Original subtitles

This time on "Moonshiners"--

I need the same liquors in those jugs.

Joey Arrington, he wants to break the land speed record

in a stock car.

- Hot dog. - Ooh.

This is a huge run for us.

And we've got Joey's stamp on it, the pear.

Oh, yeah, it's coming out right now.

Kelly... what the hell?

All that hard work we did to mash these peaches is strewn

all over the ground. - All right, here we go.

What I'm gonna do is make us a big net.

Hopefully these bears can't get to it.

- This is the moment of truth. - Just don't kill me from above.

Peaches is good. Blueberries is good.

Why wouldn't they be good together?

Digger and I, we can use a payday.

- You smell that? - What in the hell?

Sulfur dioxide.

It may have cost us a whole run of damn liquor.

This is how we make the moonshine.

Keep your eyes open. That's all you gotta do.

- Henry. - What is it, what?

Listen.

You hear that? Listen.

That's the cops.

We are so.

In Polk County, North Carolina, after fleeing his underground

still site when a team of surveyors came too close for

comfort, Josh returns to the scene of the crime, only to

discover law enforcement dismantling a decade's worth of

hard work.

They're taking my still, Henry.

Everything we've been through to build this, put it all

together, make it all good, the deer stand,

everything we have here, everything I've built, gone.

This ain't happening.

What's he got in his hand?

Oh, man, he got that cap.

Beautiful cap, man.

Yep, cleaned it completely out. Ain't nothing left in there.

Yeah, that's it.

Thumpers, worms, caps.

They fixing to dump the mash, Henry.

Oh, man.

Henry, what're we gonna do now?

Well, tell you what, I don't know about you, hoss,

but we're out of here. We're going back to Virginia.

Yeah, man.

I'm lucky I'm not in jail.

I just lost my still site, lost my still, my equipment.

Looks like we're on our way to Virginia, where I know that I'm safe.

I'm not gonna go to jail.

I'm gonna lay low in Virginia till things cool down.

We need to be gone.

Let's roll, come on,.

What you doing, Puss?

Just sitting here listening to that creek run.

You ready to make a little peach liquor?

In Cocke County, Tennessee, after extracting

the juice from 40 bushels of hail-damaged peaches...

They're looking like they're mushing up.

Oh, we got juice coming all over.

...Mark and Digger return to their backwoods still site with

plans to turn the free juice into a top-selling

peach brandy recipe.

- What do you say... - Damn.

...that we make some peach-blueberry liquor?

Now, peaches is good. Blueberries is good.

Why wouldn't they be good together?

- I don't know. - A while back,

we bought a bunch of these blueberries.

You know, they've done been paid for.

Now, they were very expensive, but I'm a-thinking,

if we can enhance the peach with these blueberries, it may

be good enough that it'll command a higher price.

I mean, these dehydrated blueberries, taste how

- sweet they are. - Oh, I done did.

They'll lock ya jaws, they're so sweet.

The thing about it is, you know, we'll have to cook

them a little bit to rehydrate them, - Yeah.

but that's less sugar we'll have to use.

Let's do it if we're gonna do it.

These are sweetened blueberries, meaning they've

got sugar in them.

You know, that sugar's gonna come through and it's gonna

make liquor. - You all right back there?

Ah, yeah, hell, I'm gonna take two days to straighten back up.

And if we use half the sugar, that means we've kind of

lessened the blow of the expense of

those blueberries.

First thing we need to do is get some water heating.

You know, we finally got

everything milled into the still site.

We're gonna make a whole tote-full of mash.

We got a still pot full of water heating up to melt

the sugar in the tote and steep the peach juice and pulp.

And we have a smaller pot of water heating up that we're

gonna steep the blueberries in to get them to rehydrate.

Peach juice don't look so appetizing when it ain't got

no artificial dyes in it, does it?

You know, and that's gonna be so good with

them blueberries. - Well, we can hope so.

These are very sweet peaches, and the blueberries are

a little bit tart.

I think they'll complement each other very well.

Damn, that smells good.

Moonshiners never turn down

any ingredient if it's free, no matter what it is,

especially peaches. They're high-dollar.

You know, our profit margin's slim, but sometimes you gotta

step out on the edge if you're gonna make a difference.

With any luckiest blueberry-peach brandy,

it'll turn out to be something people really want.

We can put a little extra price tag on it.

Put it to it.

I know both of them make good liquor on their own.

Maybe they'll make good liquor together.

So I can picture peaches and cream moonshine

over vanilla ice cream.

Yeah, if it sounds good to eat,

probably be good in a drink.

100 miles southwest in Graham County, North Carolina,

Amanda and Kelly haul their half of the same free

peach juice with different plans to concoct a profitable

peach moonshine recipe.

Peaches are one of my favorite ingredients to make moonshine

out of-- I like it, customers like it.

It's one of the best ingredients we can get our hands on.

So heading to the still site to mash this much peaches

is very exciting.

So all these free peaches and all this grain should make

us some peaches and cream liquor, is what you're saying?

Yeah.

Oats tend to lend a creamy mouthfeel to whiskeys.

You add your oats, you cook them,

you add the sugar to sweeten them up, and you

add the peaches. Delicious.

Oat milk is actually a popular dairy substitute.

It has the same creaminess and mouthfeel as regular milk.

So we're gonna use oats in our whiskey.

We could totally make peaches and cream by adding some kind

of a dairy product after distillation, but that would

give it a limited shelf life.

We also have so many peaches, it's enough to do several runs.

So I don't see why we can't play around with some different

ingredients, diversify a little bit, and try to make a more

- specialty recipe. - You got water coming.

I grew up eating oatmeal when I was a kid with sugar in it,

and my mama would treat me with strawberries and peaches

and pears and apples.

So anything that you can mix with cream and oatmeal

sounds good to me.

Why is it not catching?

Oh, my God.

- Oats in the barrels. - Oats in the barrels.

And then we'll just...

Put that pump of hot water over in it?

Yep.

The process of what we're gonna do to mash in today is cook

the oats with the boiling water.

Now you see the creaminess coming out?

Ah, it smells like oatmeal.

Melt our sugar that we're adding to bump our volume

a little bit and add the peach puree on top.

Hot diggity dog. Look at that.

So there's a lot of solids going on in this mash with

the rolled oats, any peach pits that might be left over.

So we're gonna mash in

outside of the pot today in these barrels.

That way we can kind of just siphon the mash off the top into

the pot and avoid any solids going on top of the core burner.

We got more free peaches than we know what to do with.

- They smell delicious. - Oh, yeah.

This mash, while it's cooking here, just the warm aroma

coming off of it, it smells incredible.

All that's left is to feed the little yeast babies.

This is gonna make an amazing alcohol when

it's all fermented off.

Cover these up and get out of here.

Doo, doo, doo, doo.

On my way to Virginia, done lost my still site,

lost my still.

Me and Jim Tom built that still together.

It meant the world to me. I wouldn't take $10,000 for it.

Me and my dad made the last run of liquor we ever made together

before he passed away on that still.

It's been a hell of a season.

I think my best option is just to go on to Virginia with Paige

and Henry and Tickle and just lay low, maybe make a little

bit of liquor with them or something or other.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out

how I'm not sitting in jail right now.

All I can figure is they must be building a case against me,

because why did they not wait for me to come back?

My cousin Brent used to be on the sheriff's department,

so he's got a really good relationship with everybody.

I think I'm gonna call him.

- Hello? - Hello?

Hey.

Cuz, so much, I don't even know where to start.

Did you hear about a, about a bakery blowing up or anything

um, uh, about a bunch of bakery equipment

flying through the air?

Well, most importantly,

they don't have any idea who was running the bakery?

Do me a favor and keep your eyes and ears open and see what you

can come up with for me.

OK, buddy. Appreciate it, cuz.

The good news is they don't have any idea

it was my still site.

Man, am I lucky I didn't go to jail.

Josh, come on, man.

Got a whole lot to do here, son.

It's time to rock-and-roll with it, brother.

Might as well just get up off of that truck.

Man, I know it's part of being an outlaw, part of being

a moonshiner, but it don't make it no easier when you get

caught and you gotta pay the piper.

You know what I mean?

I've lost so many still sites over the years, but this is

the second one I've lost this year, so it really hurts.

They took my favorite still.

Right now, I'm just gonna lay low in Virginia, but I'm still

worried to death that the police are gonna tie me to

that still site. - Good seeing you, boss.

- You doing all right? - I don't know.

I wish I could tell you it was better.

You wouldn't believe all the that's happened.

They took the thumpers. They took the worms.

They took everything. God!

So we're glad to see you here, because I'm gonna

put you to work. - I'm always ready to work.

If I'm gonna be up here, I might as well

make myself useful and go to work.

And I'd rather be working than stewing about everything

that I've lost.

- The race car driver? - Yeah.

You know, he used to bootleg for us years ago.

His son, Joey, reached out to us about doing

a little project. - Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Virginia Native Buddy Arrington

was one of the last professional stock car racers

with true outlaw moonshine roots.

He built his own race cars the hard way, by farming

tobacco, selling used cars, and bootlegging moonshine.

Through the 1970s and '80s, with no factory backing

or big-money sponsors, Buddy raced in his number 67 Dodge,

earning 103 top-ten finishes and over

a million dollars in prize money.

Proof that with backwoods spirit and a little tax-free

ingenuity, a bootlegger could still hold his own with

the best drivers in the world.

- You in or not? - How the heck could I not be?

- Roll with it, then. - Yeah, let's do it.

You know, this year, we really hadn't made

any sales, and we got to make us some money.

It's time to go see Joey and see exactly what

- he's talking about. - All right, Josh.

- Don't wet your pants when you go in there, buddy. - I already am.

You'd never know rolling into Joey's that you're rolling into

some stock car legend's place. It's just an old shopping mall.

He should be right in here, y'all.

What do you think about these, Josh?

Massive. Right up my alley.

It doesn't look like your typical garage.

I can't believe they build motors for stock car

racing here. - There is Joey.

- Henry. - What's going on, buddy?

- Been a while. - Yeah, trying to keep it all straight.

Seeing Henry and Joey together, it's like time never

passed, and they immediately went telling stories

about their dads.

His dad got pulled over with a load of liquor that we'd loaded

in a vehicle that was running about 180 miles an hour.

You know, I was just a young man when

Buddy Arrington started coming and buying liquor off my dad.

Here they are discussing it, I guess, and you can see

they're all liquor in the back seat.

Matter of fact, I loaded him that night

he got caught with that 240 gallons headed to Danville.

- You know, we're going to Cape Canaveral, January 2nd... - All right.

...and we're gonna break the land speed record

for a stock car.

I need you to replicate the same liquors in those jugs

back in 1971 so I can carry it with me to

Cape Canaveral, Florida. - I know what that recipe is,

- it's a wheat-based liquor. - - This is a very special order.

He wants to go down and he wants to break the land speed

record in a stock car.

And he wants the same liquor that his daddy was loaded down

with when he got busted when

he breaks the land speed record.

Can we do something to this liquor?

Something special to it so I can sort of put my checkmark

- on it? - - We could add some fruit to it.

What kind of fruit do you like?

Whatever makes sense to you guys.

You know, personally, I like pear.

Pear would be good, man.

Buddy of ours, Paige, he's got

some pear trees up there, right? - Yeah.

I know a buddy of mine has got some pear trees.

Hopefully, we can get the pears that we need.

We're gonna take a wheat, add a little bit of pear to it.

I think we cut him a good price, don't y'all?

I think so.

What about maybe, what, maybe $60 a gallon?

Around 15 grand. You gonna be OK with that?

You know, I'd much rather just you guys sponsor it

and just give it to me.

- Give it to you? - That's how it works in racing.

Well, I might wanna do that because of Buddy, but I don't

know if other boys go along with it.

Hey, $15,000 is nothing when we set that record.

All right.

Knowing what Joey's gonna do with this liquor, beat that

land speed record, and celebrate in recognition of

his father, there's no better feeling.

Let's roll on with it.

Now it's time for us to get to work.

What do you think, Josh?

I'm like a kid in a candy store here.

So this was an old logging road.

Did they log this whole area? I don't see it.

There's not a lot of old growth here.

- Yeah, it's been logged. - Kelly, what the hell?

What?

There's not a single mash barrel standing up right now.

Are you freaking kidding me?

We just pulled up to the still site, and there's something

seriously wrong.

Unbelievable.

All that hard work we did to mash these peaches is strewn

all over the ground. This mash is gone.

I don't even know what to do at this point.

We've got these game cameras, so we might

as well check some footage.

Let me get this pulled up here. All right, here we go.

That's a really big bear.

And he just spilled the mash barrel.

He literally has got it by the mouth, dragging it around.

We put cameras all around our still site.

Sure enough, we caught them red-handed.

Dude, I don't even want to watch this, to be honest

with you. It's just making me angry.

I mean, it is ridiculous.

I mean, it's like they called the whole family in for

a dad-blamed bear party.

At least they ain't bothered the still.

They don't look like they've tore anything else up.

No, I know, we have to figure out a way to make it work.

Even if we try to come and mash back in, they're just going to

overturn all the barrels again.

We drove all the way to

South Carolina to get these free peaches.

We've already crushed all these peaches with a backhoe, so if

we don't mash them in soon and make some alcohol out of

them pretty fast, we're gonna lose the whole batch.

There's just no time for us to set up a whole other still site

before these peaches go bad,

so we've got to figure out a different solution.

Wait a minute.

You know what you do when you're camping to keep

your stuff bear-proofed? You hang it.

- Right. - We hang our mash.

When you're bear-proofing something, if you're in

the backwoods and there's any bear activity,

you don't keep any food

with you, on you, near you, or anything else.

OK, I can see hanging, like, a backpack.

But suspend four mash barrels in the air?

Let me think on it.

This right here is gonna be one of them redneck-ingenuity

engineering problems. - I guess I'll mash back in

while you figure that out, at least.

Now, at least half of our peaches are totally

destroyed, gone to the bears.

It leaves us very little options to play around and do

different runs with the peaches, but I'm determined

to stick with the peaches-and-cream recipe.

I know the combination of the peaches with the oats is

gonna be a premium product that's gonna fetch us

good money. - There's one saving grace.

We've still got peaches.

If we've made any mash, we'll probably make

a little liquor.

Well, Digger and myself, we're headed into the woods now

to do a run of our peach blueberry that we've got

mashed in.

And, you know, we're really counting on it to

be a showstopper.

- It's bitter, ain't it? - It's got alcohol.

We got a two-by-four to set this pump up on?

I got absolutely everything we need.

This has been a very, very slim season so far for us.

We can kill it.

We worked really hard to make this mash.

Fingers crossed that it's an outstanding drink

because, honestly, Digger and I, we can

use a payday.

You know, them dadgum blueberries is so expensive.

We spent a lot of money, even though we got

the peaches free.

But if it's really good product, it'll command a bigger

price than just peach brandy.

You know, personally, I got a lot riding on this.

Well, we'll be having liquor shortly.

I thought maybe to do something different and make us

stand out a little more.

Nobody that I know of has ever done a peach blueberry brandy,

and we certainly haven't.

Hattie.

- You smell that? - A little bit.

I believe we got a gas leak.

Propane around a liquor still, the leaking ain't good.

I ain't seeing no bubbles, are you?

No.

If you don't play your cards right, it's a recipe

for disaster.

But I smell it. It smells sulfur-y, don't it?

Yeah, it does.

Gets you a nose hit.

- What in the hell? - Sulfur.

I mean, what would have caused that?

Them blueberries were dehydrated, but they don't

preserve nothing with damn sulfur, do they?

Yeah, sulfur dioxide.

We've used dehydrated fruits in the past, but we've never

had a problem with the sulfur dioxide.

Keep in mind these dried blueberries came from a source

we've never used before.

Now I'm gonna bet that there was some type of sulfur

or sulfur gas that been pumped into them blueberries

to keep them from molding.

Apparently boiling it magnifies it.

So me and my bright blueberry idea

may have cost us a whole run of damn liquor.

It don't matter. We got to run it.

- We got to see what we got. - Yeah, we can't stop right now.

Whether it's worth or not.

Right now, I'm sold on the fact that there's

sulfur dioxide preservative on these blueberries that come out

- during the cooking. - There it comes.

- Oh, yeah. - Stout.

Yeah, it's stout. Damn!

This sulfur, it's not dangerous.

It just ain't real pleasant.

I hope it all comes out in them heads.

Ain't nothing comes easy but the hard times.

We're just grasping straws here, really.

We're gonna let a whole lot of heads run off.

Hopefully that'll eliminate the rest of this

odor and smell.

Really, it's just kind of a slap in the face,

especially for me because I'm the one that talked Digger

into going with the blueberries.

Yeah, they's plenty of flavor in there that we're

looking for. Then that odd flavor comes in.

That damn rotten egg sulfur comes in.

If we're gonna salvage this run at all, we've got to try to

figure out some way to remove it.

My question is, is there any way to take the sulfides out

of it after it's been run? - There's several things.

Rerunning it comes to mind right off the bat.

We can aerate it. That brings some of it off.

It'll gas off. Charcoal filter it.

The last effort we'll throw into it is rerunning.

Well, I say that we run it as far as we can, get all

the liquor out of that mash,

- start fixing it. - Yeah.

Can't make no sales if you ain't got no liquor,

so we ain't got no choice but to run this.

It's pretty and clear, though.

That's a plus.

I think if we incorporate all the corrections we know,

I think we might very well just come away with clean liquor.

Keep our fingers crossed.

Beautiful. Come on back.

Gold, Paiger, gold.

We got a really big order.

240 gallons of liquor for Joey Arrington.

He's the son of legendary stock car racer, Buddy Arrington.

Paige.

Now, he wants the same amount of liquor that his dad got

busted with when he heads down south to break the stock car

land speed record.

1,600 gallons worth of still right there.

Bringing these two 800-gallon pots and setting up where

our steam rig is, it's darn near impossible.

I'm afraid these things would float right out of the bed of

the truck as we're going up the river.

So we're gonna set up at a total different still site.

Flat spot right here, put them end to end.

We'll double them up by the back.

This still site is great, and I'm lucky to be back here

with Tickle, Paige, and Henry.

Right now, I'm just gonna lay low in Virginia until

I'm sure I ain't gonna get busted for that still site

back in North Carolina.

Hey, last time I was in Virginia, I was in

a wheelchair, and now I'm totin' block.

I've been pretty torn up since the law busted me

and took all my stuff.

I'm just gonna make this whiskey, make the money,

- get back into action. - She looks good.

Let's do it.

Get these things mashed in, boss.

We should have our product right now, but instead,

we're coming back to mash in all over again.

So we're back in here getting ready to mash in this stuff.

We're gonna mash in right on this pallet and lift this baby

up and hope for the best.

Let's light this bad boy up and get our second mash going.

We just used all the end of our peaches

to make this mash in.

So whatever Kelly has planned has got to work.

Otherwise, we've blown a lot of our time and all the money

that we could make and wasted a truckload of peaches.

So what I'm gonna do here is make us a big net

on this pallet.

The plan on this thing is we've got a bunch of ratchet straps.

We've got a pulley system.

We've got the winch on the Jeep.

Basically, we're gonna pull this thing up in the air

and we're gonna just leave her hanging

right there out of reach of the bears.

Well, the trees are gonna support the weight?

Well, the trees will bow in a little bit, but I mean--

Just don't kill me from above while you're up there.

It'll be fine.

I am left with the task now of mashing in again,

more peaches, more oats.

One way or another, we are gonna have

peaches and cream.

On this thing, we've got to create a strap hanging from

one tree to the other so that we can be out in the middle of

where the bears can't reach.

I'm pretty sure this is gonna work, Amanda.

Well, I certainly hope so.

And then we're gonna create basically a basket with

this pallet and the barrels and strap.

Will you get that one and hold it up mid-barrel?

OK.

We're gonna strap these barrels together,

then strap them to the pallet,

get everything contained to where it can't get loose,

and we're just gonna hang it in the air, and hopefully

these bears can't get to it.

This is gonna be a heavy pallet.

Yeah.

So now it's time to get the Jeep around here where

we can make the winch go where we want it, and we're gonna see

if we can't pull this thing in the air.

This is the moment of truth. This thing's really heavy.

It's a couple thousand pounds we're dealing with.

You know, hopefully we should be able to pull this mash up

with the Jeep winch and just work it like an elevator.

Let it up and down as we please.

Oh yeah, baby!

Now we have hundreds of gallons of mash suspended from

the trees above our still site.

I really hope this works and the bears can't get to

it now-- if I come back

and our mash is messed up this time, I am not

gonna be a happy camper.

We finally got this thing up where it needs to be.

Now I gotta get it loose from the winch on the Jeep and tie

it off to the strap so that it'll hang there

while we're gone.

I hope that's bear proof enough.

Well, we'll give it about a week and come back and check.

- It's all I know to do. - That's all we can do.

I'm just hoping that it's still hanging here when we come back.

I tell you what, Josh, it's going to take

an awful lot of pears to make 240 gallons of liquor.

It's not like we can just go to the grocery store and grab

a few bags of pears and be done with this.

We've got a great big order for some white liquor with

a hint of pear.

240 gallons

for world-renowned engine manufacturer and former

stock car racer, Joey Arrington.

Henry says he knows a guy that's got a pear tree.

Let's just hope there's enough pears on it to mash in for

240 gallons worth of liquor.

If there's no pears, what in the world we gonna do?

All I can say is I hope pears are even ripe at the moment.

It's not like we got weeks

or months to fulfill this order.

Joey needs this run in the next couple days.

If we can't find these pears and make this mash and make

this, we're gonna be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Hot dog, Pickles. You right about that.

I'd say it's the right time of the year, wouldn't you?

I'm gonna say you're right.

First thing we do is taste one.

And you wouldn't believe how juicy and sweet they are.

- Mm, well, that's good. - - Let's get this barrel loaded.

I'm gonna say you're right. Let's start getting some of

these off of the ground first.

Then we'll get the ones up there in the tree.

This tree is so slam full of pears, it looks like the limbs

are about to break on it. We hit the mother lode.

This baby is loaded.

Ha, ha, ha. Ha!

I quickly realized that shaking the tree works much better.

And the pears start falling off like crazy.

Come on, Pickles, get some pears.

Yeah, well, I don't know if

that's a good idea or not, Josh.

This tree here is loaded down with pears.

I said, "You know what? I'm smarter than this.

"I'm gonna go around to the other side.

What possibly could go wrong?"

Ooh!

- That tree just got me right in the eye. - - You all right?

That might leave a mark, what do you reckon?

- Pretty damn sure I am. - I'm glad it wasn't my fault.

I'm gonna blame you any damn way, Josh.

It's got me good, too, boy.

Boy, one the size of a bowling ball come down from the very

tip top of the tree. Busted me right in the eye.

Luckily, didn't take my eye completely out of my head.

I can see it right now. I'm gonna go home,

and the old lady's gonna ask me

who I got in a fight with, and I got to

tell her a freaking pear. - I got peared.

I got peared.

I'm glad you're doing that without me under that tree

this time.

God almighty.

Well, I believe that's about it, buddy.

God, I hope so.

If there was two pear trees,

I don't know that I'd live through it.

Josh and I, we wind up with almost a completely full

55-gallon barrel of pears.

Let's roll on. Henry's waiting.

We got to get back as quick as we can and get mashed in.

Definitely got a couple hundred pounds here.

- Whoo! - - Boy, she's swelling up quick.

All right.

What y'all think about that?

That was quick enough.

- What I'm talking about. - Oh, yeah.

Man, these things look good.

We got a 240-gallon order of wheat whiskey

from Joey Arrington.

He's the son of Buddy Arrington, famous

stock car racer and bootlegger.

Hey, yeah! There you go!

Joey's wanting the same whiskey that his daddy got

busted with back in 1971, which is wheat whiskey.

But Joey wants to put his own twist on it,

and he wants a hint of pear.

- Check this out. - Man.

I'm not looking to overwhelm the flavor of the wheat.

Oh, easy.

All we're trying to do is add just a touch of pear to it.

I think that's enough, that first barrel.

Keep on going. Let's roll.

It's just a little touch different, and that's the thing,

that's what Joey's looking for.

And I think a couple barrels should be able to do the trick.

Paige, what's it look like over there?

- Nothing in this one. - Let's get it loaded up

and get it to the still site.

Now that we got all our pears ground up, we're gonna run to

our still site.

We're gonna get this grain liquor mashed in and this pear.

- Whoa! - Whoa!

We'll get the water in the stills, throw the fire to it.

You know, this is huge, this order.

- All right, I'm gonna crank it. - - Bring it on, son.

And being able to work with Joey Arrington, his dad

and my dad all goes back years and years and years, it means

a lot to me, man.

We're getting it there.

And then to be able to get it done and know that money's

there waiting on us, that means even more to me.

Tickle, both stills are full.

That's good.

Now, let's get that fire under this baby.

All right.

It's gonna take a little time for that to heat up, so let's

get the pears off and get the water in them,

because we're gonna do a coal mash.

Mashing in fruit's way different than

mashing in grains-- when you're mashing in grains,

you gotta heat the grains up to

convert those starches into sugars.

With fruit, you don't have to heat up those fruits to bring

that out. Those sugars are already there.

Nice.

Also, heating the fruit up sometimes releases like

a bitter flavor. You don't want that in a mash.

She's boiling, y'all.

Let's get that grain, get this baby cooked in.

Doing a cold mash is gonna preserve the flavor of

the fruit that's gonna transfer over into the liquor.

Let's start stirring the young'un.

Yeah, let's do it.

Now, with this grain, we're gonna cook this in.

What that does is take the starches that's in these

grains and converts them over into sugars, and that's what

the yeast can use to make our alcohol and our flavor.

- Here you go, brother. - Let her rip, tater chip.

Ooh!

We've got the pears and the grain mashed in.

All we gotta do now is wait for all this stuff to work off,

and then we'll run it.

One more step closer to payday.

Job well done.

There's a lot riding on this front, so hopefully this works.

Hell yeah, they're still hanging up, Amanda.

This is a good sign.

Coming into the still site, I can see the mash barrels are

hanging right where we left them.

They don't look disturbed,

so I guess it worked. No sign of bears.

Yeah, here we go.

Look at him. He's spinning it, and after dark.

- I almost feel bad for him, but-- - I don't.

But then I don't, yeah.

Just the sheer amount of bear traffic alone, seeing how many

bears have come try to get this mash is crazy.

Clearly, moving forward, we just have to keep hanging

our barrels for the rest of the season because it works.

You got a good insurance policy, Kelly?

I mean, you're like surfing up there now.

So this is basically like a peach brandy, but we mixed

some oats in there to give it like a peaches and cream.

Oats kind of can give a nice, creamy mouthfeel.

And to buffer the peaches a little bit, since we had such

a struggle with mashing back in several times and oats help to

extend our ingredients, but I think they're

gonna taste really good with the peaches.

That's good. That's sour.

- There's alcohol in there, yeah. - Your peach oats.

Let's get the pump, fire the generator up

and start pumping this in.

We're finally getting the mash in the pot,

and that feels really good.

We've had a lot of hurdles this year.

I mean, one thing after another.

But if we can get some good spirit coming out of the still

today, I'm gonna feel a lot better about it.

There we go.

I really hope this run comes out pretty good because this

has been a lot of effort spent, but in the end,

when we get it out, it's worth it.

- Yep, she's starting to run. - - All right.

Oh, I can smell the peach right here.

It's got that fruitiness.

This liquor's starting to run.

It's smelling really, really good.

Amanda has hit nail on the head on the scent of this stuff.

If it tastes anything like it smells,

it's gonna be delicious.

Mmm, yeah. I really like that.

Super fruity. It's sweet.

- You nailed that. - It's got like a sweetness to it, too.

The peaches came through.

They're nice and sweet and floral, and it's that nice,

creamy oatmeal.

It's peaches and cream in a jar.

I love it.

No peaches and cream for the bears this time.

I'm tasting this, and I just keep thinking back to that

story of "Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears," right?

Where it's not perfect and it gets messed up

and then it's just right, right?

So, like our peaches and cream, it's just right.

And the three little bears, they're not gonna get

any of this.

Damn.

Well, I hope we can clean this liquor up, Puss.

We ran this peach-blueberry mash,

but the preservatives from the blueberries added this

really pungent, unsavory smell and flavor like sulfur.

Still got that smell.

You know, this right here, this is what was gonna get

us started to finance the rest of the season.

Now, here we're getting toward the end of the season,

we ain't even struck a lick yet.

I'm not gonna make this any bigger than the bottom of

a five-gallon bucket.

Yeah, that'd be just about right.

So here we are today. We're gonna aerate this.

We're gonna get it charcoal-filtered,

and we're gonna run it again.

As them bubbles come through that liquor, it's gonna pick up

some of that sulfur dioxide.

We're gonna make a real quick, little build out of

copper tubing and holes in it and simply attach it to

a little, portable air compressor.

And we'll let it aerate an hour or so.

Let's just let that take and run for a bit, you want to?

Yeah.

Pumping this air into it and the sulfur molecules will

attach themselves to them and then they'll evaporate

into the air.

You know, that's the first step.

Then we'll pour it over charcoal to try to filter it

even further.

Yeah, I can tell

that rotten-egg aroma's done a lot less pungent.

Nonexistent beyond this.

Charcoal's an age-old purifier.

People filter their water over it.

Aquariums, they take the ammonias out so fish don't

get stressed.

And all it is is burnt white oak.

Hopefully this cleans it up.

We've done all we know to do.

We're lighting the pot.

We're gonna do the spirit run here.

This redistillation process, this final step

in the correction. So, it's now or never.

And honestly, I'm a little nervous about it.

Well, we've got her lit up.

Oh , what was it you called that?

Lactobacillus.

That's where you get that little fruity-floral note from.

- Looky there. - - Take a little bite of it.

No, sir.

Every other time that I've run liquor, the mash had a little

lacto in it.

Lay it to it.

It made fine liquor. That's not a deal-killer.

Looky here, Puss.

- Oh, I'm telling you. - That's crazy, ain't it?

Man, show up at the booger board contest with a chunk of

that, he'd be a shoo-in, wouldn't he?

Feels a little like it, too.

I tell you, it looks for the world like intestines once

you cleaned them out.

By God, that's a dandy.

That ain't a bit attractive, is it?

It ain't.

Well, I hope this fixes that.

I mean, we got to get rid of that damn rotten egg sulfur.

You know, every step of the process we're hoping takes

a little more of this sulfur away.

Well, I'm gonna get the fruits.

OK.

You know, things that really hurt you on a spirit run,

you lose a lot of the flavor.

When it strips the bad out, it strips good as well.

So we're gonna put fresh peaches

and more blueberries into the thumper.

Let's see what they put in here to preserve these things.

One dry pint, don't say a thing in there.

Now, these blueberries we're using today, they're fresh.

They're not preserved.

No chance of anything in these blueberries

causing us any grief.

Oh, we getting hot up here.

If this don't remove our problem and take this

egg smell, sulfur away, there's nothing else that

we could humanly done to have done it.

So we're doing everything that we know to do.

- Looky here. - Oh, there's liquor.

You know, this is our most important endeavor right now,

having one run that we can legitimately sell without

any problems.

That's why we're going to these pains.

I mean, we don't have time to make any more mash, we don't have

a hell of a lot of money to finance any more mash.

We're gonna make some money.

It's gin-clear.

See what you think.

That liquor's good enough to sell now, ain't it?

Yeah, we can sell it.

We got a good, strong peach with a hint of blueberries.

This is what a good brandy is.

It's not overpowering the fruit.

The main thing here is we got no more sulfur,

rotten-egg smell or taste.

Here we go.

You know, me and Mark finally get to the point

where we're finally gonna make a little money and maybe get

things back to normal, it's a pretty good feeling in

my world right now. - Salvage liquor, Puss.

We didn't take none of the damn weight out of it, did we?

No.

- See what we got here, Henry. - Yeah, man.

This pear looks good.

We've got a great big order for Joey Arrington.

Joey's daddy, Buddy Arrington, got busted with 240 gallons of wheat liquor.

Is she good and bitter?

- Oh, yeah, man. - Oh, yeah.

Joey wants the same liquor, but he wants pears in it.

And that's the exact amount of liquor that Joey wants to take

and try to break the land speed record for a stock car.

It's time to run this liquor

and actually get to this payday.

You know, that wheat, that wheat's got a mild flavor.

This pear should pull right on through.

- Don't you think, Henry? - - We'll find out.

We've got these pots fired up and we're heating up

our grain mash right now.

Now's the time to start loading these pears over in there so

everything can get good and heated up together.

We're gonna bring back some history right here and a big

sale on top of that, put big bucks in our pocket.

To get this 240-gallon run and get it as quickly as

we possibly can, we're gonna run both 800-gallon pots

at one time.

We're gonna neck them over, both of them into one doubler,

and then come out with one pipe, go over

into our condenser.

We can run all of this, one shot.

- Is it flowing up there? - Oh, yeah, we're good.

Aren't you glad that you decided to come and help us

with this? - This is so legendary,

there wasn't no way to say no.

It's almost back like riding a motorcycle again.

I tell you what, Josh, you can't feel that

- good again. - What do you mean?

I don't know if I can get on that motorcycle and ride.

Just tell us where your money's buried.

- Hey, she warm. - She's coming, boys.

She's warm.

Oh, yeah, it's coming out right now.

You know, Joey wants us to replicate this 240 gallons of liquor.

And I tell you what, I know we run on big submarine pots

and everything up here, and we generally make a lot

of liquor. - It's running good.

I'll swap that bucket out.

But with the season we've had, it's time to make some

- damn money. - Mmm, that aroma.

- It sure does smell good. - - You smell pear.

You know, you can go a lot by the smell, but in this case

here, you don't know what it's gonna come out to be.

That's good stuff.

Joey wanted pear whiskey,

And it's pear whiskey that Joey's gonna get.

I think he's gonna be proud to take this whiskey down there,

to be in honor of his dad.

Well, look, we got them pears at a cost, though.

If that black eye is the worst thing that could happen to us

during this whole damn deal, we're doing great.

Well, look, it's easy for you to say,

Pass me that jar, it ain't your eye.

- Whoo! - Breathe that.

This liquor right here, I tell you, I can taste the wheat

in it. I can taste the pear in it.

It's got good, high proof on it.

These are all the hallmarks that Joey wanted us to hit.

I tell you what, let's shut this thing down.

God, that's good. He's gonna love that.

This is the best of both worlds.

We got one recipe, which was the same liquor that Joey's

daddy, Buddy, got busted with, and we've got Joey's stamp

on it, the pear.

Only thing we gotta do is get it jugged up

and get it to Joey Arrington.

Let's get these stills cleaned out and get the hell out of

here, is what I say.

We know where the still's at.

We just gotta figure out where, when, and how

we're gonna intercept it.

All I can think about is my still

being torn to shreds.

We're building a decoy.

Serious change of plans here.

The law's gonna be here any second.

How about some nice hard seltzer that's like 10%.

Me and Jerry definitely don't want Ken to know that we don't

know how to do a hard seltzer.

Let's roll with it.

Please don't blow up on me.

This bootlegger's wanting 150 gallons delivered in two weeks.

Yeah, fella, he's wanting a lot more liquor.

Our most important buyer right here.

It makes me sick.