Original subtitles

Well, it's a nice day to get out and hunt a still side, ain't it?

We'll go out here and down the back side of this mountain and

we'll check a place or two down there and see if we can find some water.

Pretty hard to find a place back out of the way where nobody won't find you, you

know.

There's a whole lot of damn nosy people around anymore.

I have to watch for damn snakes. This place is full of copperheads and

rattlesnakes.

I damn sure don't want to get bit by one of them today.

That's all I'd need.

I've stomped through these damn weeds many times, trying to find water.

All them damn stinging weeds, them things lift you up.

This is a hell of a way to make a living, making this goddamn liquor.

This will be the last damn run I ever make though.

I couldn't have made this run if I hadn't had a lot of help.

The damn bar thicket, I don't know whether we can get through it or not.

Let's just go back down and try to get off in there down here at this lower

point and see if we can get in there.

Lord, there's plenty of good clean water right there. Ain't nobody lives above

this.

I can't hardly get around anymore.

That's the reason I've had to quit.

If I get this one made, I'll be damn lucky.

That water's pure as it can be. There ain't nothing in it but pure bear shit.

That's damn cold enough. It'll cool that worm in a hurry.

I think right here would be the damn real place to set it.

Just dig out right in here and set it right in there.

We'll go on now and maybe look somewhere else after a while, but

when you see these water weeds like this are growing along the branch, I'd sign

the water.

We'll make some real liquor.

I was thinking we'd do the one if any of them damn things.

Hard work, isn't it?

Hell, ain't nothing no goddamn harder. Anybody to have a man caught for trying

to make a drink of liquor ain't nothing but a dirty son of a bitch. I don't care

who they are.

It pulls pretty good even though the motor is burned up in it.

My good day model will come up here in second gear.

Pour some STP oil treatment in it.

Maybe it'll stop burnin' so damn much oil.

This thing's 72 years old, I guess it's got a right to burn some oil.

Lost my oil cap and I had to make me one.

I hear water running out there. I'll go out there and see what it looks like.

I'll get these damn weeds down.

Well, that's good cold water, too This would be a pretty good place right here,

I guess Get right over in there run a hole in the creek up there and run it

right over to it This is two places

we found yeah, I don't know whether we'll put it here or not But if I do

it'll be right over on that drawer patch

That's good cold water. It's got big water weeds growing beside it taller

than they was at that other place we checked.

If you can find these where you get your water at, it makes good liquor and turns

out real good. Makes quite a bit of it.

Of course, you're just going to make so much, it doesn't matter what kind of

water you got.

You can't use the city water because it's got all them chemicals in it.

It won't make liquor.

It's best to find a small finger branch or a small creek like this You can make

some damn good liquor then so I'm going to go on back in and We'll study about

which place to put this thing But we'll check another place probably or two

before we do this

Night, Florida.

Now, after we pulled that rough-ass mountain of getting up here on top of

the mountain, where it's kind of level at, we've got to look for some water at

one more place before I decide where to put this thing.

So, we're going to drive on around here a little bit, and I know where some more

water is. We're going to look at it, and if that's suitable, we'll have to

determine which place to put it.

You know, we looked at two yesterday.

Now we're going to look at this one and see which of the three it will take.

Now right here's a nice little stream of water.

It's got water weeds growing along it too, see?

Like them we pulled up yesterday.

As long as you see water weeds and stinging weeds, it'll make liquor.

I bet that's as cold as it can be. Let me go up there and check it and see.

Yeah, that'll cool that worm for sure.

Got branch lettuce growing on it too. See right here?

That's what you call branch lettuce. That's good stuff. You can take and cut

it up and put onions in.

Pour hot grease on it.

That's some fine eating with cornbread.

I'll set that one back out.

I don't be even wasting nothing.

But we're going up higher and get out of the clearing here

so much we can get up in the woods where nobody can't find us too easy.

To set up a still, you need the pot, the cap, the thumb keg, the worm, the

cooling tub.

We've got to have tools, of course, like an axe and a shovel and a hoe and stuff

to dig out the hole with to put the pot.

Then you've got to carry in the ingredients to make the liquor out of,

of course, corn, malt, and sugar.

Then you have to cook it in it has to work off from I Have had something to

work off in three days. I have had it five seven Ten days and winter time

takes 30 days but It's summertime now it should

work off in five days So we're going to go on up through here

and Fix out a place to set the pot

Made a damn door knob out, see?

Didn't it?

Well,

we're fixin' to build a furnace around this thing.

Somehow or another.

If you use this mountain dirt here, it'll fall out of the rocks when they

get hot.

But this red clay here, it come out of Tennessee.

We went down and got it the other day.

I don't know where he's at around here, but there's plenty about where we are in

Tennessee.

But I'm going to take my time.

My hips are hurting real bad.

But we'll get about here, maybe at 12, if we don't we'll finish it tomorrow.

I got that fit just like it's made for that hole.

Now I throw that right up on them, right between them, up on two rocks.

Right in there.

Now I come on down and throw me another one right below that.

That's some real mud though, that's thick.

That sets up, you can't knock this down.

I guess your moonshiner lived a hell of a life.

Did somebody teach you how to do this stuff?

Well, no, not really.

I've had a lot of older people tell me things, but the only way you're going to

learn any damn thing is do it yourself.

I don't care what it is.

Once that mud sets up, I tell you what, it'll be harder than a Methodist

minister's pecker.

Boy, there ain't nothing to making this damned old liquor, is there?

All you gotta do is sit on your ass and make old liquor. That's all you have to

do.

Beats all I ever goddamn seen.

I get up on there.

I got to make that and hold that one down.

The rocks on the side of the barrel, it makes

more heat.

If you didn't have rocks around that, the heat would just come out here and go

away. Them rocks hold heat and makes it go back that way.

A little mud.

I'm gonna cook a pot of beans right here on this.

Or taters or whatever I can catch.

I'll have to rake these leaves out from around this floor. Sorry to catch the

damn mud the fire.

They'd come in here and put the fire out and catch you.

Right here.

Now this is gonna be the last damn sterile furnace I ever built. I mean

this... I just done this on account of making this video so people could see

how rough an old moonshiner's life was.

This is the last damn run of liquor I ever make.

And I guess...

I guess them revenue officers will be glad of that because they won't have to

watch me no damn more.

They've been watching me all my life.

So I guess they can go after some of these dope dealers or something now and

leave me alone because I won't be a bother no more.

That's what they should have been doing to start with instead of fooling

somebody for a drink of liquor.

Ain't nobody going to work as damn hard no way nowadays.

They don't have to.

Why do you think anybody would have ever turned you in for making liquor?

Well, they thought I was making a dollar that they didn't get. You know how the

world is.

They see you making a dollar and they don't get half of it.

Makes them greedy as hell, I reckon.

I hope whoever turned me in, by God, may they rest in hell is all I can say about

it.

They probably will.

Because you see, there ain't a thing here that I didn't pay for. I didn't

steal a damn piece of nothing. Sure.

Paid taxes on the copper, paid taxes on the sugar, on the jars.

I didn't steal nothing, so I don't think I broke the law anywhere.

Where I was raised at,

Old man Abe Silver, he used to make liquor.

He'd come walking down Hemp Hill Road where I was raised at.

One time he fell right in front of the house over in the road.

Had a load of liquor on his back and toe sacks.

He was drunk and he fell.

He busted two or three jars with liquor when he fell backwards.

You could hear him cuss for five miles.

I guess so, because back then liquor, I mean, that was your life, you know.

If you didn't have none by God, you'd starve.

But they said old Abe was one of the best in the world at it.

Now give me some more, JB.

Good deal.

Just right in the right spot.

Did people who made liquor use it for money instead of using actual cash?

Yeah, you can trade liquor. I've traded them in every jar for things I need.

I sold a fetus some liquor one time.

He said he's into the heavy equipment business.

I ain't gonna tell who he is.

But anyway, he said he went and bought this piece of heavy equipment.

And the salesman that sold it to him,

Knocked off $1,000 on that piece of equipment for one jar of liquor.

I sold a fellow a jar, the last jar I sold.

I told him what the price was, and he gave me a $5 tip.

According to what kind of product you got, what you get out of it.

Well, it's looking great, ain't it?

Would you say that moonshine is less common than it used to be?

Why hell you can't find it no more?

I mean, decent liquor's gone.

Because ain't nobody going to work this hard, what you've seen me work today,

anymore.

What about the moonshine you can get for five bucks for a quart or whatever?

Five dollars a half gallon?

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I don't want to drink none of it, because I'd

say it'd take a hair off a wooden leg.

So that stuff isn't made the same way that you're making it here? Oh, no.

I use sheet metal pots and put rubbing alcohol in it.

I wouldn't do no such a thing as that. If I do, I'd just quit.

Well, I never have.

Of course I ain't gonna make no more anyway, it don't matter.

I'm just doing this to show people what it's all about or I wouldn't be up here

busting my ass doing this.

Maybe somebody will appreciate someday what I'm doing, you know.

Cause in the next five years there won't be no more moonshine liquor.

Best thing of the past.

And I'll be dead before then anyway, so it don't matter.

A lot of skill in it.

That's it, if you don't know how.

And I'm the last one that's left beside JB.

JB can keep carrying on the tradition,

but it's all over with for me.

When I get done with this, that's it.

I guess so.

Gonna have to have it, looks like.

As bad as I dread it.

Well,

I tell you what, my granddaddy helped build the first Baptist churches built

on Hemp Hill.

He made liquor all his life. He made liquor, and I've been told this to be

the truth, too.

And he took the liquor and sold it.

and then took the money and helped buy the materials it took to build the first

Baptist church on the hemp hill that was ever built.

I guess no matter what kind of, how you get your money, I mean, if you put it in

the right place, I guess.

The good Lord will probably bless you for it anyway.

What do you got at selling taters or making liquor?

Don't matter, don't reckon.

Don't to me anyway.

Where do you cut that hole?

I'm going to put this stovepipe up there.

The old timers, they didn't have such a thing as a stovepipe.

I'm lucky I have.

Old timers, they used to just build a furnace and leave a little hole in the

back and let the smoke go anywhere it wants to.

The reason I've got this pipe on there is so that smoke won't come back in my

eyes all day while I'm running this thing.

That's one of my inventions.

That's the prettiest rock I ever laid on a steel furnace.

I mean, that's a beautiful rock.

It's a shame to put that in a steel furnace. It should be in a...

Some big fine home somewhere.

That's a real place to set my cook pot.

Like that old song, I'll still write your name in the sand.

I'll still write your name in the mud.

And I love you, and you know who I'm talking about.

That son of a bitch started smoking now.

That should get hot for it.

Way down yonder.

If we can't make good wiki, we'll quit.

See, I couldn't beat my plug in there the way it was. It's too long.

See, you have to pull your backings in there to get above this cut place now.

So when its steam comes in there, it boils that back into that keg.

If it's hard enough the way it is, it'll make life a little easier.

I will.

The worst of these beans is getting ready to put on the cook tomorrow.

I don't do no nasty cooking.

This is some of the finest damn hog's ass they are in the country. I got it in

Broadnecks, Virginia.

That'll make them beans... When you take a bite of them, your tongue will flap

your brains out.

It looks nastier than hell, but it's not.

I've never owned a dishwasher in my life.

I don't wash dishes anyway.

But I've got a new invention here.

That's my hillbilly dishwasher.

Now, I mean, it'll do a fine job. Might take it all night, but it'll wash it.

If it beats in there enough, it'll beat everything in there out.

So by the time the morning comes,

that cooker and that fork will be perfectly clean.

Well, I started smoking when I was six years old.

I started drinking when I was six years old.

I used to steal my daddy's Prince Albert tobacco and go out behind the barn and

roll it up and smoke it.

They say that smoking and drinking will kill you.

I don't believe that.

Because my granddad lived to be somewhere around 90 years old.

And when he died, they said that damned old liquor and them cigarettes killed

him. I don't believe it.

So I ain't gonna worry about it. I ain't gonna see 90 anyway. It don't matter.

Like dude Kegel said one time.

He said, when I die, he said, they said, well, old dude, he's

a good old fella.

Been here, he's gone now.

Said they'll mention my name for a couple of days after they bury me.

But he said, I'll be damned, said, when Popcorn Sutton ever dies.

Said it will never be stopped talking about it.

It'll be a thing of the last forever long time that Old dude's a good friend

of mine Now I'm gonna tell you about my doctor. His name is Dr.

James R. Milling a damn good doctor He

saved my life one time I'll not go into details about that, but he did

Used to go up to his house and party on the weekends on Friday or Saturday night

or whatever.

I was up there one Friday or Saturday night and he

had the parties down in his basement.

And they was a whole basement full of well-to-do prominent people.

I'll not say who they was because I don't tell on nobody for nothing.

But anyway, I walked in.

He said, folks, can I have your attention? He said, I want to introduce

somebody to you.

And they all liked my liquor.

He said, this is Popcorn Sutton.

He said, I want to tell you something about him.

He said he has the most brilliant criminal mind I've ever seen in my life.

So the party went on.

Because I had plenty of spirits to make it go on.

I've got four things in this world I'd rather nobody didn't mess with in any

way.

Number one is my old lady.

The finest woman that ever shit between a pair of tennis shoes.

Second thing is my A-model Ford.

Two of them.

The third is mess with my liquor business in any damn way.

And the fourth is my damn cats.

And I've got five.

Six. Six.

Six.

I forgot about baby cat.

She's never been out of the house. She'll never be out of the house.

She sleeps on my arm right there.

Or lays her head right there.

I just love my cats.

But, yeah,

when I sit down at the table to eat, I put my plate on the table.

She puts her back feet right there, puts her front feet on the table, and she

eats out of my plate with me.

If you think I don't love that cat, there's something wrong.

Well, down in Cocke County, there used to be two old traders.

They traded anything, cows, mules.

They used to take old dry cows, just about dry.

Went and milk them for three or four days and let their bags swell.

Then they'd put a young calf on it and take it up towards Hot Springs up in

North Carolina up in the mountains and sell it for fresh and cow.

But they done it one too many times.

They had one loaded up in the truck.

They went up there.

They got blocked in up there in one of them dead end roads.

All they come back with is a shirt on their back.

They lost everything, truck, their money, cow and all.

They're lucky to make it out of there with their lives because them mountain

people, they get mad when you cheat them.

And that same one guy, he had a blind mule one time.

Kept it in the barn.

He had a little creek running down by the barn. The old mule had been there so

long, he knowed it.

the way to the creek to get water.

Well, this old guy come to look at the mule, and that old guy forgot he'd

parked a hay wagon out there that day they'd been hauling hay.

He turned that old mule out and he'd run right in that damn wagon.

That old guy looked at him, that damn mule blind? He said, hell no, he just

don't give a fuck.

If it wasn't for liquor, a lot of people would have died.

See, most people just get drunker than hell off of it, but you can make some

valuable medicine out of it.

You can make cough syrup, which consists of honey, any kind of candy,

lemon juice, a shake of black pepper, and liquor.

That makes the best cough syrup ever was.

And you can also buy a camper.

Comes in a little block.

You put that in about, you take a pint of liquor and put a block of camphor in

it and let it dissolve real good.

And you can smell of it and rub it on the side of your head if you've got a

splitting headache, it'll slow it down or stop at once.

My mom used to have a, every time that they'd come up there to play music at

the house, them guys, they'd always bring a jar of liquor with them.

make music all night long, banjo, guitar, fiddle, all that.

She'd get her a little pint jar and she'd go around and ask them if they'd

give her some of that liquor to make medicine out of it. Of course they

would.

So she'd put her a block of asphid in it.

And I started drinking that when I was six years old.

And I'd get it in her medicine cabinet.

get me a big sup of that and I was on cloud nine for a couple of hours.

But hell, I didn't drink it for the medicine effect of it. I drank it for

the damn alcohol.

But I got addicted to that stuff. I love it right today.

I don't even keep it around me because if I did, I'd drink it all the time.

Well, there's the mash. It's been working now for seven or eight days.

Today's a big day. We're going to crank this son of a bitch up.

Maybe taste it and see if it's bitter.

If it's bitter, that's a sign it's going to make some good liquor and that's

smart of it.

If it ain't bitter, it won't make a damn thing.

It's bitter.

Pretty good though.

Don't look worth a shit, but it's pretty good.

I'm talking about getting drunk on it, too.

Whew. Yeah, that's good.

It's ready to run.

I'm going to pour it in the pot there.

Stainless steel is even better than copper to make liquor on because it

don't get that...

green corrosion stuff in it.

Like you see on the outside of this, there's none of it on the inside of it,

cause you gotta keep the inside clean, the outside don't make no difference.

And all's in this is yellow sweet corn,

yellow corn malt, and sugar, and water, that's all's in it.

Like I said, this is the damn last run of liquor.

that me and J. Bill ever fooled with.

I wouldn't do it now, but I just want to make this video so the younger folks can

see what a hell of a life a moonshiner has.

Because when I'm gone, the damn liquor's gone.

And I'm just about gone.

This is a brand new still. We just made it.

Hot two or three weeks ago.

Me and JB made it.

I guess that'll be the last one of them I ever make, too.

Matter of fact, I know it is.

It's hard work even making a still, let alone make the liquor.

That's even worse.

This is what I'd call a piss pot. It don't hold but 50 gallons.

If you go make liquor, ain't used to playing with it.

The last thing I ever helped run, helped 20 barrels.

20 times what that can hold.

Gonna light this thing, be the last thing I ever light.

And once I get it lit,

I've got to take off for a few minutes and I'm going to leave you with JB and

he's going to show you how you make that paste that goes on there.

And when it gets steam and heat up to it, like I said, it gets harder than a

minister's pecker.

That wood in there is locust wood now. You talk about something getting hot,

that's dead locust.

It don't put off a lot of smoke, see.

When you're making liquor out in the woods like this, you want to keep the

smoke down as much as you can. Some nosy son of a bitch will see it and call the

law on you.

That's the reason you need to burn dead locusts.

A long time ago, some chestnut trees was in this country before the blight killed

them. People burnt dead chestnuts. It didn't give off no smoke much at all.

I'm fixing to make the paste to go around all the connections when we get

it set up.

Half and half of wheat bran and half flour.

Yeah, this is the best because it's easier to put on and then it just gets

hard.

Popcorn said a while ago.

I don't think you've got anything on the market to do the job.

He's made enough of this paste to make everybody have a biscuit in Maggie

Valley, I'd say.

Just like mixing up dough.

You know, growing up, the kids would do about anything.

We was at a friend's house one time, a bunch of us kids was running around

playing.

He had a bunch of hogs.

And one of us come up with the idea.

Get a year of corn, get some water and wrap it around the year of corn and hook

it to the electric fence you had around there.

Shock them hogs.

Well, we done it.

Every one of them come up there and they talking about squealing. Now, they was

squealing. We was having the time.

And they finally quit messing with it. Well, we just going to get rid of the

evidence. We took that wire off and throwed it away.

That old guy, he went to feed his hogs the next morning. They wouldn't eat the

corn.

He said, dang, I don't know what's the matter with these hogs.

Well, one of them snitched on us all, and you're talking about a whooping now.

We got it.

We didn't do no more of that.

That corn, it's fixing to boil here in a little bit.

It took some work to set this up. If it hadn't been for them Bradley boys, I

mean, It took me and JB a whole month.

It would.

Bradley dug that hole right over where the barrel's in.

Hell, it didn't take him 15 minutes. It took me all day.

Yeah.

And he cut us that big pile of campfire wood behind you there at the shack.

He got more cut up here in the woods to haul down here.

Yeah, and him and his brother cut all that and brought it up here.

That's that Tennessee clay.

It'll stay there. See, you can't make a steel furnace out of this mountain dirt.

It'll fall out of there when it got hot.

This won't fall out.

See, once I pull that steel out of there, I saved a bucket of that red mud

somewhere.

I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I have to tear the furnace partly down to get it out.

All right, I'm gonna...

take my time and fix it back like it was.

If somebody wants to come up here and bust this down, he'll be here 50 years

from today.

I'm trimming this worm up a little.

I just sawed it off and it's got little frizzes of copper on it.

And I don't want that shit to get in my liquor.

Me and Lethe made something like this one time at the river. On that little

old pot she had that held 35 gallons. This one here holds 50.

And we tempered it in water. Of course, you don't make much liquor when you

temper it in water because it takes the proof down real fast.

And if you use backings, you come out making more liquor. But we're going to

make it like we did 100 years ago, like my granddaddy made it.

We tempered it in water.

What little liquor comes off of this?

The right people would pay you $100 a gallon for it.

Sure would.

Oh, she's ready to put the cap on.

See the steam coming out of it? That's liquor I'm going to lose.

Hell yeah, we don't lose no liquor.

As Bubba says, I'm going to make some wicky today.

be the last damn run of wiki that I'm gonna have a fool with. We ain't ready

to cap yet. We gotta put the backings.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm glad you saw that.

JB, go see if you can find them backings we got ahead.

That's our moonshiner.

That's a hard way to go.

I'll probably spill some out, but I don't care.

What are the backends made from again?

The backends is the last thing that comes off when you make a run of liquor.

This is some.

It's been hid since 1997 when I quit making liquor.

They caught me in 98, so I quit.

But this back end has been hidden in the woods ever since then.

I didn't spill a damn drop of that.

This is going to be some of the finest liquor that's ever been made in the

world.

It's been so long since I made any on wood, I tell you what, I hope I don't

mess up, because that fire is hard to regulate.

Get too hot, it'll boil that beer up there, and it'll come over in that cap

down here, that's what you call puking.

And it'll ruin your liquor, because your liquor will come out of there looking

like what they make on Cosby, looks like that buttermilk.

This stump post is cut out like that in the bottom, that V-shape cut out. So

when that steam comes down, it can escape out in there and come up back up

in this gag.

And then it comes over and hits this worm.

And when it gets in that bottle of cold water over there, it turns back into a

liquid and comes out the bottom 180 proof.

Now put it down there.

Whoa, hold it, hold it.

Now.

That's good.

I should have hammered that out a little right there.

Should have done this and should have done that.

Well now JB you can start laying the face to the cap and hand me a little

over here and I'll start over here.

That cap's already getting warm. That'll be a liquorice thing.

Oh, no longer than 45 minutes.

You've done a good job on that paste.

Yeah, it makes a few rounds of it.

You have to push this paste at every connection.

Can you use anything besides the paste?

No, you've got to make paste out of it.

brand and flour, or you can grind up rye and make paste out of it, or you can

make paste out of oatmeal.

I ain't never made a perfect run in my life if something doesn't go wrong. I

mean, if something will go wrong, every run you make, it may not be a major

thing, I guarantee something will happen today, and I hope nothing major like

blow a cap or something.

That son of a bitch done started to boil.

Listen to that.

You hear it? Yep.

Yeah, I hear it.

And once it starts running, you have to always keep on the lookout for leaks.

Because it'll leak somewhere.

I don't know where, but it will.

I've dug ditches. I've worked on construction.

I've done everything.

There ain't nothing no harder than what I'm doing, but it's just in my blood.

I swore when I was a little old kid, if I ever got big enough, I'd make liquor

and haul it.

I've had my picture down the front page two times for this.

1974 to 1998.

White smokestacks are sucking that smoke out pretty good, ain't they? Oh, yeah.

Working perfect.

Recognition will do the shaking like old Elvis?

I hope not.

The slower you run it, the better product your liquor comes out.

About like I wouldn't match them the way the old timers run it.

Oh, shit!

Goddamn, I got an instant drunk.

I hear it thumping.

Is it?

I can't half hear.

Oh, yeah, I had to have done a thump gag waltz.

Lisa used to dance by the thump gag, but I reckon it makes you keep time with it.

Yeah, she called it the thump gag waltz.

Yeah, she drank her about two of them vine or sausage cans full of that

straight off that worm. She's tough.

Then she'd start doing the simple gag ball. She'd hit every lick that did.

She starts off something real slow, she'd go.

Then she'd keep getting faster.

You've already seen her. That's something else.

Even when we'd get done, I was a lot stouter back then than I am now.

She'd hang on to the back of my overhaul because she'd be drunk as hell.

And I'd have a load of liquor tied on my back in tow sacks.

And she'd hang on to my overhaul and I'd drag her up that damn laurel thicket.

And when we got to the top, she'd say, well, now I don't need your pulling no

more now.

Then we'd go into the house, and then, by God, both of us would get drunk.

We got liquid coming out.

Oh, hell, where's that damn funnel at?

I'm gonna let you catch that bottle half full, get the new out of the worm.

I'm washing that black stuff out of them fire coals I put in here.

The first jug of liquor I run on these new fire coals.

It's gonna be a little dingy colored, but that's nothing to be alarmed about.

It'll clear up on the next.

Watch out, I got it now.

See that liquor come out that stick? See it'll follow that stick.

That's what I used that coon pecker for. I'd stick it in that worm coon pecker

like that. Anyway, it's crooked and about that long. Well, according to how

big a coon it was.

When I had the big granddaddy coon, it was that long.

And I carried that thing in my pocket for years.

It was as slick as a piece of glass. I'd carried it too much.

But somehow I lost it.

The way you do that, you've got a wet place.

On your sump keg of leaking, you've got a little piece of like paper towel.

That paper absorbs the water up and the paste will dry and it won't leak no

more.

I wonder how I learned all this anyway.

Watch what it does when you throw it in the fire.

See that blue fire come out there?

Good liquor.

Say hell how high.

High.

Ah, damn, I reckon high.

The heck far, I reckon. Why, it's higher than I seen on them big rigs. Yeah, I

reckon.

Smells good, though, doesn't it?

Enough to get ten people drinking.

Uh-oh, bring me some paste, JB.

Got a bad leak.

You may have to get me a rag, JB. You're going to strip.

You know, as little as this thing is, if that cap was to come off,

it's called your death.

I needed another string.

Went under the bed and cut me off a piece of that gray string.

Talk about this.

How'd it work?

I saved it.

Believe it or not, I learned this trick right here off that Snuffy Smith

shit in the newspaper.

Comic strip.

Yeah.

You know, those people would pay $100 just to get to watch this go on, you

know that?

I don't care if it's leaking.

I ain't gonna use it no damn more no way.

I'll tell you what, if any damn buzzards comes over here today, they better fly

high. If they don't, they'll knock the top of them damn trees and they'll get a

sniff of this.

Yeah, they better fly high.

Now this is the first that JB's ever helped me make on wood. This is his

first time with this.

But a long time ago when he helped me.

He'd never seen a steel run And when we quit He was a damn good hand as

he caught on to everything I done and everything I said I Learned from the

best Now that's come there

Not as big as a match stem right now the fires are going down but

you're not supposed to run it on a small pot like that, no bigger than a match

stem.

Because if you run any faster, it makes your liquor meaner the faster you run

it. Makes it fire you and burn the hell out of you.

But this right here is going to be second to none because nobody will never

do this again. This is the last time I'm going to ever do it.

I mean, I'm not able to do it.

Like I told Neil yesterday, if it hadn't been for Bill and his brother James, I

couldn't have had this here.

No way.

Well, me and JB could have had it, but it took us a whole damn month, at least.

It took us at least a month to get to what's here.

How many jars of liquor do you think you've made in your life?

The hell far.

I don't even guess they make numbers that damn long.

A fella asked me one time, said, you got any liquor?

I said, I'll tell you what you do. I said, you bring your 18-wheeler and I'll

bust the damn tires on it.

And that's a little bit of liquor.

But I ain't got no more now. I've quit.

Too many goddamn nosy little bitches after me.

Telling on me.

Whatever.

Is it important to keep them numbered as they come out?

Yeah, because when you go to temper it, that tells you which jar.

It's higher.

See, as you go backwards, that means it's higher. After you've got number 10

jar here, number 9's higher than it was.

Number 8's higher than 9 was, all the way back, see.

I may run 14 on this one, because that's some awful damn good slop.

Some of this liquor, I've heard different names for it, like Painter

Piss.

Who shot John?

Block and tackle. You drink about a pint of it and walk a block and tackle any

damn thing you see.

And a mule, a white mule, I've heard you

call that.

And two cats are fighting.

Oh, I have many names for it.

Splo.

Allie Jim.

Can't think of more right now. I've got that CRS disease.

I meet up with it. Can't remember shit.

Yeah, I've made all kinds of liquor in my time.

I've made the fighting kind, the loving kind, the crying kind.

I even made some one time and sold it to this couple. They was happily married.

The next damn week they was divorced.

What kind are you making today?

This, I'm gonna make it easy. Got four damn fights to a pint.

That's pretty good.

Number five, I'd say we got nine more jars to go.

Oh, I ain't checked this one.

They hell far.

That's about the same as the number one, isn't it? Just almost.

See them big beads, how fast they go away?

That means it's hive proof, 180.

Take a good drink of that.

That's some of the best.

You drank half of that teacup right, John, or full of that.

you'd not get off this damn mountain, I guarantee you.

No, you'd be laying somewhere.

You'd be piled up right over in them weeds.

It's that powerful.

I've never seen nothing made like this on the SC, now, how many times?

Me and Lethe Hicks made some at the river.

And me and JB made some at the Museum of Appalachia.

And this run here, that's the only three runs I ever seen made with wood, anyway.

I mean, Menlethe made a lot of runs with wood, but this is my third setup at it.

And besides, we only tempered one run with water, Menlethe, because if you

temper it with backage, you end up with a lot more liquor. So that's what we've

done. We're going at it for the volume.

See? Of course, it's still fine liquor, fine liquor.

But it's even finer if you do it this way, temper it with water. But now, a

long time ago, back from when JB made, before I quit, I got caught last time in

98 and I just quit.

So, but we'd run a gallon every two and a half to three minutes. A whole damn

gallon, not a jar, a whole gallon.

I know it bit them out.

And if you run your liquor hot, it makes it mean if you ain't got enough water to

keep that worm getting cool.

When you run it hot, it makes it mean fire in hell.

It'll burn your throat out to drink it.

After we get this tempered, I'm gonna take me about a half a damn teacup full

of it and drink it if it knocks my ass plum off them weeds.

I had an old 46 model Willis Jeep and it had a pinhole deep in the gas tank under

the driver's seat.

I'd pour a gallon of gas in it that morning when I left Cosby.

And it'd take me all the way to the top of Snowbird Mountain, that one gallon

would.

I always kept me another gallon in the back of it, so I could pour it in at

that evening when I headed off to Snowbird to get back to Cosby again.

So, I happened to look.

Damn, I'd forgot to set my gallon of gas in there.

I hadn't tempered the liquor. I just set it in the Jeep and I had it numbered

like that. The jugs, I had it in gallon glass jugs and I had them numbered.

Number two is your highest jug and number three.

Number one's got a little bit of condensation in it out of the worm, but

two and three is kick-ass liquor, my shots.

I poured that number two jug in there.

No Jeep wouldn't start no way. It didn't have no compression in the motor. You

always had to roll it off the start. You had to park it on a hill or you wasn't

going to start it.

I just had to pour that gallon of shots in there.

I pushed it off. Damn, you couldn't see it from the blue smoke.

But like I said before, I poured the shots in it.

I met old man Nick Pass coming up the mountain in that four-wheel drive before

the truck.

He was just a-flying.

He said, Popcorn and Big Laws down yonder at Ray Mathis' house, he said.

He said, you better turn around and go back to the side of the snowbird.

I said, hell, I ain't got no gas. I've run out of gas.

Well, he said, let's see if we can siphon some ass truck.

I had a hose laying in the back of the old Jeep.

We couldn't get that hose to fit in that truck gas tank. It made it wouldn't go

in some way.

So I told him, I said, that's when I poured the shots to it.

I said, I'll make a damn thing run.

I pulled them shots down there and farted off.

You couldn't see it from the blue smoke.

I backed it up in the woods, turned around, went across the backside of

Snowbird by the tire and down the mountain, come out on Gracieport and

went on to Cosby with my liquor and everything else.

One time I had me up four barrels, and every time I went, the barrels would be

down so much, and your liquor's on top.

When it works off your liquor, it all comes to top.

But every time I go running, all four barrels would be low. And I checked and

checked for leaks.

Not nary a damn one of them leaked.

And I happen to know somebody that's stealing my beer.

So I went up to Crosby and got me four one-pound boxes of Epsom salts, and I

poured one in each barrel.

And I went back later on. Sure enough, they was down like they had been before.

But this other fella, seen these other two fellas that stole my beer, said they

had a jug in each hand, or two jugs or something.

He said they'd go a little while and they'd take them a big drink. They'd go

a little while and take them a big drink.

He said he just happened to be out squirrel hunting and seen what was going

on.

He said in a few minutes, said they wouldn't get ten feet like that to drop

their britches and shit.

And we had some shots to give them a shit, sure enough.

And when I put it back again, see them epsom salts won't hurt it after you boil

it in there, but if you drank it out in that beer, it'll get you.

But I never did have no more beer stole.

That was it.

When they first opened that interstate in 68, I was coming off Snowbird, I was

about drunk.

I had a load of liquor in the back of that old 46 Jeep.

I got down there right before you get to Waterville exit there, coming down the

green corner of the road.

Down there must have been a hundred highway patrols and sheriffs and rescues

and stressed out limos.

I didn't know what in the hell was going on. They were having a ribbon cutting

ceremony for that Interstate 40 when they opened it in 1968.

But they didn't pay me no attention about more nothing. I just shut the

motor off on that old Jeep car. It didn't have no muffler.

You'd be hurt for five miles. I shut the motor off just like a coast rat.

Threw them there and they never even seen me.

I got by and they didn't get me.

Now them beans cooked in that cast iron pot, they don't look very

appetizing at all.

But that's some of the best eating that you'll ever eat in your life.

Instead of mine, they stay warm.

Oh, that's pretty.

Damn.

Damn, I believe that's where I have five flat stuff hunting instead of four.

Goddamn.

Well,

the more than I took of that, it went to my head just flying.

This is a powerful ship, watch this.

See when that I told you about that paste when it gets hot when that hot

heat hits it it gets harder to master dick It's still clear and that sign is

still not lost its proof

that's clear ain't it oh that's number 10.

Down a road here from me, that old holler tree, where you lay down a dollar

or two.

Then you go round the bend, when you come back again, there's a jug of that

old Mountain Dew.

Oh, they call it that old Mountain Dew, and them that refuse it are few.

I'll hush up my mug if you feel I'm my jug with the good old mountain dew.

Well, Uncle Morty sawed off in short.

Measures about four foot two.

But he thinks he's a giant when he gets him a pint of that good old Mountain

Dew.

They call it that old Mountain Dew.

And them that refuse it are few.

I'll shove my mug and fill up my jug with that good old Mountain Dew.

Now the preacher, he came by, his head was mighty high, said his wife was down

with the flu.

Thought that he just ought to get a quart on that good old mountain dew.

They call it that old mountain dew.

Hand them that refuse it off you.

I love shoving my mug and filling my jug with that good old mountain dew.

One more time.

You ain't coming down much, though, are you?

Let me stick my head down there a minute.

Don't get too far down in there. You can't get out.

John Hardy was a desperate little man.

He carried two guns every day.

He shot down a man on the West Virginia line.

You ought to see John Hardy get away.

Where your sins can hardly get away.

There's something else on this.

If your water won't bead, it won't make liquor.

Here on the north side where this won't make it.

The black ewes.

Getting anywhere Floyd?

Yeah.

Show this girl, look at there Abigail.

Watch.

That's why they call it far water.

Be ready to go to market.

Straight to the Asheville Farmer's Market.

Gene Moorfield.

He used to be a professional wrestler in the circuit.

23 years of it. His name was Thundercloud. Chief Thundercloud. Chief

Thundercloud.

And I have proof with a man that owns

Cocke County Wholesale that

him and Gene used to walk in them bars in Cocke

County and close them down.

And by God,

I've been told, I don't know what's the truth or not, but they said one night

that Moorfield went in the bar over on Bobby.

That's the truth.

And you don't go to a bar in Bobby unless you've got balls as big as that

bucket over there. They got them.

They told me.

Now I'm saying they told me.

I wasn't there.

But they told me that he walked in that bar, and he went in there and he shut

the bar down.

All the patrons in the bar, get the hell out of here, they left.

The man that runs the place, the bartender, said, I ain't going no damn

where.

Morfield cut him with an ass of bitches and threw him through a goddamn swinging

door. So I'm out in the parking lot.

Put them out in the goddamn yard.

I guess them old days is over down there now.

See, what it was, I was about drunk and I went in there.

And I went in to get me another beer, and he wouldn't sell me one. He said, I

had enough. And I said, no, I said, I'll let you know when I've had enough.

And so he made me mad, and that's when I cleared the whole place and locked the

doors. And I sat in there drunk, all I wanted to drink.

And then when I got ready to leave, I just throwed him a $100 bill down at the

cash register and got up and walked out.

That's how it went.

Run everybody off. See, he didn't take nothing for nothing. He paid for it.

What are you going to do when the creek goes dry, baby?

What are you going to do when the creek goes dry, baby?

What are you going to do when the creek goes dry?

Sit on the bank, let's grow that sky, honey.

Oh, my God.

Well, we're going to tear this son of a bitch down. It'll be the last time he'll

ever be put up.

The first time and the last and all at the same time.

Hell yeah.

It was a long, hard damn day yesterday.

It's a shame turn this good slop out man could put the bag of sugar back in that

and Yeah, I don't like seven more gallon of real damn liquor.

That's just the last one This is it

Drain everything

at one time some keg pot cooling tub.

They're going down the drain, ain't it?

They might be hiding that one

How'd it come out there?

Easy enough, didn't it?

It's that damn breeze.

Don't hit the pot.

Take it above the pot and lay it down up here.

That'll be alright.

I'll bet you, harder to tear down than it was to put on.

Whew, damn.

Buddy, this has been a hard ass job.

You ain't shittin'. I

don't think I ever want to make any more liquor.

Nope, not me either.

That's how it be.

No, that's the whole thing.

Yeah, that's the whole thing.

That's what got me too.

Well, I hate to pour this good stuff out, but I don't need it no more.

Look at that corn down the bottom there, see it?

Them damn wildlife will get drunk now, by God.

Damn, that's heavy.

Them birds, buzzards or crows or whatever eat that there, that corn's

full of alcohol.

They'll fly into one of them damn trees and bust their damn head.

Damn.

It's going out for its last time.

Well, we finally got the damn thing on here.

It'll be the last time this'll ever be fooled with.

I got all the making liquor I wanted just yet. I ain't gonna never make no

more.

Because I ain't able to start with.

About to kill me.

You carrying your liquor with you?

No, I ain't got none of the liquor. I give all... They can't catch me with

none of it because I give it to my spectators. I had several people up here

watching this.

They took it home with them for a souvenir, more or less.

So... I ain't got no liquor. I doesn't give it away.

Well, I believe I'm gonna head off a mountain if I can get this thing

started.

Hang on.

Hang

on.

We'll be right back.

I got these up all day.