This is how we make the moonshine.
Daniel. Henry didn't make it.
Didn't you?
I did. How are you doing?
You're right on time. Right on time.
Good seeing you again. Good to see you.
It's been a while. It has been a while.
I made Daniel Parton down in Tennessee.
She's Dolly Parton's niece.
We were judges at master distiller.
Got that little bite?
It's the internal hug I was needing.
I mean, this girl has done a lot of stuff in her lifetime.
Kenny, how you doing?
I have my own distillery, so I don't distill in the woods.
But I've come from a long line of moonshining, so I really want to learn the
authentic ways to run this liquor.
I didn't get to learn from my grandfathers and my great grandfathers.
They're not around to teach me and what to do, what not to do.
So I want to fill in the gaps of what I don't know, make it work.
That's exactly right.
She fell in there, grabbed a drill.
Grab the hammers.
You know we're not building it for.
We built it with her.
We know we'll make a damn nice deal, man.
I've never made any. Look around.
A woman.
On. Try it up, don't it?
I don't think it looks good.
She got an awesome personality.
All right, we can do it.
And she don't mind pitching in and helping you.
Tell you the truth, she'd do a whole lot more than a lot of men.
I think I need a bigger one. I can make it into a hot tub.
I used to have one on my back porch.
How many ladies did it hold?
Quite a few. Yeah, right.
I knew I was coming up here to work with two giants in this field of moonshine.
Candy. Candy, Candy. Kenny. Pull it back.
Yeah.
I'm just so thankful that I have the opportunity to come and learn the craft of
making moonshine with two dudes that have served time in federal prison for it.
There's not anybody better.
We all named this thing Submarina.
I don't know about that.
What would your ancestors say?
Your. Your name? A steel submarine.
They strained their eyes on me a long time ago, rolling them.
The subs are completely different from anything that I have seen.
There's so much ingenuity and engineering that goes into it, but there's also an awful
lot of delicate craftsmanship.
Let's see it. Hands on.
Way to go. Let's get it down here.
Let's get something mashed in then.
What kind of mash should we do?
I have been.
Thinking about one every Moonshine's got their own little recipes.
We got a surprise for her.
Tennessee Hydrometer.
Oh, here we go. She's changing up on me.
All right.
I about had enough of you with the Spanglish.
Why is it getting bitter?
Well, today we're going to run off the peach brandy that we mixed up, and I'm super
excited. Now I get to see it all work.
The biggest thing with these is if you get up on that steel, they'll sink to the bottom and
tend to burn. They'll leave a terrible taste and you won't be able to get rid of the
brandy and the bitter. Like you don't grab this hose and I'll go out and crank the pump.
Yep. Henry has made water.
Daniels worked hard through this whole project.
You know, she's never operated a submarine steel before.
That's brand new ballgame.
There you go. So to bring her in, to be able to show her some of the stuff that some of my
ancestors have done, it's a good day.
You got to watch your legs and my toes.
All right, Danny, see how far it comes up there?
Check that. You want to come up that far tip.
If you don't, if you leave that mash too low and that fire comes up over it and what you
call cake burn, you'll start burning on these ends.
Oh, really? So you don't a lot of people try to cut corners by leaving it low.
Better off. Fill it up. You got to fill it.
Steel up. Okay.
Then. We should have liquor soon, shouldn't we?
Yeah.
I smell it in the air.
Oh, there we go. Come on, baby.
There we go. Oh, yeah.
Oh, it sure does smell good.
Top of the line.
How do you know? Looking at the beads.
Exactly what ballpark you're in.
The lower the truth, the smaller the bead.
If you could guess, if I had a hydrometer, what would that be?
I'm guessing about 110.
That's what I'd like to say. Between one five.
110. I'll be thirsty if we'll get up to you.
We'll think. Cheers.
Cheers. Good stuff.
It's mild, isn't it?
That's fantastic.
It came out so smooth.
Just a touch of the peach smell.
But it wasn't overpowering.
Fruity, sweet.
I think it turned out perfect.
And it's exactly what you want a brandy to be.
It can't be any better.
It's all right here on the side of the road.
Check that stuff out.
That looks pretty good.
It's got some pretty good leaves on it, too.
Do you think he's 4 or 5 right here?
Big enough?
This will be plenty.
What we need to do. Check.
He leaves out how furry they are.
Tell you what.
They're pretty soft, aren't they?
They are. It feels like felt.
Yeah. Good for wiping that hind end with.
Well, the cowboys.
Use it for toilet.
Paper. I'm going to have to try that.
This is freebie too.
Yeah, it's a nice one.
Got some big old leafs on it.
The Marlins got a kind of a peppery taste to the leaf.
I figured maybe adding some good green peppers of a couple of different types will
help make it pop with flavor and maybe bring just a little bit of warmth to the throat.
You like it free stuff, don't we?
Yeah. Interesting plant.
I can tell you that. We're going to have to head to the woods, get to the steel site, get
this stuff mashed in and see what it's going to taste like off that money pot.
Well, we'll get some damn Mullen mashed in.
We probably got 6 or 7 good stalks, which is way plenty Enough to do a run with.
This stuff is very, very potent.
I know this stuff is strong, but it's got a better taste and aroma.
That smells like none other.
No, it's nice, ain't it?
It is like some pleasant. Really?
On a peppery note.
Look at that. Just turning that water real good.
Yeah, it is all ready.
We've got our mullein leaves in here letting it macerate do its thing.
We're going to cut the fire down and strain our mullein tea.
Ooh, look at that. Ooh, that's pretty.
It's cooled off enough to where we can put our hand in the tea.
Let's turn this over and pour it back in the pot.
So basically, what we're going to do, we're going to take this nice, clean, white
pillowcase. We strain it all off.
That way we don't have any particles, no dirt, no hairs off of the leaves.
It tickles your throat.
Look at our nice clean tea.
Then we're going to pour it back into the pot and then start adding a little bit of
pepper to them. It's going to help get this tea a little bit of spice.
Let's get some pepper going.
Fine, sweetie. Sugar.
Till it gets down there around the butt end of it.
Then bulls the same way.
Wait till you get to the butt end.
Oh.
What is it? Runway.
Y'all ready?
Pepper, do you shut my.
Oh, hell.
He's real sensitive to peppers.
I just want to bring out Pepper flavor out even more with the peppers into a nice,
subtle, warm drink.
You know what that almost reminds me of?
What's that? A fresh pizza with pepper on it.
Oh, yeah. That's what we're looking for.
Is that good peppery flavor?
Nothing to scare anybody off it drinks it, but be like, Oh, damn, that's good.
So let's taste it and see what it's going to be like.
Yeah, let's give.
This a little taste.
Hot, Hot. Yeah, that's warm.
I'm definitely tasting the peppers.
You're the sensitive one, two peppers.
Take you a little sip.
But tell me what you think. If you think we need to add some more, we will.
If we don't, we won't.
Oh, Holy mother of Pearl.
I think we got enough in it.
Yeah. Don't you?
Yeah, we got enough in for sure.
I'll tell you what. I sure hope this liquor calms down a little bit with that hot, spicy
taste. Or else Mike's going to be our only customer.
Oh, it's about time.
There he is.
Man, I've been looking for you all day, man.
I've been looking for you half the day, man.
Man, We don't have no cell phone reception.
No, I'm really excited that Craig's getting a chance to run liquor out here in the
mountains with me. I mean, it's like a dream come true for me to be out here and use this
water and be running out here.
But to give that experience to my little brother is.
That's awesome to me.
I got my little quad. Got him.
We do loquat leaves all the time in Louisiana, but it has to be a twist of
something for me to go all the way up to Tennessee.
This is fresh.
People down here don't know about low quality.
I'm just anxious to see what comes out of this.
Oh, you got some Tennessee shine for me, huh?
Yeah. This is the real deal.
Taste that. It's the number one seller at the Bootlegger, and he's selling mimosa
liquor. It's a little perfumey.
A little medicinal taste to it.
They stepping on my toes.
I'm the medicine man when it comes to alcohol.
Mike and Jerry made it.
Really? I got to hand it to Mike and Jerry.
This is a damn good idea, but I can blow that out of the water.
This right here with this and that mimosa.
This is our Appalachian Louisiana moonshine.
We're going to make this mimosa watermelon loquat moonshine.
And we're going to beat Mike and Jerry at their own game.
I got this green material, Craig, you're going to make some tea bags.
I'm going to start out making a base with the tea with the mimosa and the loquat leaf.
That's what I do when I deal with herbs and alcohol.
I make a tea as my base as opposed to just using the water.
I think a little bit of this stuff goes a really, really long way.
That's where Mike and Jerry fell short, that they used a lot of mimosa and the taste is
overpowering. So we're going to do this the right way.
We're going to cut back on the amount of mimosa that we use, make sure that we get a
enough but not too much of it and add a little bit of that watermelon and see if we
can get a better tasting drink than they made.
I like using these tea bags because it won't scorch.
And also, we don't have to go back and get all of this stuff out of the mash.
Man, this is steaming good already.
Do the burrito method.
Smell it. Smell it.
I was changing colors already.
I can see instantly that this is working.
Look, I'm gonna cut him up.
You got the big knife? Give me the slices after you cut it.
You need five watermelons in each one of these things.
How much of that juice you're getting out of there?
Like Mary Poppins said, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
And there's a whole lot of sugar in here.
Let's taste this. See? Yep.
Look at that. It's hot.
Oh, that's a pretty color.
That's all I smell. I can't smell any mimosa in here.
I don't know if I got watermelon just stuck in my head, but that reminds me of
watermelon. Yeah, that's pretty damn good.
And all we going to do is build up on this.
It's a little perfumey.
But not to worry, because we still have to sweeten it up with our watermelon.
This is going to be one of the best liquors, if not the best liquor that I've made before.
That's it for the watermelon.
That's it for the tea. That's it for the day.
All we got to do is use this stuff in and get you a big full one.
Was the proof. I don't even.
Care what the proof is.
Give me my fruit salad.
That's it. This is good.
I can taste the loquat.
I can taste the mimosa.
And then we get to that watermelon.
It tastes like a watermelon tea.
Kudzu began its US invasion at the 1876 World's Fair.
Imported from Japan, it was marketed as a decorative plant for backyards and gardens.
Then, in a response to the ravages of the Dust Bowl, the Department of Agriculture
envisioned another use for kudzu and funded large scale planting as a means to fight soil
erosion with its wildfire growth of one foot per day.
Kudzu quickly established dominance across the landscape, strangling everything from
crops to tall trees and smothering roads, barns and houses in a deadly embrace.
But because kudzu covers the landscape without rooting, it did nothing to stop
erosion over the rest of the century.
It infested over 200 million acres of land and came to be known as the vine that ate the
south.
Kudzu multiplies like wildfire.
It goes up in trees.
It'll grow up the side of your buildings.
It'll take completely over.
But this stuff is very edible.
You can eat every part of this from the tips to the root to the leaves except the pod on
it. And guess what?
Another thing, it helps with blood pressure, heart disease, man, you name it.
It's got almost every medical property in it a man could ask for.
You looked out back here. Oh, yeah, dude, it's taking over my building back here.
I'm afraid it's going to tear him up inside and off.
We can get all we need for free.
Let's try to cook some of this stuff down and see what it tastes like.
See what happens. Yeah, I'm a little apprehensive trying to make a moonshine out
of a weed. It's kind of like something we've never done.
Look. Look at this. Upside, this mountain up through here that's taking over.
I mean, could you imagine if really good.
A couple thousand runs right here in.
The motherlode man if it works.
But, hey, you know, it's something new.
It's something different.
It might be a great seller.
It's got a good taste. I like it.
That's Green bean all day long.
It tastes just like a green bean.
To my knowledge. I don't know of anyone that's ever made an alcohol using kudzu, but
I know they use it for teas, so why not make the tea into an alcoholic beverage to present
to your customers?
There we go. You never know.
People may start harvesting this stuff to eat for the medical properties.
It could be like the new kale.
You know, when I was a kid, I never heard of anything like that.
Now, kale and everything smells good.
Come, smell. It smells like a tea.
Like a brown tea.
Smells really good to me.
We're rolling over here, buddy. We got.
Liquor. Yep. Let's put a worm in it.
My God, it smells down.
Cantaluppi, don't it?
It tastes anything like it smells.
I'll be a satisfied man.
I'm going to.
Pitch these heads out.
Looks like it's going to try to rain on us.
Reckon these camouflage nets back over there just to help.
I'm fixing to say it probably wouldn't hurt nothing.
We don't even know how this run's going to turn out yet.
And I'll be damned if it's going to try to start raining on us.
We may not even make it through it.
I'm scared it's going to condense back in the pot and it won't run.
So we cover the pot and arm up a little bit, hoping we can get through this.
Run here, Swap it out.
Let me have it. There you.
Go. Here's the test of all down times.
Now it's time to taste it and see what we think.
Good. Yes, indeed.
That's alcohol was tasted damn good.
The cantaloupes coming through.
Just a faint taste of the kudzu's coming through.
I really like it.
I got a really good note of the cantaloupe in there.
We come up with something special, something different.
This liquor will be sold in an instant.