Moonshiners (2011–…): Season 10, Episode 20 - Backwoods Bonanza - full transcript
On the season
finale of Moonshiners.
Daniel Maner.
Word is on
the street, one of the guys
that you been selling to
has got caught.
We just got to get back
to straighten
this stuff out,
figure out what's going on.
-There's a damn cop,
the hell.
-*bleep*. Oh, my God.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
-you ain't got nothing.
-I got a process.
You can put liquor
in a barrel,
put it on a ship
and in one month,
it gives the equivalent
that a year would.
-So, the bucket's under it.
-Here we go.
-Well, hello.
-What's Carol doing here?
Carol will be
our best bet
on getting this liquor
from the still site
to the stash house.
I've been going back and forth
and I feel like I'm being,
like, watched.
This is how
we make the moonshine.
Thinking it's time to get
started making
some shine.
-Damn straight it is.
-Time to get some
heat rolling.
In Franklin County,
Virginia.
After mashing in
the first batch
from their two ton supply
of malted corn,
Tickle, Henry, and Josh
are kicking off the maiden run
of their eight pound
operation.
- Oh, sorry, guy.
- It's all right, buddy.
Man, there's been
a whole lot of work
put into this still site,
more than I've ever
put into one.
But you know what,
it's finally paying off.
We've got eight pots in here,
and every one of these pots
is bigger than
most moonshiners
has ever thought
about running.
Josh, come here, I want
to show you what I was
telling you the other day.
We got that malted corn
mashed in
and it's looking good.
Been here five days,
now what that beer feel like?
Feel warm, ain't it?
Phew, she's ready, boy.
-Still warm, that one.
-Yeah.
Insulation, won't tell you
about that insulation,
installation at black pipe
does the trick.
You don't have to heat
your building.
I've worked my ass off,
making heated rooms
and everything else,
tried to control
the environment
-and the whole time, all I had
to do was this.
-Yep.
I was tellin' you
all those years ago.
-Fire 'em up.
-Let's run it.
It's fine, baby.
Get those warm.
-There we go, baby.
-Tear 'em up, little bit.
-She's burnin' clean.
That's what we want, boy.
-I love this old man,
It's all sorts of...
quiet, cheap.
Everybody's toting them
propane tanks round.
This is our plan, right?
We will run
the two in silence.
Then we'll uncap everything,
boom, we're moving cap
right over to here.
Put an extension
on existing pipe,
then we've got
15, 20 minutes,
-we'll have liquor again.
-Sweet.
When you're running
a moonshine operation
the size that we're running,
from two tons of
malted corn,
we're going to need
big buyers.
Ain't no sense in making
this much moonshine,
if you can't get rid of
this much moonshine.
I've got a sell
for it up north.
So, Henry got to dig into
some of his daddy's files.
He has got some
great, big buyers,
up north in Philly.
Churn that bitch.
And these guys, they buy big.
Since the days
of Prohibition.
Philadelphia has been
synonymous with
mass quantities of moonshine.
In the early 1920s,
more than one million gallons
of illegal booze
flowed into Philly every year,
supplying the nearly 20,000
illicit speakeasies
and nip joints operating
at the time.
It's estimated that
these establishments
grossed upwards
of $40 million dollars a year,
the equivalent of 526 million
tax free dollars today.
Presently, it's estimated
that 10 million shots
of illegal moonshine
are poured every year
at the secret speakeasies
and nip joints
that still operate
in Philadelphia,
and the pandemic has caused
the city's thirst
for illegal liquor
to spike once again.
How are you going
to get this liquor out here,
you know, sort of left
that up to you.
Well, Henry, I've got
the bootlegging
in this covered.
Hold on, hold on,
you say you got it covered?
-I got it covered.
-You know, that don't mean
that you gonna be
out bootleggin'.
'Cause I'm gonna tell you
that right straight up front.
You said you got it
covered, I just want
to make sure that
you understand it,
you know, you need
to be here.
-I understand that.
-All right, son,
If, you know, something
happens, you know who
it comes falls back on.
Well, I'm aware of that.
All right, boys, I believe
we're about ready to cap
this thing off,
she's been staying
with for a little while.
Sign her on in, Josh.
That's it, right there.
- There we are.
- Ready to roll.
We got a hell of a still site.
It's looking good.
Just how did you come up with that idea?
-Double worm like that?
-When I built all
these stills,
I was like, man, gonna have
to have a killer worm for this
and I thought, well, hell,
I'll just run two worms
in one box
and run two stills
at the same time,
We've done that with two worms
in a box,
but we've never ran
two stills.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-In the same box
the two worms,
-that's pretty cool.
-Yeah,
-That's pretty cool.
-Takes a lot of water flow,
-or you're overheat it.
-Yeah.
Hey, fellows, look,
we got liquor running.
-Fill the buckets on it.
-Yeah, there we go.
-That's a good, steady stream.
-Hell yeah.
Mm-hmm.
-Hell, yeah.
-Check that out.
-It's got a...
-That malted corn.
-Yeah.
-You can taste that?
I can taste it even
in the high proof. Yeah.
-Caught me off guard there
at first.
-Yeah.
I like running liquor
at that speed.
I mean, this whole operation,
you did it.
Put eight of them
together like that.
This is our first round
at this still site
and I gotta tell you,
hooking up with these guys.
This is the stuff legends
are made of.
Man, this is how I like
to fill jugs right here,
I mean, this ain't
playing around.
You know, when we were running
the liquor the way
we were running,
we can't put this stuff
in mason jars,
we got to use gallon jugs.
For one, you just can't find
mason jars nowadays,
two, they're heavy.
The whole time I've been doing
this since the day
I set out on my own.
This is the way
I imagined it running.
You tell me how much
you like that
when you're on about
to 250 of jugs.
I will 'cause about
that 150th one,
I will be counting
some change.
Next run, we'll make
even more.
Boy, I tell you what,
that is some stout
smelling whiskey.
Right on. Hell,
that looks good.
What she taste like?
Oh, my God.
Smell is unbelievable.
That malted corn
did the trick.
-That's not the usual taste,
isn't it?
-Ah.
You know it does
got a different flavor to it.
I guess this is really
a single malt moonshine,
isn't it?
Something rare.
Throw that valve.
Shake it off here,
put it in the barrel.
In the foothills of
the Smoky Mountains,
Mark and Digger
are cranking out multiple runs
to fill 11 White Oak
aging barrels
with their Tennessee whiskey.
We've made a couple of runs
and we're clicking
around alone.
Yeah, I can't believe
Wayne had no
major catastrophes.
Hush, jinx.
I know I'm
the superstitious one.
- Oh, Lord, I spoke
too soon.
- Yeah.
It is the one,
the only, Killer Beaz.
What do you need?
We're busier than a sick cat.
We ain't got none.
Yeah, we don't got none.
I love the look
of that.
-Gentleman, thank you.
-Kind of like hard work
for babies.
You know, we told you
when we gave you
that five gallons earlier
that it wouldn't be
no more that,
-that's our, that's our,
-That's all there is.
that's our retirement liquor.
-Yeah.
-It ain't for sale.
Hey, let me ask you something.
It's not available right now
and it ain't corn liquor,
but it's got corn in it, it's,
it's a three grain blend.
Tennessee whiskey,
this is Mark and Digger,
aged Tennessee whiskey.
Well, let me,
let me work on somethin'.
We have the Mark and Digger
Tennessee whiskey,
but it's not five weeks old
yet, let alone five years,
I have no idea
what Digger's thinking,
this is friggin' lunacy.
I got a couple of things
I got to check in to make sure
I can make this happen.
If I can get it in play.
It'll be in their hands
in five to six months.
$225 a gallon each.
I'll have you a 100 gallons.
All right, see you, bye.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
you ain't got nothing.
You've lost
your ever loving mind.
I've got an idea,
it may come to fruition.
I'm gonna tell you something,
sometimes,
you let your mouth
write checks
that your ass can't cash.
Well, I tell you what, boy,
these damn dead drops
has really helped us out
-in this cold weather,
ain't it?
-Sure has carried us
through the winter
real good, that's for sure.
One county
to the south
with hard times driving
high demand.
Mike and Jerry are quickly
turning their
140 gallon stash,
into cold hard cash.
My buddy Allen
up in Kentucky.
He called me up this morning,
they ordered 25 gallons.
When does he want it?
As quick as we can
get it done.
Well, hell, let's go to the
stash house and load it up.
We've been doing a lot
of small sales and dead drops
and stuff,
we've been putting
a little money in our pocket,
we're not hurting,
so to speak.
Might as well take
a damn road trip,
I'm sitting right over here
and enjoy a cold beer
with some meat skins,
while you drive
and I can sight see.
Windshield therapy, yeah.
We're gonna take advantage
of this cold day here,
and load up from
the stash house,
it takes roughly four
to five hours
to get to Kentucky.
Whoo-hoo, look at all
of this, baby.
-All I see is bills.
-Dollar bills.
I'll count 'em for you.
Let's get it loaded up
and get the hell
to Kentucky, baby.
You know, this is just
a beautiful damn sight,
we've got so much alcohol
in here already.
Come here, Jerry,
look at this load.
Look at what we got down
left over.
All this left over
that's uncut,
hell, we ain't even put
a dent in this.
-Hell yeah.
-Baby, let's go get ready.
-Let's get this Kentucky run.
-Hell yeah.
A lot of people, you know,
call that
their small bank account.
Well, this is
a Swiss bank account
to me and Jerry,
we've got dollar bills stacked
on top of each other in here.
Let's go get rid
of some damn liquor.
Are you sure
you really want to do this?
Yes, I'm sure,
I understand the risk,
you know, I didn't chase
fugitives for 10 years
and not know how
to be under the radar.
For us to bootleg this stuff,
Carol will be our best bet
on getting this liquor
from the still site
to the stash house.
With her bail bond business
and having to do
the bounty hunting on that,
she knows how
to operate covertly.
All right, honey,
Carol's helping us move
all of this shine.
You will see your cops
in between here,
he's always there,
running the radar.
And so you think
everybody's okay
with me doing this?
Well, running a still site,
this size with just
the three of us.
Everybody's got to be
all right with it, honey.
We're going to be making
so much liqour at this
still site,
none of us can actually afford
to leave
to get this stuff
to our stash house.
'Cause I'm your wife,
it'a not like I'm
gonna tell on you.
-This is strict.
-Well, I mean,
unless you keep putting
all your dishes
all over the house
and your dirty socks
everywhere.
You know what,
I might be rethinking
this now.
I'm just kidding.
You're gonna turn me in
for making liquor,
if I don't pick up
my socks?
Here we are.
-And the hard work begins.
-And the hard work begins.
Yes, ma'am, it does.
It's gonna be multiple
truckloads every single day.
So we really got to have
a reliable person,
that we know can do the job.
-Well, hello.
-Carol.
-This is something else.
-What's Carol doing here?
I told you
I had the bootleggin'
handled, right?
I got the bootleggin' handled,
I'm gonna go with her
on her first run out.
Show her where
the stash house is.
I think she's gonna
handle it from there.
We're just about
to fire up the second set
of stills
when Tickle's "bootlegger"
shows up.
His old lady.
Not that I don't trust Carol,
I trust Carol,
I know Carol.
I just don't wanna see
Carol go to jail.
You keep your wife at home,
not saying anything
about a woman or nothing now,
we don't like our women
going to prison.
-So would both of y'all
go to jail.
-Well...
-You get us out.
-I'm gonna call you
to get us out.
-Yeah? Well, I'll be there.
-If you can't handle it,
you call my friend.
-I'll do that, I'll do that.
-You know what I do
for a living.
Carol is on
her own bail bond agency,
having to do
the bounty hunting
on that,
she had to be able to sneak
around and go unnoticed,
so she's already been doing
that for years.
-She's got a little
inside help there.
-You got it handled?
-I got this, I'm a big girl.
-Yeah.
Get this first load out
and get some money
in our pocket.
-Yes sir, yes sir.
-All right, Carol.
All right, Josh.
There's nothing like being
in the still site
and you're filling jugs.
And then you look up
and you have to have
a trail
to get out of your still site,
because of all the liquor jugs
in the way.
Forty more trips to go.
- Look at that.
- Hey.
-Missing the finger and all.
-Yeah.
I can carry six gallons,
with nine and a half fingers.
Carol, you killin' me.
- Get out of the way.
- -I thought you got it.
It doesn't seem
to be getting any smaller.
I come back and I swear
it's the same amount.
A jug forever, you're gonna
get when you get pulled over.
- I ain't got that many years left.
- -Yeah, yeah.
We're getting there slowly.
If I go to town,
I'm gonna run the pot.
- I'm tellin' ya, I will.
- -You got that leadership, ain't you?
-You feel that.
-Ah, this is a whole lot
of shine, ain't it?
*bleep* damn.
This first time,
I'm going to go with you
and then after that
you think
you'll be all right
on your own with it?
-I'll be fine.
-We'll be running.
Just take your time,
don't get, don't get in
no hurry 'cause
that's when you make mistakes.
Key is the speed limit.
Always except for
the two times that
I got in trouble speeding.
-Well...
-Always other than those.
Hell, yeah.
Hooray, honey.
We don't want to keep
everything at the still site,
because the law loves to catch
you with liquor there.
Honey, welcome to
the other side of the law.
If we get busted
with all this liquor
at the still site,
that's even more charges
that the law can put on us.
If any cop gets behind you,
don't be afraid
to just pull up
in somebody's driveway,
and go to the door,
make it look like
that was your destination,
they will just go on by.
Think you're already where
you're gonna go.
Okay.
All right, honey,
this old tobacco barn
is our stash site,
this stash site
that we've got,
it's in a perfect place.
Here we go.
This is a storage building,
honey.
-What do you think?
-Wow.
It's on a farm,
so traffic coming in
and out of there.
Well, that happens
all the time.
And this is private property,
we know the owner,
we're cutting him in
a little bit.
So, when we get everything
moved here,
what happens after this?
Henry's got a buyer
up north and every bit of this
is going up there,
but we got us a bootlegger
that's running this stuff
a truckload at the time
up to Philly,
Carol will take the liquor
that we make,
bring it to the stash house
then our bootleggers
will come in
and pick it up
and he'll run it up north.
Lock this thing up
and then, we roll that log
back on up there.
You don't want to put a lock
on it or something, like,
that's a lot of money
in there.
Well, honey, nobody's been
in there in years, right?
-Okay.
-Right now,
it looks like
nothing's in there.
If I put a brand new lock
on that door,
somebody's gonna know
something's inside of it.
So, we'll just go
with your 18th century lock.
All right, all it needs to do
is to keep the door
from coming open.
Well, let's hop
in the truck, honey.
We got one more load
to go today,
-let's get on out of here.
-All right, let's do it.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
you ain't got nothing.
Yeah, exactly,
but I got a process.
Mark thinks I'm off
my damn rocker,
but this is a proven thing
with experts way beyond us.
-I got this *bleep*,
it'll be fine.
-All right, genius,
what's the plan,
tell me, dude, please.
Sea aging.
Sea aging? What the hell?
Putting it on a boat
in that salty environment,
bouncing around,
temperature change
and barometric pressure change
in one month is equivalent
to one year.
You can put liquor
in a barrel,
put it on a ship,
let it float around
for a while, in one month,
it gives the equivalent
that a year would
in a barrel house.
It gives it
the characteristics of liquor
that's way older than
what it is,
when you think about it,
within a couple 100 miles
on the ocean,
the temperature changes,
it's constantly moving,
the barometric pressure
is constantly moving.
They've been doing
this *bleep*
since the 1700s,
they do it for cognac, rum,
and now we're gonna do
it for Tennessee whiskey.
How'd you get so
damn smart on sea aging?
While you're polishing
on old limo hot rods
and everything,
driving around, making sure
the batteries charged up,
I'm reading.
I read, if you'd look
on the Internet,
you would see.
I don't do the Internet,
you know that.
Well, you're going to start.
We just put liquor
in the damn truck
and drive to the ocean?
Yeah, I know a guy
that's got a boat.
It's a shrimp boat.
I buy shrimp off off him
every time I go over there.
We're in Tennessee.
Yeah, I'm smart enough
to realize that,
but the ocean's that way,
we can get there.
If I didn't think
I could produce it,
I damn sure wouldn't obligate
to 100 gallons of it.
I thought he's done
crazy stuff before,
I think this is crazy,
but very slowly,
it's beginning to make sense.
Did you just load...
get it out here.
-Yeah.
-Quickly, just get
'em out here.
In fact, you never know
when the law's coming.
Things couldn't be
going better.
These stills
are pumping out liquor
about as fast as it can
come out of it.
We have got Carol
moving constantly
back and forth
from the still site
to our stash house.
One truck loaded at a time.
-That's a whole lot of
liquor out yonder.
-Yes, sir.
-Most definitely.
-I count my chickens
before they hatch.
My grandma always tells me
never count your chickens
-before they hatch.
-Damn straight.
We've been running
these stills for a while now.
Come on in.
It looks like this is
beginning to be
a well-oiled machine.
- Did you get it dropped off?
- I did, honey,
but, we gotta talk.
All right. All right,
what's going on, honey?
Well, you know,
I've been going back
and forth
the last couple days,
couple of times a day,
and I feel like
I'm being, like, watched.
There's a lot of people
seeing the same vehicle
come in and out
of the same place
and that right there
is how you get caught.
All these trips is bound
to draw attention.
I was concerned about
that in the very beginning,
-I was telling you.
-Yeah.
Running in and out
a still place like that
will get you caught.
You know,
if I wind up in jail.
That's one thing,
but for her to take this risk
and maybe wind up in jail.
That right there
is something I really
don't like.
We got three men here.
There's no reason
where we couldn't step it up
and run and get it out.
We can sell as much shine
as we can make
as fast as we can make it.
If you think we can do it,
I don't see no reason why not.
Only difference is,
instead of small loads,
we're gonna need somebody
that can handle the entire
eight subs,
no running back and forth
like Carol's been doing
the past several days.
We went in there
and laid this operation out,
where we could run four subs
a day.
And, um, of course,
we decided to change that.
Now, we're going to up
everything and be done.
Yeah, I'd probably
just talked myself out
of a job, but...
-Well, we gotta be safe.
-Yeah,
-That's good money.
-Yeah, you have
to be safe, so...
-Yeah, most definitely.
-Safety is always first.
I better call
the bootlegger up.
Getting caught
with a few gallons,
you might spend a night or two
in county jail
but we're talking
five, 600 gallons.
Now, you ain't coming back out
and that's federal time
right there.
Hey, Tickle.
You ready to step in
for the big time?
Look, man, you make
one run you get all
of your damn money.
Yes, sir.
All right, all right,
I understand.
Well, he ain't willing
to take that risk.
We got to find somebody
we can trust
with all that liquor,
and all that money,
bring it back.
I know one man who's moved
a whole lot of liquor,
but he's on the legal side
of it now.
I'm talking about Tim Smith,
he might have some contacts
still on the illegal side.
-Can't hurt nothin'
but call him.
-I'm game.
Know what I mean?
Tickle,
what's happening?
Do you think you can land
somebody up to help us, uh,
maybe move this stuff?
We need somebody we can trust
to get it up north.
I don't know,
I gotta think about it,
I don't want to talk about it
on the phone.
You figure something out,
and let me know.
-All right.
-Thank you, Tim,
I appreciate you, brother.
-See you.
-All right. Bye.
Got the ball rolling.
Usually, we're only running
two stills at a time
and we're preheating
the next set of stills
as we go, so we can just
keep on running,
but this time,
we're gonna be
all white pots.
We got some modifications
to do.
We got to bring in
another double worm,
we'll be ready
to make some shine.
All right.
Me and Digger have made
the deal with Killer Beaz,
tried to get him 100 gallons
of five year old whiskey
in six months.
I've talked to my buddy over
on the North Carolina coast,
he's a shrimp boat captain,
he's willing to let these
barrels live on his boat.
We can make this happen
and make it happen
for a pretty decent paycheck.
We're gonna load up
two barrels
so this Tennessee whiskey,
and we're headed off
to the beach
to put it on a boat.
Watch your toes,
don't have them
on them boards.
Okay.
I'm thinking the whole time
that we're straining
our guts out,
how much BENGAY
that $22,500 is gonna buy.
-Hang on...
-I'm up against that barrel.
So what he said,
there's a crane on that boat.
This is, you know,
it's big money.
Nobody will think anything
about them,
look like somebody
is gonna make flower planters.
I just can't believe
I let you talk me in to this,
driving eight hours,
100 gallons of liquor
to put on a freakin' boat.
It don't seem like
it's that far.
Well, old Kentucky, baby.
-Yes, sir, man.
-It's *bleep*.
Damn, boy, it's a long drive.
Me and Jerry, we are
on our way to sell
off some liquor.
I mean, at this time,
in the season,
you know we've got alcohol
for sale.
A lot of people don't
out there in the world.
No, most moonshiners are done,
but now they got
all their stock sold
-and just sitting back,
taking 'er easy.
-Yeah, buddy.
Daniel Maner, wonder
what the hell
he's calling me about.
Hello, Daniel.
What's going on?
Oh, man, ain't much to it,
what do you got up
the old sleeve, buddy?
I bet I was the last
damn person you'd think
would call you in.
Exactly right.
There got to be somethin',
what do you need, bud?
Well...
I need to know
where you're at, for one.
I'm actually out
of town, my friend.
Well, listen to me,
you know I wouldn't call you
and I wouldn't say nothin'
if I didn't mean it,
you need to get your ass
back to town.
-Why, what's going on?
-I just talked to Mark
and Digger,
and, uh, they, they told me
that, well,
word is on the street
and around a bunch of people.
One of the guys
that you been sellin' to
has got caught.
If history's proven anything,
it's when people
are in trouble, they'll sing
like a damn canary.
-Every time.
-With what?
how, I mean, how in the hell
they know a customer of mine?
I have no*bleep* idea,
but anyway, he got caught,
I'm doing what I feel's right,
I don't want to see nobody
get busted.
You know, I'm really surprised
that Daniel just called me,
and I don't think
for one second,
he's blowing smoke up
our butts.
Oh, my God.
'Cause I've worked with Daniel
in the past,
we may not have
the best relationship,
but he's calling for a reason
and what he's saying,
I can pretty much bank on it
to be true.
But, I mean, the fact of it
is they wouldn't know where
our stash house is anyway.
Oh, my God,
oh, my God,
listen to me, Jerry.
I think I might have
screwed up.
-Oh, my God.
-What the hell
you talkin' about,
you might've screwed up?
Well, about a week
and a half ago,
I called this guy,
sold him jugs.
He met me down the road
from the damn stash house.
I plainly told his ass
to meet me at
the first down pull
off at the end of
the road, there he is,
sitting right here
under the damn stash house.
I think he actually see me
come out of
the damn stash house.
What the hell would you meet
with somebody at
our damn stash house?
-I didn't bring nobody
to the damn stash house.
-That close?
-He showed up.
-Why would you meet that close
to the stash house?
-I told him to meet me--
-On the same damn road.
I told him to meet me
at the end of
the damn road, Jerry.
I'm really just pissed off,
to be very honest with you,
that Mark would even bring
somebody so close
to our stash house like that.
He knows better
than that crap,
we've worked our asses off
for the summer
and going into this winter,
we enter a freezing cold,
just to get this stuff
stocked up
and then he'd go do something
dumb like that.
I mean, come on, man,
it's a mistake, I didn't want
to lose the sale,
but he had done see me,
obviously.
So, that's it, we gotta
get to the stash house
and check on that.
At this point, we can be
compromised, you know,
we just got to get back,
figure it out,
straighten this stuff out,
figure out what's going on.
We've got so much liquor
in there right now,
it's not even funny,
that's our bank account.
Let's just get back
to the stash house,
it's gonna take hours.
Tickle and Henry
had called me,
they needed somebody
to hold moonshine
for them up in Philadelphia.
You know, I haven't figured
out who can haul it,
because the problem is
you gotta have someone
you can trust, you know,
and I know this is gonna sound
a little bit crazy
but I thought about why
don't I do it?
You know, I'll tell you
the reason why.
Because Amos Law.
Henry's father who has just
passed away a few years back
and my dad was actually
in prison together at one time
in a big house,
for, like, 10,000 prisoners
and, you know, murderers
and really bad dudes.
Well, my dad had come up
with a plan within no time
that he was going to escape.
They had a torch in
a maintenance department
in prison,
him and a couple
of other guys drug
this thing into the sewer,
and they ran into these bars.
They got actually across
the street,
and they was in there cutting
to try to get out
of the manhole
because the prison system,
they had welded up
these manholes,
they knew that, you know,
if someone got in there
they could get out
and a lady across the road
or street there,
she saw sparks.
The prison people found out
that something was going on,
and my dad actually got back
into the prison
before someone had got there
to find out
that they were trying
to escape.
Now, the key is,
Amos Law. Amos Law
knew exactly
what they was doing.
Amos had been in prison
a lot more than my dad
because he's a senior prisoner
in this prison system.
He had the power
to hide those guys.
Now I'm not talking about
physical hiding,
I'm talking about
to hide them,
so no one knew who was
the three individuals
trying to escape.
Because if you get charged
with escape from prison,
it's five years,
you know, for what
Amos Law did to protect
my dad
from getting additional
five years in prison.
I got five more years
with my dad,
it actually give me
my dad back.
You know, this is a big deal.
I owe this to Henry.
I'm going to repay that favor
from 40 years back.
It's just respect,
it's the moonshiners' way,
we help each other out.
There's the po-po,
just ease along here.
Digger has promised
100 gallons
of five year old liquor
in six months, he says
it's possible by sea aging it
on a boat, so we're headed
to a small coastal town
on the beach
in North Carolina.
Six months and we got
to make another trip
to come back and fetch it.
Yeah, it'll be
warm weather then.
-I can take you out fishing.
-No, I ain't gettin'
on no boat.
-Why?
-I don't trust the ocean.
We ain't goin'
to no ocean,
we'll do backwater.
I don't know about that.
There's still critters in it.
Just for the record,
Mark Wayne Ramsey
does not swim.
There's too many things
out there that will
eat your ass.
I bet there's alligator
in there.
God Almighty,
I ain't want no
alligator business here.
No, alligators only good
for one thing,
that's to make
a wallet or shoe out of 'em.
All right, let's go find
Shorty.
Captain Shorty?
-There he is. You Shorty?
-Yes, sir.
This is going to be the boat
that we're going
to be using right here.
I thought it was gonna be
that little biddy.
I mean we could try that one,
but I don't think it's going
to hold those barrels.
Get that winch down,
we'll get that rope down here.
What's under here,
can I back this truck
up on here?
No, sir, not unless
you want to go swimming.
There's a lot of water
on here.
That's the only way
I can see it now.
Yeah, hell, we'd have
our liquor in the trunk
and everything will be
in the water.
It's obvious now
that this isn't gonna be
as easy as I thought it was,
we have to get the barrels
closer to the boat.
How about that.
I reckon you can keep track
of them for a month
or two or five or six.
-Oh, I ain't gonna lose 'em.
Oh, I ain't gonna lose 'em.
-Don't lose 'em.
That's for sure.
I smell a little liquor,
don't you?
-I do.
-I know we're supposed
to smell liquor,
but it smells a little bit
strong, to me 'cause...
Let that tailgate down.
We can get up in there
and rook it over.
It's not out of the ordinary
to smell a little liquor,
there's 100 gallons of it
in these barrels,
but I smell a powerful smell
of liquor and, you know,
there's obviously
a leak somewhere.
Well hell, here's your
roblem, when we've been
moving these around,
we tore out
the plastic bung.
These are plastic bungs,
they replaced in
the old wood bungs,
it snagged on a nail
or something,
we were rollin' off
that pallet
and it tore that bung.
Is that liquor all over
that barrel?
Smell it your
hands there, bud.
You smell it, tell me,
I can smell it right here.
Yeah, we've lost liquor.
As much as five gallons
has possibly sloshed out
on the trip up here.
We gotta come up something
to cram in that bung hole.
So it don't leak liquor
all over your boat.
Let's get this one
out of here.
Let's practice on this
and for the time being.
Down.
We get the picnic table,
turn it long ways,
we can roll the barrels
right off on it,
and then get closer
to that boat.
You got some weight to her,
don't she.
All right, fellas.
Whoa.
We broke that bung.
Not as bad as you think.
Thank the Lord,
it didn't hit hard enough,
we're not leaking,
but it ain't in the boat yet.
We're almost there.
Whoa.
-We got her.
-Before we do this next one,
we got to fix this bung.
Fellas, you think
that's gonna work?
That's how we get down.
Looks like one of them
prehistoric, petrified sperm
out of a dinosaur.
We'll see if it'll...
-boom, look at that.
-Good Lord.
We can't roll it now.
-So, we gotta turn that...
-Take out that bung
and swap this out over there.
Your education
was worth every penny.
All the curls coming
out of my hair in this rain.
I fed something that you use
for repairing nets.
Put that down there.
But it is the perfect thing
that we need to fix our bung.
This is going to drop, too.
Damn.
You done get it...
That's gonna knock you
overboard.
That's all right.
I didn't need
that knee anyway.
We've done something
that we've never, ever done
before in our lives,
it is haul 100 gallons
of whiskey to the coast
and put it on a shrimp boat.
-Oh, damn.
-It's on there, puss.
All right, fellas,
you're all squared away.
You know, it's kind of
melancholy,
we sit here and, you know,
we got the barrels
on the boat.
And we're just sitting there
waving like parents
watching your children
going off to war.
I don't remember having
any better end of the season
in recent history,
this just been outstanding.
If this sea aging goes
the way we want it to,
we're bound to have some
of the finest
Mark and Digger's
Tennessee whiskey
you've ever seen in your life.
Now, if we just get some
heavy weights
to come get it out.
Well, that's
six months down the road,
we may be dead.
Me and Jerry, we're on our way
to the damn stash house
to go check on everything.
Maybe everything's
all right over here, man.
Man, I sure hope so.
Oh, my God.
It's a damn cop.
The hell?
Right in front
of the damn stash house.
I'm gonna get down.
I'm gonna get down.
-Car...
-Vehicle, go by,
just drive by.
Just get by
that faster, please.
They're stirring
in the barn.
Oh, my God.
They're gonna get
our asses for sure now.
-Have we passed them yet?
-Nope. I'll just turn around.
They got a peep,
he's looking, he's seeing.
*bleep*
He's inside the damn barn.
So obviously, he had seen
the alcohol.
Holy *bleep*,
they're gonna get every bit
of our damn alcohol.
That's why the whole damn
season is going to hell.
You ain't tellin' me
nothin', man.
You're talking over
150 gallons alcohol
in that barn.
I bet you it's that damn guy
that ratted us out,
-I damn guarantee you.
-Well, that's the only thing
that could happen,
he ratted us out.
Maybe he didn't
see it.
If he walked inside
that damn barn,
they gonna get the alcohol.
You know, I'm freaking
the hell out,
they gonna take our asses
to jail.
Oh, it's freaking over,
man, it's over.
We're at the gate.
Tonight's gonna be
a long night.
All right,
that ought to do it.
To run eight subs,
we gotta do a little
modifying.
This goes down, Josh.
No more multiple trips
coming in and out,
we're gonna run
all eight stills,
we're make one big run
out of here.
Look at that thing, man,
that thing is beautiful.
Damn well...
In order to run eight pots,
we're gonna have four of them
pumping at one time.
There we go.
We're gonna have
another double worm
four thump kegs,
four casts,
everything's ready to run,
hook all that stuff up,
we'll be ready
to make some shine.
This is beautiful, man.
Get some heat going.
Fire in the hole, baby.
We've got a lot of work to do,
want all these to
hook them up.
We got to get these holes
drilled,
we got to get those pipe over
to Josh, tie it in.
All right, *bleep*,
I'm tellin' you,
how the hell are we going
to hook that up?
With all these pipes
come on,
we add these other
two thumpers
and we're using
a copper pipe and this becomes
a little difficult.
And let's go
the other way.
This ain't your grand pappy's
moonshine still.
Fellas. That's her.
This is a frickin' operation.
Awesome.
- I'm excited.
- -Come together to Josh.
- Yes, sir.
- Make a big octopus
run around in there.
-Frickin' beautiful, man.
-Hell yeah.
Yeah, it looks pretty good
to me, Tickle.
Yeah, let's cap her on out.
Fifty foot of still
stretched out,
it gives me chills
to even look at it.
Roll this way
a little, Tickle.
Hell yeah.
Most people run one still.
Maybe, they have a 20
or 30 gallon pot.
Maybe they got
a 50 gallon pot.
All right, she's coming.
Oh, yeah.
But when you start getting
above that,
that separates the men
from the boys.
It gets me so excited
to be able to get
my hands back
into something like this.
-Won't be long now.
-No, it won't.
- Is that full enough?
- That's full enough.
It's designed for your phone.
It was rolling
a funny way.
If it's rollin' the wrong way,
we need to cut
to fit that nub.
- Cut it to fit...
- Not in here.
-Which way... It is cut.
-Actually...
It fits perfectly.
- Oh, *bleep*, that actually works pretty good.
- -Let me see it.
What?
That's scary looking.
- I'll be damned.
*bleep*.
-It's like it made for that.
Are you sure that nub
ain't gonna give
the liquor
a little funny flavor
or something?
That's for fact.
It's getting hot.
Beautiful, beautiful.
We shouldn't be
too much longer,
we'll have liquor, right.
Oh, she's coming home.
We should have liquor now.
These proofing barrels
are filled.
I'll be damned,
lookie yonder.
Well, it's about damn time.
Uh-huh.
That's pumpin' it.
This is a sight to behold.
There are four worms,
pumping out liquor.
And I mean pumping it out.
You pourin'
gallons at a time, son.
Gallons at a time.
We're halfway.
So, now we start heating
these other four stills,
what we want,
we want these four
to be ready to cap.
The time we finish
the first four,
and that's what
it's all about.
Josh, what do you think?
It's perfect.
Malted corn.
That is good.
Single malt, baby, mmm.
- You know what we gotta do now?
- -What?
Cap the other four.
We're on our way.
Josh, will you help me
to cap this thing?
First time I've ever seen it
take three men to cap a still.
All right, we hooked up.
I called Tim up
and asked him to find
somebody trustworthy for us.
Moving this much liquor
up north,
we're talking about
a $50-60,000 payday
right here.
You get some *bleep* load
and get it to Philadelphia.
You know what,
whoever he called.
-Evidently,
they're good to go.
-They're gonna be here?
Yeah, they're gonna be here,
they're gonna be ready
-and they're trustable.
-Cool, cool.
See some lights
on now.
At the end of our biggest run
we've made so far,
all eight of these pots.
My bootlegger shows up
and who is it?
-Hey.
-What in the world?
Looks like Tim Smith.
None other than
Tim Smith himself.
You know I asked you
for the most trusted man.
Damn
if I didn't get him.
When you said you had
a lot...
yeah, you wasn't lyin',
you got a lot.
I thought you was sending
a man.
Well, I was sending
a man, but, you know,
I got to thinking about it.
My dad tried to escape prison
one time
and Amos covered it up.
-That was a long time ago.
-Well, I'm returning the favor
'cause when you told me
you had a load like this.
I didn't want to take
no chances.
This is an operation,
this brings back
some memories,
let me tell you,
and you got Josh,
how did you get Josh here?
Josh is the man
behind all this.
Well, I like the old double
barrel setup here.
That's good.
These guys
has got it tricked out.
Eight stills set up
and they got two double worms
set up condensers,
I mean this is
picture perfect.
Here's how they run it.
Is this the proofin' jar?
-Yeah, that's
the proofin' jar.
-That's the tastin' jar.
You've been tasting,
you've been tasting?
You know, somebody's
gotta quality control
this job, Tim.
- It's damn good,
-I ain't gonna lie
to you.
The fellers that taught me
didn't teach me how to make
no bull crap.
I believe we could
work with that.
It fills a lot of barrels
with that.
All right, let's get 'em
done then.
I happened to mention
when I was talking to Tim
that we was making liquor
right out in the middle
of a horse pasture.
Come on back,
that a horse trailer.
Straight back.
So what does he bring
to move all this liquor in?
There you go.
A six horse, horse trailer.
You may want to start here,
just load them in there
-and just the way out.
-They just keep
comin' out.
In the old days, we used
to use horse trailers
to haul the moonshine.
That's kind of
a pretty good cover.
Don't break nothing.
Watching Tim,
I can really see
the light in their eyes.
This is how he grew up,
he wasn't always on
the legal side of moonshine.
And let's face it,
the rush you get
from illegal moonshining,
boy, that's hard
to forget.
All right, guys.
-That's it.
-That's it.
Boys, I think we ran off
a gallon or so.
Right now, I need to get
on the road.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'll have to say that running
these eight pots
is the biggest success
in my moonshining career.
There goes one of the best men
I know
and a whole lot of money
we just made.
Whole lot of money.
finale of Moonshiners.
Daniel Maner.
Word is on
the street, one of the guys
that you been selling to
has got caught.
We just got to get back
to straighten
this stuff out,
figure out what's going on.
-There's a damn cop,
the hell.
-*bleep*. Oh, my God.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
-you ain't got nothing.
-I got a process.
You can put liquor
in a barrel,
put it on a ship
and in one month,
it gives the equivalent
that a year would.
-So, the bucket's under it.
-Here we go.
-Well, hello.
-What's Carol doing here?
Carol will be
our best bet
on getting this liquor
from the still site
to the stash house.
I've been going back and forth
and I feel like I'm being,
like, watched.
This is how
we make the moonshine.
Thinking it's time to get
started making
some shine.
-Damn straight it is.
-Time to get some
heat rolling.
In Franklin County,
Virginia.
After mashing in
the first batch
from their two ton supply
of malted corn,
Tickle, Henry, and Josh
are kicking off the maiden run
of their eight pound
operation.
- Oh, sorry, guy.
- It's all right, buddy.
Man, there's been
a whole lot of work
put into this still site,
more than I've ever
put into one.
But you know what,
it's finally paying off.
We've got eight pots in here,
and every one of these pots
is bigger than
most moonshiners
has ever thought
about running.
Josh, come here, I want
to show you what I was
telling you the other day.
We got that malted corn
mashed in
and it's looking good.
Been here five days,
now what that beer feel like?
Feel warm, ain't it?
Phew, she's ready, boy.
-Still warm, that one.
-Yeah.
Insulation, won't tell you
about that insulation,
installation at black pipe
does the trick.
You don't have to heat
your building.
I've worked my ass off,
making heated rooms
and everything else,
tried to control
the environment
-and the whole time, all I had
to do was this.
-Yep.
I was tellin' you
all those years ago.
-Fire 'em up.
-Let's run it.
It's fine, baby.
Get those warm.
-There we go, baby.
-Tear 'em up, little bit.
-She's burnin' clean.
That's what we want, boy.
-I love this old man,
It's all sorts of...
quiet, cheap.
Everybody's toting them
propane tanks round.
This is our plan, right?
We will run
the two in silence.
Then we'll uncap everything,
boom, we're moving cap
right over to here.
Put an extension
on existing pipe,
then we've got
15, 20 minutes,
-we'll have liquor again.
-Sweet.
When you're running
a moonshine operation
the size that we're running,
from two tons of
malted corn,
we're going to need
big buyers.
Ain't no sense in making
this much moonshine,
if you can't get rid of
this much moonshine.
I've got a sell
for it up north.
So, Henry got to dig into
some of his daddy's files.
He has got some
great, big buyers,
up north in Philly.
Churn that bitch.
And these guys, they buy big.
Since the days
of Prohibition.
Philadelphia has been
synonymous with
mass quantities of moonshine.
In the early 1920s,
more than one million gallons
of illegal booze
flowed into Philly every year,
supplying the nearly 20,000
illicit speakeasies
and nip joints operating
at the time.
It's estimated that
these establishments
grossed upwards
of $40 million dollars a year,
the equivalent of 526 million
tax free dollars today.
Presently, it's estimated
that 10 million shots
of illegal moonshine
are poured every year
at the secret speakeasies
and nip joints
that still operate
in Philadelphia,
and the pandemic has caused
the city's thirst
for illegal liquor
to spike once again.
How are you going
to get this liquor out here,
you know, sort of left
that up to you.
Well, Henry, I've got
the bootlegging
in this covered.
Hold on, hold on,
you say you got it covered?
-I got it covered.
-You know, that don't mean
that you gonna be
out bootleggin'.
'Cause I'm gonna tell you
that right straight up front.
You said you got it
covered, I just want
to make sure that
you understand it,
you know, you need
to be here.
-I understand that.
-All right, son,
If, you know, something
happens, you know who
it comes falls back on.
Well, I'm aware of that.
All right, boys, I believe
we're about ready to cap
this thing off,
she's been staying
with for a little while.
Sign her on in, Josh.
That's it, right there.
- There we are.
- Ready to roll.
We got a hell of a still site.
It's looking good.
Just how did you come up with that idea?
-Double worm like that?
-When I built all
these stills,
I was like, man, gonna have
to have a killer worm for this
and I thought, well, hell,
I'll just run two worms
in one box
and run two stills
at the same time,
We've done that with two worms
in a box,
but we've never ran
two stills.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-In the same box
the two worms,
-that's pretty cool.
-Yeah,
-That's pretty cool.
-Takes a lot of water flow,
-or you're overheat it.
-Yeah.
Hey, fellows, look,
we got liquor running.
-Fill the buckets on it.
-Yeah, there we go.
-That's a good, steady stream.
-Hell yeah.
Mm-hmm.
-Hell, yeah.
-Check that out.
-It's got a...
-That malted corn.
-Yeah.
-You can taste that?
I can taste it even
in the high proof. Yeah.
-Caught me off guard there
at first.
-Yeah.
I like running liquor
at that speed.
I mean, this whole operation,
you did it.
Put eight of them
together like that.
This is our first round
at this still site
and I gotta tell you,
hooking up with these guys.
This is the stuff legends
are made of.
Man, this is how I like
to fill jugs right here,
I mean, this ain't
playing around.
You know, when we were running
the liquor the way
we were running,
we can't put this stuff
in mason jars,
we got to use gallon jugs.
For one, you just can't find
mason jars nowadays,
two, they're heavy.
The whole time I've been doing
this since the day
I set out on my own.
This is the way
I imagined it running.
You tell me how much
you like that
when you're on about
to 250 of jugs.
I will 'cause about
that 150th one,
I will be counting
some change.
Next run, we'll make
even more.
Boy, I tell you what,
that is some stout
smelling whiskey.
Right on. Hell,
that looks good.
What she taste like?
Oh, my God.
Smell is unbelievable.
That malted corn
did the trick.
-That's not the usual taste,
isn't it?
-Ah.
You know it does
got a different flavor to it.
I guess this is really
a single malt moonshine,
isn't it?
Something rare.
Throw that valve.
Shake it off here,
put it in the barrel.
In the foothills of
the Smoky Mountains,
Mark and Digger
are cranking out multiple runs
to fill 11 White Oak
aging barrels
with their Tennessee whiskey.
We've made a couple of runs
and we're clicking
around alone.
Yeah, I can't believe
Wayne had no
major catastrophes.
Hush, jinx.
I know I'm
the superstitious one.
- Oh, Lord, I spoke
too soon.
- Yeah.
It is the one,
the only, Killer Beaz.
What do you need?
We're busier than a sick cat.
We ain't got none.
Yeah, we don't got none.
I love the look
of that.
-Gentleman, thank you.
-Kind of like hard work
for babies.
You know, we told you
when we gave you
that five gallons earlier
that it wouldn't be
no more that,
-that's our, that's our,
-That's all there is.
that's our retirement liquor.
-Yeah.
-It ain't for sale.
Hey, let me ask you something.
It's not available right now
and it ain't corn liquor,
but it's got corn in it, it's,
it's a three grain blend.
Tennessee whiskey,
this is Mark and Digger,
aged Tennessee whiskey.
Well, let me,
let me work on somethin'.
We have the Mark and Digger
Tennessee whiskey,
but it's not five weeks old
yet, let alone five years,
I have no idea
what Digger's thinking,
this is friggin' lunacy.
I got a couple of things
I got to check in to make sure
I can make this happen.
If I can get it in play.
It'll be in their hands
in five to six months.
$225 a gallon each.
I'll have you a 100 gallons.
All right, see you, bye.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
you ain't got nothing.
You've lost
your ever loving mind.
I've got an idea,
it may come to fruition.
I'm gonna tell you something,
sometimes,
you let your mouth
write checks
that your ass can't cash.
Well, I tell you what, boy,
these damn dead drops
has really helped us out
-in this cold weather,
ain't it?
-Sure has carried us
through the winter
real good, that's for sure.
One county
to the south
with hard times driving
high demand.
Mike and Jerry are quickly
turning their
140 gallon stash,
into cold hard cash.
My buddy Allen
up in Kentucky.
He called me up this morning,
they ordered 25 gallons.
When does he want it?
As quick as we can
get it done.
Well, hell, let's go to the
stash house and load it up.
We've been doing a lot
of small sales and dead drops
and stuff,
we've been putting
a little money in our pocket,
we're not hurting,
so to speak.
Might as well take
a damn road trip,
I'm sitting right over here
and enjoy a cold beer
with some meat skins,
while you drive
and I can sight see.
Windshield therapy, yeah.
We're gonna take advantage
of this cold day here,
and load up from
the stash house,
it takes roughly four
to five hours
to get to Kentucky.
Whoo-hoo, look at all
of this, baby.
-All I see is bills.
-Dollar bills.
I'll count 'em for you.
Let's get it loaded up
and get the hell
to Kentucky, baby.
You know, this is just
a beautiful damn sight,
we've got so much alcohol
in here already.
Come here, Jerry,
look at this load.
Look at what we got down
left over.
All this left over
that's uncut,
hell, we ain't even put
a dent in this.
-Hell yeah.
-Baby, let's go get ready.
-Let's get this Kentucky run.
-Hell yeah.
A lot of people, you know,
call that
their small bank account.
Well, this is
a Swiss bank account
to me and Jerry,
we've got dollar bills stacked
on top of each other in here.
Let's go get rid
of some damn liquor.
Are you sure
you really want to do this?
Yes, I'm sure,
I understand the risk,
you know, I didn't chase
fugitives for 10 years
and not know how
to be under the radar.
For us to bootleg this stuff,
Carol will be our best bet
on getting this liquor
from the still site
to the stash house.
With her bail bond business
and having to do
the bounty hunting on that,
she knows how
to operate covertly.
All right, honey,
Carol's helping us move
all of this shine.
You will see your cops
in between here,
he's always there,
running the radar.
And so you think
everybody's okay
with me doing this?
Well, running a still site,
this size with just
the three of us.
Everybody's got to be
all right with it, honey.
We're going to be making
so much liqour at this
still site,
none of us can actually afford
to leave
to get this stuff
to our stash house.
'Cause I'm your wife,
it'a not like I'm
gonna tell on you.
-This is strict.
-Well, I mean,
unless you keep putting
all your dishes
all over the house
and your dirty socks
everywhere.
You know what,
I might be rethinking
this now.
I'm just kidding.
You're gonna turn me in
for making liquor,
if I don't pick up
my socks?
Here we are.
-And the hard work begins.
-And the hard work begins.
Yes, ma'am, it does.
It's gonna be multiple
truckloads every single day.
So we really got to have
a reliable person,
that we know can do the job.
-Well, hello.
-Carol.
-This is something else.
-What's Carol doing here?
I told you
I had the bootleggin'
handled, right?
I got the bootleggin' handled,
I'm gonna go with her
on her first run out.
Show her where
the stash house is.
I think she's gonna
handle it from there.
We're just about
to fire up the second set
of stills
when Tickle's "bootlegger"
shows up.
His old lady.
Not that I don't trust Carol,
I trust Carol,
I know Carol.
I just don't wanna see
Carol go to jail.
You keep your wife at home,
not saying anything
about a woman or nothing now,
we don't like our women
going to prison.
-So would both of y'all
go to jail.
-Well...
-You get us out.
-I'm gonna call you
to get us out.
-Yeah? Well, I'll be there.
-If you can't handle it,
you call my friend.
-I'll do that, I'll do that.
-You know what I do
for a living.
Carol is on
her own bail bond agency,
having to do
the bounty hunting
on that,
she had to be able to sneak
around and go unnoticed,
so she's already been doing
that for years.
-She's got a little
inside help there.
-You got it handled?
-I got this, I'm a big girl.
-Yeah.
Get this first load out
and get some money
in our pocket.
-Yes sir, yes sir.
-All right, Carol.
All right, Josh.
There's nothing like being
in the still site
and you're filling jugs.
And then you look up
and you have to have
a trail
to get out of your still site,
because of all the liquor jugs
in the way.
Forty more trips to go.
- Look at that.
- Hey.
-Missing the finger and all.
-Yeah.
I can carry six gallons,
with nine and a half fingers.
Carol, you killin' me.
- Get out of the way.
- -I thought you got it.
It doesn't seem
to be getting any smaller.
I come back and I swear
it's the same amount.
A jug forever, you're gonna
get when you get pulled over.
- I ain't got that many years left.
- -Yeah, yeah.
We're getting there slowly.
If I go to town,
I'm gonna run the pot.
- I'm tellin' ya, I will.
- -You got that leadership, ain't you?
-You feel that.
-Ah, this is a whole lot
of shine, ain't it?
*bleep* damn.
This first time,
I'm going to go with you
and then after that
you think
you'll be all right
on your own with it?
-I'll be fine.
-We'll be running.
Just take your time,
don't get, don't get in
no hurry 'cause
that's when you make mistakes.
Key is the speed limit.
Always except for
the two times that
I got in trouble speeding.
-Well...
-Always other than those.
Hell, yeah.
Hooray, honey.
We don't want to keep
everything at the still site,
because the law loves to catch
you with liquor there.
Honey, welcome to
the other side of the law.
If we get busted
with all this liquor
at the still site,
that's even more charges
that the law can put on us.
If any cop gets behind you,
don't be afraid
to just pull up
in somebody's driveway,
and go to the door,
make it look like
that was your destination,
they will just go on by.
Think you're already where
you're gonna go.
Okay.
All right, honey,
this old tobacco barn
is our stash site,
this stash site
that we've got,
it's in a perfect place.
Here we go.
This is a storage building,
honey.
-What do you think?
-Wow.
It's on a farm,
so traffic coming in
and out of there.
Well, that happens
all the time.
And this is private property,
we know the owner,
we're cutting him in
a little bit.
So, when we get everything
moved here,
what happens after this?
Henry's got a buyer
up north and every bit of this
is going up there,
but we got us a bootlegger
that's running this stuff
a truckload at the time
up to Philly,
Carol will take the liquor
that we make,
bring it to the stash house
then our bootleggers
will come in
and pick it up
and he'll run it up north.
Lock this thing up
and then, we roll that log
back on up there.
You don't want to put a lock
on it or something, like,
that's a lot of money
in there.
Well, honey, nobody's been
in there in years, right?
-Okay.
-Right now,
it looks like
nothing's in there.
If I put a brand new lock
on that door,
somebody's gonna know
something's inside of it.
So, we'll just go
with your 18th century lock.
All right, all it needs to do
is to keep the door
from coming open.
Well, let's hop
in the truck, honey.
We got one more load
to go today,
-let's get on out of here.
-All right, let's do it.
You just promised two barrels
of five year old liquor,
you ain't got nothing.
Yeah, exactly,
but I got a process.
Mark thinks I'm off
my damn rocker,
but this is a proven thing
with experts way beyond us.
-I got this *bleep*,
it'll be fine.
-All right, genius,
what's the plan,
tell me, dude, please.
Sea aging.
Sea aging? What the hell?
Putting it on a boat
in that salty environment,
bouncing around,
temperature change
and barometric pressure change
in one month is equivalent
to one year.
You can put liquor
in a barrel,
put it on a ship,
let it float around
for a while, in one month,
it gives the equivalent
that a year would
in a barrel house.
It gives it
the characteristics of liquor
that's way older than
what it is,
when you think about it,
within a couple 100 miles
on the ocean,
the temperature changes,
it's constantly moving,
the barometric pressure
is constantly moving.
They've been doing
this *bleep*
since the 1700s,
they do it for cognac, rum,
and now we're gonna do
it for Tennessee whiskey.
How'd you get so
damn smart on sea aging?
While you're polishing
on old limo hot rods
and everything,
driving around, making sure
the batteries charged up,
I'm reading.
I read, if you'd look
on the Internet,
you would see.
I don't do the Internet,
you know that.
Well, you're going to start.
We just put liquor
in the damn truck
and drive to the ocean?
Yeah, I know a guy
that's got a boat.
It's a shrimp boat.
I buy shrimp off off him
every time I go over there.
We're in Tennessee.
Yeah, I'm smart enough
to realize that,
but the ocean's that way,
we can get there.
If I didn't think
I could produce it,
I damn sure wouldn't obligate
to 100 gallons of it.
I thought he's done
crazy stuff before,
I think this is crazy,
but very slowly,
it's beginning to make sense.
Did you just load...
get it out here.
-Yeah.
-Quickly, just get
'em out here.
In fact, you never know
when the law's coming.
Things couldn't be
going better.
These stills
are pumping out liquor
about as fast as it can
come out of it.
We have got Carol
moving constantly
back and forth
from the still site
to our stash house.
One truck loaded at a time.
-That's a whole lot of
liquor out yonder.
-Yes, sir.
-Most definitely.
-I count my chickens
before they hatch.
My grandma always tells me
never count your chickens
-before they hatch.
-Damn straight.
We've been running
these stills for a while now.
Come on in.
It looks like this is
beginning to be
a well-oiled machine.
- Did you get it dropped off?
- I did, honey,
but, we gotta talk.
All right. All right,
what's going on, honey?
Well, you know,
I've been going back
and forth
the last couple days,
couple of times a day,
and I feel like
I'm being, like, watched.
There's a lot of people
seeing the same vehicle
come in and out
of the same place
and that right there
is how you get caught.
All these trips is bound
to draw attention.
I was concerned about
that in the very beginning,
-I was telling you.
-Yeah.
Running in and out
a still place like that
will get you caught.
You know,
if I wind up in jail.
That's one thing,
but for her to take this risk
and maybe wind up in jail.
That right there
is something I really
don't like.
We got three men here.
There's no reason
where we couldn't step it up
and run and get it out.
We can sell as much shine
as we can make
as fast as we can make it.
If you think we can do it,
I don't see no reason why not.
Only difference is,
instead of small loads,
we're gonna need somebody
that can handle the entire
eight subs,
no running back and forth
like Carol's been doing
the past several days.
We went in there
and laid this operation out,
where we could run four subs
a day.
And, um, of course,
we decided to change that.
Now, we're going to up
everything and be done.
Yeah, I'd probably
just talked myself out
of a job, but...
-Well, we gotta be safe.
-Yeah,
-That's good money.
-Yeah, you have
to be safe, so...
-Yeah, most definitely.
-Safety is always first.
I better call
the bootlegger up.
Getting caught
with a few gallons,
you might spend a night or two
in county jail
but we're talking
five, 600 gallons.
Now, you ain't coming back out
and that's federal time
right there.
Hey, Tickle.
You ready to step in
for the big time?
Look, man, you make
one run you get all
of your damn money.
Yes, sir.
All right, all right,
I understand.
Well, he ain't willing
to take that risk.
We got to find somebody
we can trust
with all that liquor,
and all that money,
bring it back.
I know one man who's moved
a whole lot of liquor,
but he's on the legal side
of it now.
I'm talking about Tim Smith,
he might have some contacts
still on the illegal side.
-Can't hurt nothin'
but call him.
-I'm game.
Know what I mean?
Tickle,
what's happening?
Do you think you can land
somebody up to help us, uh,
maybe move this stuff?
We need somebody we can trust
to get it up north.
I don't know,
I gotta think about it,
I don't want to talk about it
on the phone.
You figure something out,
and let me know.
-All right.
-Thank you, Tim,
I appreciate you, brother.
-See you.
-All right. Bye.
Got the ball rolling.
Usually, we're only running
two stills at a time
and we're preheating
the next set of stills
as we go, so we can just
keep on running,
but this time,
we're gonna be
all white pots.
We got some modifications
to do.
We got to bring in
another double worm,
we'll be ready
to make some shine.
All right.
Me and Digger have made
the deal with Killer Beaz,
tried to get him 100 gallons
of five year old whiskey
in six months.
I've talked to my buddy over
on the North Carolina coast,
he's a shrimp boat captain,
he's willing to let these
barrels live on his boat.
We can make this happen
and make it happen
for a pretty decent paycheck.
We're gonna load up
two barrels
so this Tennessee whiskey,
and we're headed off
to the beach
to put it on a boat.
Watch your toes,
don't have them
on them boards.
Okay.
I'm thinking the whole time
that we're straining
our guts out,
how much BENGAY
that $22,500 is gonna buy.
-Hang on...
-I'm up against that barrel.
So what he said,
there's a crane on that boat.
This is, you know,
it's big money.
Nobody will think anything
about them,
look like somebody
is gonna make flower planters.
I just can't believe
I let you talk me in to this,
driving eight hours,
100 gallons of liquor
to put on a freakin' boat.
It don't seem like
it's that far.
Well, old Kentucky, baby.
-Yes, sir, man.
-It's *bleep*.
Damn, boy, it's a long drive.
Me and Jerry, we are
on our way to sell
off some liquor.
I mean, at this time,
in the season,
you know we've got alcohol
for sale.
A lot of people don't
out there in the world.
No, most moonshiners are done,
but now they got
all their stock sold
-and just sitting back,
taking 'er easy.
-Yeah, buddy.
Daniel Maner, wonder
what the hell
he's calling me about.
Hello, Daniel.
What's going on?
Oh, man, ain't much to it,
what do you got up
the old sleeve, buddy?
I bet I was the last
damn person you'd think
would call you in.
Exactly right.
There got to be somethin',
what do you need, bud?
Well...
I need to know
where you're at, for one.
I'm actually out
of town, my friend.
Well, listen to me,
you know I wouldn't call you
and I wouldn't say nothin'
if I didn't mean it,
you need to get your ass
back to town.
-Why, what's going on?
-I just talked to Mark
and Digger,
and, uh, they, they told me
that, well,
word is on the street
and around a bunch of people.
One of the guys
that you been sellin' to
has got caught.
If history's proven anything,
it's when people
are in trouble, they'll sing
like a damn canary.
-Every time.
-With what?
how, I mean, how in the hell
they know a customer of mine?
I have no*bleep* idea,
but anyway, he got caught,
I'm doing what I feel's right,
I don't want to see nobody
get busted.
You know, I'm really surprised
that Daniel just called me,
and I don't think
for one second,
he's blowing smoke up
our butts.
Oh, my God.
'Cause I've worked with Daniel
in the past,
we may not have
the best relationship,
but he's calling for a reason
and what he's saying,
I can pretty much bank on it
to be true.
But, I mean, the fact of it
is they wouldn't know where
our stash house is anyway.
Oh, my God,
oh, my God,
listen to me, Jerry.
I think I might have
screwed up.
-Oh, my God.
-What the hell
you talkin' about,
you might've screwed up?
Well, about a week
and a half ago,
I called this guy,
sold him jugs.
He met me down the road
from the damn stash house.
I plainly told his ass
to meet me at
the first down pull
off at the end of
the road, there he is,
sitting right here
under the damn stash house.
I think he actually see me
come out of
the damn stash house.
What the hell would you meet
with somebody at
our damn stash house?
-I didn't bring nobody
to the damn stash house.
-That close?
-He showed up.
-Why would you meet that close
to the stash house?
-I told him to meet me--
-On the same damn road.
I told him to meet me
at the end of
the damn road, Jerry.
I'm really just pissed off,
to be very honest with you,
that Mark would even bring
somebody so close
to our stash house like that.
He knows better
than that crap,
we've worked our asses off
for the summer
and going into this winter,
we enter a freezing cold,
just to get this stuff
stocked up
and then he'd go do something
dumb like that.
I mean, come on, man,
it's a mistake, I didn't want
to lose the sale,
but he had done see me,
obviously.
So, that's it, we gotta
get to the stash house
and check on that.
At this point, we can be
compromised, you know,
we just got to get back,
figure it out,
straighten this stuff out,
figure out what's going on.
We've got so much liquor
in there right now,
it's not even funny,
that's our bank account.
Let's just get back
to the stash house,
it's gonna take hours.
Tickle and Henry
had called me,
they needed somebody
to hold moonshine
for them up in Philadelphia.
You know, I haven't figured
out who can haul it,
because the problem is
you gotta have someone
you can trust, you know,
and I know this is gonna sound
a little bit crazy
but I thought about why
don't I do it?
You know, I'll tell you
the reason why.
Because Amos Law.
Henry's father who has just
passed away a few years back
and my dad was actually
in prison together at one time
in a big house,
for, like, 10,000 prisoners
and, you know, murderers
and really bad dudes.
Well, my dad had come up
with a plan within no time
that he was going to escape.
They had a torch in
a maintenance department
in prison,
him and a couple
of other guys drug
this thing into the sewer,
and they ran into these bars.
They got actually across
the street,
and they was in there cutting
to try to get out
of the manhole
because the prison system,
they had welded up
these manholes,
they knew that, you know,
if someone got in there
they could get out
and a lady across the road
or street there,
she saw sparks.
The prison people found out
that something was going on,
and my dad actually got back
into the prison
before someone had got there
to find out
that they were trying
to escape.
Now, the key is,
Amos Law. Amos Law
knew exactly
what they was doing.
Amos had been in prison
a lot more than my dad
because he's a senior prisoner
in this prison system.
He had the power
to hide those guys.
Now I'm not talking about
physical hiding,
I'm talking about
to hide them,
so no one knew who was
the three individuals
trying to escape.
Because if you get charged
with escape from prison,
it's five years,
you know, for what
Amos Law did to protect
my dad
from getting additional
five years in prison.
I got five more years
with my dad,
it actually give me
my dad back.
You know, this is a big deal.
I owe this to Henry.
I'm going to repay that favor
from 40 years back.
It's just respect,
it's the moonshiners' way,
we help each other out.
There's the po-po,
just ease along here.
Digger has promised
100 gallons
of five year old liquor
in six months, he says
it's possible by sea aging it
on a boat, so we're headed
to a small coastal town
on the beach
in North Carolina.
Six months and we got
to make another trip
to come back and fetch it.
Yeah, it'll be
warm weather then.
-I can take you out fishing.
-No, I ain't gettin'
on no boat.
-Why?
-I don't trust the ocean.
We ain't goin'
to no ocean,
we'll do backwater.
I don't know about that.
There's still critters in it.
Just for the record,
Mark Wayne Ramsey
does not swim.
There's too many things
out there that will
eat your ass.
I bet there's alligator
in there.
God Almighty,
I ain't want no
alligator business here.
No, alligators only good
for one thing,
that's to make
a wallet or shoe out of 'em.
All right, let's go find
Shorty.
Captain Shorty?
-There he is. You Shorty?
-Yes, sir.
This is going to be the boat
that we're going
to be using right here.
I thought it was gonna be
that little biddy.
I mean we could try that one,
but I don't think it's going
to hold those barrels.
Get that winch down,
we'll get that rope down here.
What's under here,
can I back this truck
up on here?
No, sir, not unless
you want to go swimming.
There's a lot of water
on here.
That's the only way
I can see it now.
Yeah, hell, we'd have
our liquor in the trunk
and everything will be
in the water.
It's obvious now
that this isn't gonna be
as easy as I thought it was,
we have to get the barrels
closer to the boat.
How about that.
I reckon you can keep track
of them for a month
or two or five or six.
-Oh, I ain't gonna lose 'em.
Oh, I ain't gonna lose 'em.
-Don't lose 'em.
That's for sure.
I smell a little liquor,
don't you?
-I do.
-I know we're supposed
to smell liquor,
but it smells a little bit
strong, to me 'cause...
Let that tailgate down.
We can get up in there
and rook it over.
It's not out of the ordinary
to smell a little liquor,
there's 100 gallons of it
in these barrels,
but I smell a powerful smell
of liquor and, you know,
there's obviously
a leak somewhere.
Well hell, here's your
roblem, when we've been
moving these around,
we tore out
the plastic bung.
These are plastic bungs,
they replaced in
the old wood bungs,
it snagged on a nail
or something,
we were rollin' off
that pallet
and it tore that bung.
Is that liquor all over
that barrel?
Smell it your
hands there, bud.
You smell it, tell me,
I can smell it right here.
Yeah, we've lost liquor.
As much as five gallons
has possibly sloshed out
on the trip up here.
We gotta come up something
to cram in that bung hole.
So it don't leak liquor
all over your boat.
Let's get this one
out of here.
Let's practice on this
and for the time being.
Down.
We get the picnic table,
turn it long ways,
we can roll the barrels
right off on it,
and then get closer
to that boat.
You got some weight to her,
don't she.
All right, fellas.
Whoa.
We broke that bung.
Not as bad as you think.
Thank the Lord,
it didn't hit hard enough,
we're not leaking,
but it ain't in the boat yet.
We're almost there.
Whoa.
-We got her.
-Before we do this next one,
we got to fix this bung.
Fellas, you think
that's gonna work?
That's how we get down.
Looks like one of them
prehistoric, petrified sperm
out of a dinosaur.
We'll see if it'll...
-boom, look at that.
-Good Lord.
We can't roll it now.
-So, we gotta turn that...
-Take out that bung
and swap this out over there.
Your education
was worth every penny.
All the curls coming
out of my hair in this rain.
I fed something that you use
for repairing nets.
Put that down there.
But it is the perfect thing
that we need to fix our bung.
This is going to drop, too.
Damn.
You done get it...
That's gonna knock you
overboard.
That's all right.
I didn't need
that knee anyway.
We've done something
that we've never, ever done
before in our lives,
it is haul 100 gallons
of whiskey to the coast
and put it on a shrimp boat.
-Oh, damn.
-It's on there, puss.
All right, fellas,
you're all squared away.
You know, it's kind of
melancholy,
we sit here and, you know,
we got the barrels
on the boat.
And we're just sitting there
waving like parents
watching your children
going off to war.
I don't remember having
any better end of the season
in recent history,
this just been outstanding.
If this sea aging goes
the way we want it to,
we're bound to have some
of the finest
Mark and Digger's
Tennessee whiskey
you've ever seen in your life.
Now, if we just get some
heavy weights
to come get it out.
Well, that's
six months down the road,
we may be dead.
Me and Jerry, we're on our way
to the damn stash house
to go check on everything.
Maybe everything's
all right over here, man.
Man, I sure hope so.
Oh, my God.
It's a damn cop.
The hell?
Right in front
of the damn stash house.
I'm gonna get down.
I'm gonna get down.
-Car...
-Vehicle, go by,
just drive by.
Just get by
that faster, please.
They're stirring
in the barn.
Oh, my God.
They're gonna get
our asses for sure now.
-Have we passed them yet?
-Nope. I'll just turn around.
They got a peep,
he's looking, he's seeing.
*bleep*
He's inside the damn barn.
So obviously, he had seen
the alcohol.
Holy *bleep*,
they're gonna get every bit
of our damn alcohol.
That's why the whole damn
season is going to hell.
You ain't tellin' me
nothin', man.
You're talking over
150 gallons alcohol
in that barn.
I bet you it's that damn guy
that ratted us out,
-I damn guarantee you.
-Well, that's the only thing
that could happen,
he ratted us out.
Maybe he didn't
see it.
If he walked inside
that damn barn,
they gonna get the alcohol.
You know, I'm freaking
the hell out,
they gonna take our asses
to jail.
Oh, it's freaking over,
man, it's over.
We're at the gate.
Tonight's gonna be
a long night.
All right,
that ought to do it.
To run eight subs,
we gotta do a little
modifying.
This goes down, Josh.
No more multiple trips
coming in and out,
we're gonna run
all eight stills,
we're make one big run
out of here.
Look at that thing, man,
that thing is beautiful.
Damn well...
In order to run eight pots,
we're gonna have four of them
pumping at one time.
There we go.
We're gonna have
another double worm
four thump kegs,
four casts,
everything's ready to run,
hook all that stuff up,
we'll be ready
to make some shine.
This is beautiful, man.
Get some heat going.
Fire in the hole, baby.
We've got a lot of work to do,
want all these to
hook them up.
We got to get these holes
drilled,
we got to get those pipe over
to Josh, tie it in.
All right, *bleep*,
I'm tellin' you,
how the hell are we going
to hook that up?
With all these pipes
come on,
we add these other
two thumpers
and we're using
a copper pipe and this becomes
a little difficult.
And let's go
the other way.
This ain't your grand pappy's
moonshine still.
Fellas. That's her.
This is a frickin' operation.
Awesome.
- I'm excited.
- -Come together to Josh.
- Yes, sir.
- Make a big octopus
run around in there.
-Frickin' beautiful, man.
-Hell yeah.
Yeah, it looks pretty good
to me, Tickle.
Yeah, let's cap her on out.
Fifty foot of still
stretched out,
it gives me chills
to even look at it.
Roll this way
a little, Tickle.
Hell yeah.
Most people run one still.
Maybe, they have a 20
or 30 gallon pot.
Maybe they got
a 50 gallon pot.
All right, she's coming.
Oh, yeah.
But when you start getting
above that,
that separates the men
from the boys.
It gets me so excited
to be able to get
my hands back
into something like this.
-Won't be long now.
-No, it won't.
- Is that full enough?
- That's full enough.
It's designed for your phone.
It was rolling
a funny way.
If it's rollin' the wrong way,
we need to cut
to fit that nub.
- Cut it to fit...
- Not in here.
-Which way... It is cut.
-Actually...
It fits perfectly.
- Oh, *bleep*, that actually works pretty good.
- -Let me see it.
What?
That's scary looking.
- I'll be damned.
*bleep*.
-It's like it made for that.
Are you sure that nub
ain't gonna give
the liquor
a little funny flavor
or something?
That's for fact.
It's getting hot.
Beautiful, beautiful.
We shouldn't be
too much longer,
we'll have liquor, right.
Oh, she's coming home.
We should have liquor now.
These proofing barrels
are filled.
I'll be damned,
lookie yonder.
Well, it's about damn time.
Uh-huh.
That's pumpin' it.
This is a sight to behold.
There are four worms,
pumping out liquor.
And I mean pumping it out.
You pourin'
gallons at a time, son.
Gallons at a time.
We're halfway.
So, now we start heating
these other four stills,
what we want,
we want these four
to be ready to cap.
The time we finish
the first four,
and that's what
it's all about.
Josh, what do you think?
It's perfect.
Malted corn.
That is good.
Single malt, baby, mmm.
- You know what we gotta do now?
- -What?
Cap the other four.
We're on our way.
Josh, will you help me
to cap this thing?
First time I've ever seen it
take three men to cap a still.
All right, we hooked up.
I called Tim up
and asked him to find
somebody trustworthy for us.
Moving this much liquor
up north,
we're talking about
a $50-60,000 payday
right here.
You get some *bleep* load
and get it to Philadelphia.
You know what,
whoever he called.
-Evidently,
they're good to go.
-They're gonna be here?
Yeah, they're gonna be here,
they're gonna be ready
-and they're trustable.
-Cool, cool.
See some lights
on now.
At the end of our biggest run
we've made so far,
all eight of these pots.
My bootlegger shows up
and who is it?
-Hey.
-What in the world?
Looks like Tim Smith.
None other than
Tim Smith himself.
You know I asked you
for the most trusted man.
Damn
if I didn't get him.
When you said you had
a lot...
yeah, you wasn't lyin',
you got a lot.
I thought you was sending
a man.
Well, I was sending
a man, but, you know,
I got to thinking about it.
My dad tried to escape prison
one time
and Amos covered it up.
-That was a long time ago.
-Well, I'm returning the favor
'cause when you told me
you had a load like this.
I didn't want to take
no chances.
This is an operation,
this brings back
some memories,
let me tell you,
and you got Josh,
how did you get Josh here?
Josh is the man
behind all this.
Well, I like the old double
barrel setup here.
That's good.
These guys
has got it tricked out.
Eight stills set up
and they got two double worms
set up condensers,
I mean this is
picture perfect.
Here's how they run it.
Is this the proofin' jar?
-Yeah, that's
the proofin' jar.
-That's the tastin' jar.
You've been tasting,
you've been tasting?
You know, somebody's
gotta quality control
this job, Tim.
- It's damn good,
-I ain't gonna lie
to you.
The fellers that taught me
didn't teach me how to make
no bull crap.
I believe we could
work with that.
It fills a lot of barrels
with that.
All right, let's get 'em
done then.
I happened to mention
when I was talking to Tim
that we was making liquor
right out in the middle
of a horse pasture.
Come on back,
that a horse trailer.
Straight back.
So what does he bring
to move all this liquor in?
There you go.
A six horse, horse trailer.
You may want to start here,
just load them in there
-and just the way out.
-They just keep
comin' out.
In the old days, we used
to use horse trailers
to haul the moonshine.
That's kind of
a pretty good cover.
Don't break nothing.
Watching Tim,
I can really see
the light in their eyes.
This is how he grew up,
he wasn't always on
the legal side of moonshine.
And let's face it,
the rush you get
from illegal moonshining,
boy, that's hard
to forget.
All right, guys.
-That's it.
-That's it.
Boys, I think we ran off
a gallon or so.
Right now, I need to get
on the road.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'll have to say that running
these eight pots
is the biggest success
in my moonshining career.
There goes one of the best men
I know
and a whole lot of money
we just made.
Whole lot of money.