

still a little cool.

Maybe a couple of weeks, I guess.

OK.

So right now, we're going to make another order.

But I think we'll probably put in some barrels.

Same deal, same thing like we did last time.

So like you have half the money?

- OK. - Does that help?

- Yeah-- yeah. - I'm going to start loading these jugs up.

Well, you know, this is great that he wants another order.

But the problem is we don't start this early in the season

because there's no tree cover.

You know, we get out there,

we're sitting ducks. And it's cold weather.

It takes longer for it to ferment.

It could be a problem.

So if we get pulled over, it's just empty jugs.

But I'm excited. I'm all in.

Half the money up front. We deliver and get the rest.

Jerry!

What in the world? What are you doing here?

Well, hello to you too, Mr. Jerry Benson.

I've got strawberries and jalapenos on this truck.

Come over here and take a look.

400 miles south in Haywood County, North Carolina,

moonshine rebel Mike Cockrell arrives

at his partner Jerry's shop a month earlier than usual

after making the drive from his home state of Louisiana

to the moonshine mecca of Maggie Valley.

That's some of Louisiana's finest strawberries

right there. - They're beautiful.

- They're big. - Yeah, they're big.

I've got an order that I can't refuse.

You know, I'm here at Jerry's shop.

He's not expecting me at all to be here because I don't ever

show up until it warms up, if you know what I mean.

We've got some flats of daggum jalapenos up there too.

You can't hardly do nothing

without something peppery, can't you?

Well, this time it wasn't my idea.

Jerry, it was the customer.

You know, this customer, he ordered

a strawberry jalapeno moonshine, and that's what

I'm gonna give him. - Is this the guy you know?

Well, that's the thing.

I don't personally know this guy.

You know, moonshine, there's rules that

you gotta go by. It's just standard.

You don't sell to people you don't know.

You don't talk about it with people you don't know.

You gotta kinda get to know somebody

before you just start selling to them.

You know the guy that I used to sell to back when I worked

with Mark Rogers? - Yeah.

His name's David. We're talking $200 a gallon.

He wants $4,000 worth of this stuff, man.

Under any other circumstances,

man, we wouldn't be making liquor right now.

But I'm not passing up a $4,000 deal.

The only thing that kind of made me a little bit eerie

about this whole deal, you know...

- Mm-hmm. - ...is he's wanting to do a dead drop with it.

You know, the fact that Mike took this order,

doing a dead drop, getting our money afterwards.

I just can't believe he done something like this.

If this wasn't such a high-dollar order,

and I didn't need the money right now, I wouldn't be

involved in this at all.

We ain't got to worry about them going bad real quick.

No, because it's cold out here.

And this mash ain't gonna work in this cold.

In order to turn these strawberries and jalapenos

into a shine, we got to make a mash.

We got to mix them all together, add sugar,

water, and yeast in order to ferment them.

But yeast don't like the cold.

Anything under 65 degrees and yeast just won't work.

Kind of like us. They need that warmth.

We've got to figure out a way to warm this mash up

where this yeast can work off.

That's going to be our biggest challenge in figuring out

how to keep this stuff fermenting.

Let's get up to the still site and see what we got to do.

Jeff didn't give you any indication of what he wanted?

He did not.

He just said, "Get to the farm as quick as you can."

Hello, Jeffrey.

50 miles north in Cocke County, Tennessee,

moonshine legends Mark and Digger pay a visit to

their longtime grain farmer, looking to cut a late winter

deal on a few hundred bushels of corn they'll need to fuel

their season ahead.

Jeffrey, what have you got for us in these bins right here?

Oh, about 20,000 bushels of corn.

God of Israel, 20,000 bushels of corn.

We need to get this stuff gone.

They sat on this stuff last fall, hoping the price would

come back up.

The price went the other direction,

and I'm desperate to make a deal.

Jeff tells us they've got 20,000 bushels of corn.

The farmers in the fall, when they would have usually

sold their crop, the price had taken a big hit.

And that money is just sitting here in these bins ain't helping nobody.

Sitting in the bins, not making

a bit of interest right now.

We've got these tariffs on us right now, these trade wars.

We need to get rid of all of it, the whole thing.

Let's look at it.

Let's go over here and look at the white corn first.

OK.

One of the easiest ways to end up in jail making liquor is

buying large amounts of grain.

You know, if we were to go to a co-op or one of these other

agriculture stores and buy this much corn, we'd damn sure be

on the radar. It would draw attention to us.

Have mercy, Jesus.

Son of a gun.

There's a little over 1,000 bushels of corn

in this one trailer.

Hell fire, Digger.

You got to think, if it's 1,000 bushels, there's 20 of these

that they have for sale.

Boys, you ready to go look at this yellow corn?

You show us.

Now, you know I can't open these doors

because it'll all fall out. - We understand.

After checking out the tractor and trailer, Jeff takes us over

to show us a couple of bins that has corn in them.

Each one of these bins holds 7,500 bushels.

- Damn! - If one of you wants to climb up and look, go ahead.

You know, this is a big investment right here, way more

than we normally would even consider.

So when you're risking all your money, you better make sure

what you're risk it on is the right commodity.

God Almighty, that's a lot of corn.

Half of what's in one of these now is more than we've ever

used in a season. - I like laying eyes on things.

You know, this corn's got to be just like our liquor.

It's got to be top shelf.

We need to look down in there upon that corn,

make sure it's all good. - It looks good, Jeff.

Good deal. I'm glad.

- Well, it's clean. - Be careful coming down, Mark.

It's top shelf quality.

Our only problem is we got way more than we can use this year.

This is more corn than we could probably use in four lifetimes.

I'll give you a good rate. You know that.

- I do-- let's go back over here. - Yeah.

Let's walk up here and do a little negotiating.

OK.

They're willing to sell at a bargain basement price,

according to him. We don't know what that is yet.

What are you thinking a bushel?

Market price today is $4.30, $4.35, somewhere on in there.

The only ways that I can really let you all have it

under market price is you all take it all.

I mean, all of it's got to leave here.

You know, Jeff tells us right now that corn prices

is somewhere around $4.30 a bushel.

They can sell it at that price,

but they have to haul it.

They have to get it to market.

That involves their time, shipping it, getting it there.

So if they can sell it for a lower price and us do all

the work, that's what they're hoping for.

How about $2.50 a bushel then?

- I can't go that low. - I understand that.

This is a golden opportunity.

Even at $4.30, it's still high price, but if we can get him to

come down a little bit, we can make this horse trot.

- How about $3? - I can't do that.

It's $4.30. I can go down to $3.80.

We can't come clean on that, Jeff.

I don't know if that would be a mistake for us or not.

This teases us terribly.

You know, we're spur of the moment people.

We buy stuff spontaneously. We always have.

But we've got to put a little thought in this.

2 Tell you what I'll do.

Give me $3.50 a bushel, that's on the corn.

And I'll throw in the wheat and the sorghum and soybeans.

They have wheat, soybeans, sorghum grain,

and they've got to get rid of all of it.

$3.50 times 20,000 is $70,000.

I'm cutting my own throat at that.

I want to do it, but then I don't want to do it.

And you all clean out the bins.

How about 60 days? That'll be two months.

What do you think?

I think we can swing that to us.

- I think we can, yeah. - I'll tell you what we'll do.

$3.50 a bushel for the corn and throw in the other grain--

I'm OK with that. Thank you, my friend.

Thank you.

You know, we've took big risks in the liquor business

over the years, but financially, this is

the biggest risk we've ever took in our careers.

Just see the boss man, you know where the office is.

Copy that, brother.

There's a good possibility that we've bit off

more than we can chew.

But if we can pull this off, we're gon' make

so much money, we won't know what to do with it.

What in the hell are we going to do with all this?

All right, let's rock and roll.

See if we can't get these trees out of the way right off.

So it's early in the season, and my Canadian buyer,

he's requesting for some product already.

We've got to get the site set up.

We've got to get the still set up.

And we've got to get mashed in.

Something like this is important, you know?

You don't want to lose this buyer.

It'll come off that big bank.

You cut into that bank a little ways,

should be about right. - All right.

Good thing we got this piece of equipment.

If we'd just been using these shovels,

ain't no way we'd get mashed in in time.

That'll get it done in a couple of days.

So don't want to go lose that Canadian connection.

- No, we don't want to do that. - Get to it.

Right now, we don't have any leaves on the tree.

It's a pretty dangerous time to be outside making liquor.

Maybe try to move that tree?

Let's see if we can get down there right there.

Oh, yeah. There he goes.

So what we're going to do is, we found us a nice still site.

We're gonna put a structure up in that.

You need to dig it down about two more feet.

OK.

That's a low spot, so our idea is to go in,

kind of dig it out, build some kind of structure

that's kind of low down, kind of like a basement setting.

Put the stills in there so we don't have to do

too much camouflage.

Hey, I think it's looking all right, eh?

- Yeah, let's get some lumber. - Get building.

Now, this structure that we're gonna build,

it is a temporary structure.

It doesn't need to be nothing elaborate.

We're not pulling any building permits on this thing.

All right, we need to posts first, right?

Uh-huh.

So we're just building about a 10 by 12 shelter here.

And then once the leaves get back on the trees, we can move

out of this thing and move into a much larger still site.

That'd be good. We get this thing built right here, man.

It won't be long. We go ahead

and put them stills in here.

Well, we're running out of time.

We got to do something quick. Another Canadian deal.

- I know it. - They want that liquor.

They want it now.

The Canadian guy really wants more moonshine,

so we got a good thing going. You know,

this guy's got plenty of money.

All we got to do is make plenty of moonshine.

Beautiful. Looks good.

Whole lot sturdier than what she was.

You know, this is the beginning of the season,

so we just got to get some cover.

Just something quick, easy.

I'll just be glad we get the roof on.

We'll spread this tarp across it, fasten it down.

We just need to get the still working, get a little bit of

money going, get a little bit of moonshine going,

and then maybe opportunity,

we'll have a bigger a space somewhere.

- She looks beautiful, fellers. - Get the blocks in.

- Let's get set up. - Yeah.

All right.

We got the building up. We got the tarp on top of it.

- Think that'll do. - Look like a flue to me.

- What now, get a still? - Yes, sir.

Put the stills in.

You know, all we gotta do now is get it mashed in.

And then that gives us a little bit of time to kind of

tighten up all the loose ends.

Get the water box down here.

- Right here. - Yeah.

- All right, all right. - I need to see where we at.

Right now, we need to get some grain and get it mashed in.

We're gonna be in business.

Pretty soon, we'll start shipping more liquor to Canada.

If we ain't bringing them liquor, he's gonna reach out to

somebody else. - Exactly.

I'll tell you what, Mike,

seeing snow's on the ground.

It's cold, for sure.

It's actually too cold to be mashing in, but we're gonna

have to do something.

I got an order for some strawberry-jalapeno moonshine

for $200 a gallon.

I'm a bit leery of this whole ordeal.

Let's just hope for the best, man.

So we're going to go out today, check everything out,

hope, pray tell, everything looks good.

Oh, mercy.

But the closer we get to the still site,

the more snow we go to seein'.

And icicles hanging off the limbs.

It's way too cold to even try to mash in.

We got to get a solution figured out quick.

Holy cow, look at our pipe, man!

God, dog!

Oh, my god.

It's all down in the creek.

We ain't got no water to the wheel now.

We've got to figure something out.

We got to have water, that's for sure.

You know, this water wheel is looking pretty sad right now.

Hopefully, me and Mike can see a little bit of time

and get this fixed real easy.

I mean, most of this stuff looks like it's moving good.

It's still pushing water, ain't it, huh?

Yeah, still working.

You know, it looks like we can fix the water wheel.

But now we've got to figure a way, not only get water back

up to the still site, but to heat that water in order

to keep our mash warm enough to work off for four or five days.

There's actually a hot tub company that actually uses

their water pump.

The heat that the motor makes while it's running actually

heats the hot tub. - Right.

Think about just taking one of those things and wrap it in

some coils around it, and put it in an insulated box.

Why can't we use this old water wheel--

'cause we've got plenty of power from it--

put us a generator on the other side?

You heat up a hot tub to keep people warm.

We're going to heat up mash to keep that yeast warm.

We can keep it fair around 60 degrees,

we'll be fine. - We'll be great.

Any electric motor generates some form of heat.

That's pretty daggum smart right there,

only if it'll work.

It is pretty, but it's cold.

We're going to have heck of making something work off.

You ain't kid-- look at this, man!

Look at the ice.

It's going to be a lot of work.

You sure you want to go through with this?

Let's try our best to get this done and get $4,000 put in

our pocket quick, fast, and in a hurry, man.

It would be nice to have some money this time of year.

You know, normally me and Jerry

wouldn't be out here in this type of weather.

But it's an opportunity we can't pass up.

That's $4,000 for this order.

We intend to try to make it happen.

I say we get something figured out and get up here

and get this stuff to working off.

2 You know, Puss, thing about it, you know,

we've got 20,000 bushels of corn that we've got $70,000 in.

Exactly.

We may have just bit off more than we can chew.

This is a big opportunity for us.

It was a really good buy and massive amount of corn.

You know, we've got to figure out something to do with it,

and very quickly.

These all back here ought to be empty.

How many bushels does a barrel hold?

I'd say in the neighborhood of six.

This is a golden opportunity, but it's gonna be a hell of

a lot of work. So the clock's a'ticking.

We've got to get to moving and get to work now.

We sure enough can probably sell a lot of it to

other moonshiners.

Yeah, we're just gonna sell it to anybody

that'd be willing to buy some of it.

We can make money on it.

You know, 20,000 bushels of corn plus several thousand

bushels of miscellaneous grains, that can supply a lot

of moonshiners in addition to us.

If we're going to use up all this corn

in the liquor business, we've got to go back

to what we got away from last year.

We've got to scale up times 10.

Corn liquor's always going to be worth way, way more than

just corn is. - Always has been.

Our ultimate goal would be to see all of this corn

turned into liquor, you know,

and that's what we're gonna attempt to do.

The thing about it, you know,

this is what we ran from last year.

Just watch your head there.

After being detained by law enforcement...

We've cut everybody loose.

We're a liability to everybody.

...only to escape criminal prosecution

on a technicality.

We're going back to our basics.

Mark and Digger pulled the plug on their untaxed liquor empire

and lowered their profile.

Do you feel safe enough bringing back all the troops

and expanding maybe even bigger?

Is this something we dare to do?

Do you think times are better? Are we safe enough?

I mean, was we ever safe enough?

You know, Digger and I are used to taking risks.

You know, we feel good about it.

But now reality's setting in.

So 20,000 bushels

at 56 pounds per.

- So we've got-- Jesus. - That's a million and a bunch.

We've got 1,120,000 pounds of corn.

What have we done to ourselves?

Looks like we buried ourselves not just in debt, but in corn.

You figuring maybe two bushels per barrel for all grain?

Yeah, that'd be 112 pounds per barrel.

Per barrel.

That will make 10,000 barrels of mash.

Now, out of those 10,000 barrels of mash, we'll be over

20,000 gallons of liquor we can sell at 125 per.

We're looking at $2.5 million friggin' dollars.

By God, I'd dance me a jig if we could get that

in our pocket. - You ain't just a whistling Dixie.

If we turned all this corn into liquor,

we could potentially make several million dollars.

We'll talk to Kelly and Amanda,

show them what we got.

But realistically, there's only so much liquor that we can

produce and only so many hours in a day.

We got to have some help.

We'll give Kelly and Amanda

a call and see if they're going to be on board.

I mean, it's not a crew, but it's a start

in the right direction.

We're going to make more corn liquor than we've ever made

in our life.

So what you got on your mind, Jerry?

Well, I'll tell you what.

I'm gonna grab a few parts, and then we'll draw up

a little bit of something here.

We're just getting back from the still site, man.

There's snow all over the ground up there

in them mountains.

The water obviously washed all the rocks out from under

our water wheel, but Jerry's come up with

a pretty good idea on how to refab this thing to create

and generate some heat and some power to the still site to

at least try to keep this mash above 60 degrees.

So basically what I'm thinking is, you know, this is just

a little RV 12-volt water pump. - Yeah.

It's pulling the water out of the tub, circulating through

a little small stainless steel coil around that motor body.

- Ah. - And that motor body is warming it up.

It's pushing it right back in the tub on the other side.

So it's just a continuous circulation, circulation, cir--

- So that's where you got the idea from, then, OK. - Mm-hmm.

You know, the byproduct of converting electricity into

a rotational force is actually heat.

There's a lot of heat generated,

which in most cases you don't want that.

But in this case, we actually do.

We're gonna use it.

We're going to take a simple little water pump,

insulate that thing and stick it in a box.

- Ready? - Yep.

Right there on the bottom.

- It feels warm already. - I'm telling you.

Eventually it'll get that water hot enough off of the generated

heat from the motor itself,

which will help heat the water for our mash.

So if that right there won't get warm,

I don't know what will.

Yeah, this little water pump is gonna be your heat source.

But right now, we've just got to figure out

how to generate power.

Figure we just take a little old lawnmower battery.

- That'll be our power source. - Power base.

So we'll have to keep it charged.

So what I'm thinking is we've got the water wheel,

so we'll have all the power we need.

Basically, all we do is make a little mount.

I've got a little, uh, DC generator.

- Let me grab it for you. I'll be right back. - OK.

Jerry's got a idea to reuse the water wheel because that'll

help generate power.

So basically down here, we're going to have

our water wheel down here at the creek. - Yep.

And then we'll take that generator down here

with a little, these sprockets, and we'll just run us

a big belt right across there,

which therefore will send power from

this little wire... - To the pump.

...drop for it to up here at the top of the still site for a pump.

We've got to get this water wheel turning

efficiently and fast.

We need a big wheel that we can attach to the water wheel

in order to get the speed that we need on that little pulley.

Strawberry "jal-lop-eno," here we go.

The water wheel actually turns

a lot slower than what we need the generator to turn.

So in order to keep our generator turning fast,

we're going to build a 48-inch wheel here.

So the biggest hope is that this wheel that we're building,

to mount on the side of the water wheel,

generates enough power to the generator to spin it

fast enough to give us enough heat and power

to the still site to make this mash work off, we'll see.

Rocking Jerry's Weld.

Of course, we can't find a belt this big, so we're trying to

rig up a rope or, you know, some type of material that'll

serve the purpose of a belt to make this thing run.

Hope it's gonna work out, you know.

See, it's got a pretty good grip to it.

Yeah, it's got some grip to it.

I mean, we could try it.

If that don't work, we'll try something else.

We've got to haul it to the woods now, install this

apparatus, and actually see if it's going to generate enough

heat and power to work our mash off.

Well by God, it better work so we can deliver

this $4,000 order.

Get it to the still site

and get it hooked up, and we'll know.

2 We'll talk to Kelly and Amanda, put this corn to use,

make all the liquor we can. - Yep, exactly.

Well, we've got ahold of Kelly and Amanda.

We told them where to meet us down at the old Graham farm.

We're keeping our fingers crossed these two ain't got

too busy if they can't pull off and help us

get rid of some corn.

Me and Digger has sourced us some grain.

Well, how much grain have you bought?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 bushels of corn.

- 20,000?! - 20,000 of corn.

- Now, wait a minute. - We're serious.

Looky here.

You know, in these bins, we have a total of

20,000 bushels of corn. We have some soybeans.

We have wheat and sorghum.

You done bought all of what's in these silos?

Yes, sir.

Last year, you know, we cut all of our teams loose,

including Amanda and Kelly.

Our plan is we're gonna put the band back together.

We'll have our other teams, but we want to set up

a massive still site with you two.

But now this is solely up to you guys.

This is your call.

After everything that we went through the last couple

of seasons, I mean it's a big risk.

Last year, you know, we struggled with

law enforcement and thieves and cheap liquor, and it was

just a difficult season.

We don't take the risk,

there ain't no chance of getting that reward.

Question is, is it the risk you're willing to take?

Deciding to work with Mark and Digger again

has its benefits, but the bigger the group,

we're just increasing the size of the target on our back.

What do you think, Amanda?

Oh, I'd be more than happy to work with you guys again.

I'm in. What about you, Kelly?

I can't not join the party.

You know, I understand there's a big risk here,

but there's a huge reward if it works out for us.

We need to mash in and get started.

So before they got time to change their mind,

let's load up some corn.

Kelly and Amanda's on board with us.

We got to start getting this corn out of here.

Sock it to it, Amanda.

You know, if it's a shovel-full at a time, so be it.

You got to start somewhere.

So our plan is right now, we're gon' load these

barrels up and haul what we can out of here in six barrels,

and then we'll move on to the next dose tomorrow.

It ain't gonna take so long to fill this up

by five-gallon buckets as you think.

With all this corn, we've got to get a still site set up that's

second to none, ready to make production liquor,

not just liquor on a whim.

This has taught us one thing here.

We can't have a still site deep in the woods because we can't

hand truck all this in there.

We've got to have a place we can drive to.

We've got to make sure it's secure, and we've got

equipment to load and unload this stuff with.

I've got a plan.

One of my hay barns, since it's coming to spring,

is pretty well empty, and I've got an idea on how to

make it pretty dang secure.

Kelly suggested we go to his farm indoors.

It is behind the gate. It's private property.

You can drive right to it. It's worth a look.

- Let's go look at what you've got in mind. - OK.

So we're going to haul off six barrels of corn,

get it to Kelly's farm. His name's on the deed.

Ours ain't.

If we get caught, he's the one that suffers the worst.

- We're going to the farm. - All right.

There's the old wheel.

So, we got our generator built.

So, today we're gonna get back to the still site.

I'll tell you what, I ain't looking forward to this at all.

I ain't neither.

Say, that water looks like ice cubes are floating down

through it now. - I know it.

So, now we're just goin' in there

and try to fix our water wheel, get the water

back up to the still site, and convert it

over to help heat the mash.

Right there is good.

First things first, we're going to put a 48-inch wheel onto

the spindle that the main water wheel turns.

Would you grab our tool bag and our generator?

Got to mount our generator down on the bottom,

get our pulley and all lined up.

Rocks is bad on your knees.

Better than that cold-- ice cold water, though.

It is.

This pulley that we built is going to turn at the same rate

as the water wheel, which is not super fast.

We're hoping for about 10 to 15 RPMs, which will give us,

you know, 600, 700 RPMs on our generator,

which should be sufficient.

I'm pretty happy with that.

Let's get this thing lined with some metal.

- Yeah. - And we'll get it ready to get back in the creek.

Last year, the problem we had was keeping a lot of water in

there and it was just kind of splashing out.

So, what me and Mike's gonna do to solve that problem is

we're gonna line the inside of this water wheel

with sheet metal.

I think it's gonna make a hell of a difference

right here. - I hope it does.

Now, the next thing we've got to do is get this thing back

in the creek. - One, two, three.

OK, right there.

You wanna come over here and pick this end of

the PVC pipe up? - All right.

We've gotta get water back to our water wheel to make sure

everything's gonna work flawlessly.

I think that's gonna be good right there.

But all of our pipes been broke down, washed up by

storms, so we gotta wade off into the creek.

Damn rock is hard!

But I don't wanna slip and fall, that's for sure.

Here we come!

We're fixing to put it to the water wheel, see if this

thing's gonna generate some power for us.

Come on, baby, come on.

Show us what kind of power you got.

That's what I'm talking about. There we go.

Hey, the water's flowing, the wheel's turning,

the generator pulleys are turning.

We got power to the still site.

So next step is we get to mash in them strawberries

and jalapenos, throw that magic dust to it, and not even worry

about this cold weather. We fixing to make liquor.

We're ready to get mashed in now.

Well, that's probably good enough, ain't it?

Ah.

Let's do it to it.

Damn, fellas, this place is nice.

Yeah, thank you for coming to help.

Howard is back.

He's been down in Florida basically fishing, I guess.

Well, look, fellas, I'm here to work now.

I mean, ain't no need to look at it-- let's get it running.

We've got the old team back together.

Say, let's get this pump down this creek bank,

we need a ladder to get down. - All right.

- OK. - If that's what you want me, that's where I'll go.

- All right. - Let's do it.

Well, we got our site all set up, you know,

and tonight is the first night that we're gonna mash in.

We got to go from here to the creek over there.

It's important that we get something mashed in

because we need to go ahead and get some moonshine made.

- Right there. - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

- This is dangerous as hell. - But you know, it takes time.

You know, you've got to ferment.

You've got to set up your stills.

- You've got to run it. - Watch the choke.

There she goes.

We got water!

At least we get something going.

Hey, that's nice, pretty water.

That's that old polar plunge water right there.

Cold and ready to get your immune system back.

That's what we're working with here.

We're ready to get some grain in the barrel.

Let's do it.

This is a simple recipe, but it's the recipe that

we've been using for these Canadians.

And it's important that we keep everything the same.

What's going with this here?

- Wheat bran. - All right.

You know, I like to use a lot of wheat bran in mine,

so we got some corn, throw in that wheat bran to it,

and, you know, a little bit of sugar, and that's what

he wants, so we're going to give him what he wants.

Yeah, he gave us a week heads up.

The problem is, you know, we only had

the corn for this one run.

That means we got to get some more grain

and sugar and come back.

I'm really excited about this, but there's a problem.

- We don't have enough grain. - I'm gonna have some good news on that one.

I got that covered, man, I was talking to my buddy the other day.

Got a huge farm.

He said, "Come back, get everything you want,

everything we need." - I'm glad we got started

on this. - Yeah, me too, man.

- We got to jump on it. - Well, let's get going.

Right now we need to get some more grain.

Yeah.

The important thing is we've got mashed in right now,

and we're well on our way to delivering some liquor

to our Canadian customers.

We're going to have to go see Henry's grain guy,

and we're going to have to pick up a lot more grain.

All right. You want to cover him up?

Cover it up, and we good to go.

2 - Ooh, I like this. - Oh, my...

Well, we've arrived at Kelly's farm here, and we're going to

try to see what he's got in mind.

It's a little muddy-sloppy there.

It'll dry up when the spring rains are gone.

We can't have a site in the woods where

we're hand-rolling in corn and hand-rolling out liquor.

I mean, the gate's down there, and I've got cameras.

So, I mean, I know if anybody comes and goes.

Security would be great.

It's behind the gate, private property.

It's camera-protected already.

We could take that hay and build us

basically a wall around it.

And you're saying just leave this end

blocked off with hay, block this end off with hay as well,

and then we just set up all

here in the middle. - Yeah.

And then he's got in mind using hay bales to block up

the entrance to where no one can see what's going on.

We've got to have a way to get in and out.

I got a way. Wait a minute.

Yuns are gon' love this. Look here.

I'll bring that hay out

and stack it all the way around this trailer.

We'll cut us a hole in this trailer right here.

We can cut this out right here, this whole front, and make it

like a doorway.

- I think it's fine. - I like it, Kelly.

- Let's get with it. - It's just crazy enough to work.

With our unlimited supply of corn, I think this is

the perfect still site for the season we got ahead of us.

You want to slide it back and put two on her?

If we can get it back there without dumping it off,

we'll do two.

You know, we've got less than 60 days to clean all those

silos out and get that grain moved.

God dang. We on it?

- Yeah. - You're good.

So we've got to get rolling on this quick.

Let's see what it looks like when we set it up there.

This time of year, we definitely have to consider

temperature and keep the mash warm for fermentation.

- Good there? - Yeah.

I'm excited. Look at that, cool.

These bales are four-foot by five-foot,

so it holds the heat in.

You know, you can't find anything much better than hay

for insulating something.

Just having all this hay in here to

keep our mash warm enough.

You know, that's always a concern when you start

the season early. - Just right.

Two four-barrel stills, 1,500 gallons worth of mash.

That'll keep us going.

This big work area here can possibly be the most productive

still site that we've ever had.

Do you want to go ahead and saw that door out?

I mean, the bigger, the better.

Right. We can cut it all the way up.

I mean, we can cut into this. We don't really care, do we?

No, hell, it's rotten anyhow.

This old trailer, it's already got

one door on it.

So we're going to put another door in it and then be able to

keep it locked up so nobody can't get in there.

And nobody would have a reason to know that they was

going in anywhere.

They just think the building's completely full of hay.

Go ahead, yank that door out!

Ha!

Look! Look at that!

- Hey, y'all. - Damn, there's Digger.

I think we're gonna nickname it the speakeasy site

because you'll just go through one door, into another door,

and into a big open room full of moonshine stills.

- Look at that. - That's slicker than a minnow's eyeball.

I think it's perfect.

You know, all the stars have lined up for us to be able

to make the most liquor we've ever made

and in really good condition.

This is killer good!

But still an illegal business, and there's a major risk that

we're about to jump into, feet first.

Oh, boy, I hope you put them mirrors in.

- There's a tunnel. - It's a tight one, ain't it?

I'll tell you what, I don't know about y'all,

but I'm pretty happy with that site we got now.

It's looking good.

For Tim's Canadian order, we're going to have to go get

us a whole lot more grain from Henry's grain guy, because what

we've got right now just isn't enough.

It's a huge farm up here, man. They got all kind of grains.

- Good to have a man like that. - Yeah.

Especially somebody who ain't keepin' tabs on

what all you're buying.

Well, going to a farm is so much better because,

you know, when you go to a local store,

it's like a whole lot of eyes.

It's like opening up a can of worms here--

goes, "Those guys are bootleggers.

They're moonshiners. We know what they're doing."

But if you're buying from a guy who actually does know what

we are doing, he can kind of cover our trail.

All right, let's do it.

All right, let's go get loaded up.

All right.

See if we can't get some grain,

I say we fill the dern thing up and just keep on getting it.

- Yeah, might as well. - That's what we need, a pallet.

- Joel, come on, buddy. - We can load this pallet right here.

- Hey, hey! - Yeah, there you go.

Look like you working hard as usual.

- Yeah, it's that time of year. - Good seeing you, man.

- Yes, sir. - I'll tell you what I was telling 'em, the best place to

get grain is right here.

Been taking good care of us for a long time.

- Yeah. - We need a load.

- It's about that time of year. - Yep.

I guess we need some wheat bran, some malt, some rye.

- Yeah. - Corn too.

You know, I guess just back a truck up in here

and load it up. So we can get on up the road.

Hm?

You're kidding.

Man.

Did they identified himself? Are they local?

Are they federal?

They're not local?

Black SUVs, you know who that is.

- Sounds like federal. - Yeah, unmarked.

- Yeah. - Uh-huh.

He says, "I can't sell it to you."

He says, "Well, some black SUVs came by,

was asking questions."

Maybe they're federal agents or something.

They asking for paperwork?

They're asking questions of, where is the grain going?

Who are you selling to?

So it's kind of like they're looking and trying to dig in,

maybe possible moonshiners in the area.

- All right, man. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - Let us know if they come back, too.

- Yeah, definitely. - Yeah, that's a good idea.

- All right, now. - See you.

This is Henry's source.

This is a source he's been using for years here.

That's an agricultural product here, man.

It ain't against the law to buy grain.

No, it's not. Technically, no.

Just against the law what you do with the grain.

This is telling me that, you know, something's up.

We got this Canadian order, man, and we got to make more.

- Sound like the feds. - Yeah, it's the law.

There's a whole lot of farms in this county, and they know

to come to this one? - That's what I'm saying.

And start asking? Somebody sent them over.

Somebody knows we've been getting grain from this.

It could be a little bit

deeper than we think it is, I'm telling you.

Because if he's been selling, you know, to you for years,

and all of a sudden it cut off like that,

something's up. - Something's up.

And it's not good.

- Hello. - Oh! Oh!

Hey-oh! Fellas, fellas, calm down.

On this season of "Moonshiners."

We want a special liquor for America's 250th birthday.

I think we'll make it happen.

This is my great-granddaddy's recipe.

All scotch is made with malted barley.

Could we peat smoke some malted corn?

It's about blowing smoke rings.

- Look at it. - Oh, my!

- Whoo! - That's mold, black mold.

I gotta start mining and shining because I'm already

starting my season thousands in the hole.

Yeah, it's a risk, but I ain't

never been known to play it safe.

That ain't good.

You run off and leave me, Jerry Benson, I'm gonna take

what's rightfully mine.

- Michael Cockrell's back in Tennessee. - Hmm.

Now he or anybody else comes over here meddling

in my business, it's gonna get bad for real.

That there's Jerry coming around, you better get somewhere.

- Jean-Luc! - Tim! We got a problem.

This guy basically told me if I don't buy from him,

that he's involving the law. - This guy is up to no good.

- You see it? - Yeah, I see it.

- Damn. - They is a tracker on it.

We're going to take care of this guy, because we're out of

business if we don't. - That's a still site, yeah.

I'm seeing a still.

Oh-- pull over. Pull over. Pull over!

Pull over!

You got to save the grain, at least.

- [bleep] - Oh, crap.