What the hell is this?
Whoa. Jesus.
We're looking around, and I hear Mark give out a little squall warning.
Hell, this casket with popcorn in it come from a fan.
Hey, we're going to come up here one night late, and he'll be walking around here like
Chucky. Hope he ain't got a butcher knife, though.
Tell him. Bye bye.
Popcorn. Close your mouth.
Damn. Welcome back to the Moonshiners Season 12 Kickoff summit.
I'm the executive producer.
Matthew Ostrom.
Last season was the roaring 2020s for shine in the economy, and liquor sales were through
the roof. Right, guys?
Yeah. In order to make this season shine economy work, our shiners need to dive deep
into their playbook by leaning on heritage and old traditions.
Let's take a look.
I've got some of that damn expensive corn here.
What did he hit you for?
$25 a bag.
Hell, you say we paid ten last year.
Were you going through something to alleviate this problem?
Don't you burn the barns out of that thing.
Now I'm trying to figure out where the gas goes in.
Son of a bitch.
Yeah. This is for.
I don't know what the hell we've got ourselves into.
Yeah, I'm done.
It was crazy, man.
You guys are planting corn.
You're. You're going from shiners to farmers.
Yeah.
Very poorly, I might add.
Let's call that a bad decision.
You know, and I don't really know what we was thinking.
What were you thinking?
We've saved. It ain't easy to work up.
We've saved $25 a bag.
You know, we.
We just. It was a lot of stuff we didn't think.
Come to find out. $25.
A 50 weight for corn ain't a bad price.
That's a pretty good deal.
So why is heritage and tradition so essential during an inflation crisis?
You know.
During the Great Depression, in our area, people really didn't know there was a
depression until the politician from Washington come through and told them because
nobody had anything.
You know, you didn't have any more than your neighbor did and you couldn't sell that damn
corn at the market, but you could turn it into liquor and sell it.
Exactly. You know, everybody had a bag of dry corn and starve to death.
But if you could turn it into a jar of liquor, you could barter for something.
So, you know, tradition and heritage plays an important role in every part of the
economy of this country, of ours.
Sure. And Mike, what about you?
Are you doing anything you never thought you'd be doing?
Yeah, you know, I'm trying to think outside the box.
I'm doing a lot of foraging this season and stuff, you know, medicinal plants, stuff that
don't cost me any money.
Just tell us a couple of the ingredients that you've been using, because I think these guys
would be really interested to hear.
I know there's one that is really inventive.
Well, I mean, I think the one it tops off that would blow everybody's mind on actually
using And if enough people watch what's to do this and harvest this actual plant and
vine, they can help it get away from the south a little bit, which is kudzu.
Oh, hell yeah.
I'm using kudzu.
Vine. That'll. That'll turn people against drinking.
It's very medicinal, man.
It helps with a lot of elements and blood pressure and stomach cramps.
There's one health benefit that kudzu has that a lot of people don't realize about it
fights alcoholism.
Mike So you might actually run your.
I know that.
Yourself. Yeah. I don't know if you got a point or not, Maggie, but I'm going to be
honest with you. If it works and it's good for you, you've got a never ending supply of
liquor. He's right.
It won't kill you. It just don't taste wonderful.
All right.
Mike, you and Jerry have a bit of a surprise this season.
You've decided to add a partner.
Yeah. Let's take a look.
That's made.
Mammon and Solomon. Solomon.
Sutton. Sutton.
Yeah, boy. Uh oh.
The guy with the Sutton last night.
Yenikend. Old popcorn.
Yeah, that's my dad.
You're daddy? Hey.
Oh, fa. Oh, My dad was popcorn.
Sutton.
As Bubba says, I'm going.
To make some wicked today.
He ran liquor out here a long time up on Hemphill and all over Maggie Valley.
Biggest question is, can you work?
And do you want to work?
Oh, yeah.
All right. So, Mike, you decided to bring in Solomon Sutton Popcorn son.
How did that come about?
Well, as a matter of fact, Jerry actually knew the guy and introduced me to him.
And, you know, we'd been thinking any way we might need some help or what have you.
And who knows?
You know, this kid may be able to bring something to the table that me and Jerry
don't know nothing about. You know, some really old technique that he learned from
possibly his dad or somebody in the Sutton family.
But, I mean, as of right now, he's doing good.
He's a damn good grunt worker, for sure.
Maybe he can he can show us something.
Maybe he can be a good part of our season.
This this season.
That sounds good. What do you guys think about Mike working with Solomon Sutton?
I know Solomon, but I'm not around him a whole lot.
But if he's anything like his daddy, he's going to prove to be right.
Difficult. Yeah, most definitely.
He's not a bad kid.
I mean.
Yeah, that's popcorn's boy for sure.
I really like Solomon.
I think a lot of him.
But now I'm not going to say that he won't prove difficult at some point.
Speaking of popcorn, Sutton, Mark and Digger, you guys have made a piss pot Still in honor
of popcorn. Sutton, Let's take a quick look.
You got that, Noah? Watch this.
Yeah. Talented as all Get out.
Today's the day that we take popcorn's old patterns, and we're going to build us a
pisspot out of them.
We know this is the camp.
Yep. This should be the exact width.
These are just like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There ain't no more of these patterns that he cut out.
All right, gentlemen, can you explain what is a piss pot still.
In popcorn's eyes?
That's anything under a one barrel steel.
50 gallons.
But what does it mean to the moonshine world that you have these original patterns, right?
It's like a lot of things.
I mean, they probably don't mean cut full of warm piss to somebody else, but, you know,
they're a priceless heirloom to us.
Me? I wouldn't take $1 million cash money for it.
Oh, now that's a lie.
Well, I'm hoping somebody will.
I'll throw the bull flag on that.
Damn it. You blew your half.
I was going to give you half of it.
Somebody. Oh, we wouldn't take $1 million.
There you go.
Okay.
All right, guys, it's time for a viewer question.
Here we go. At Jill's sports car asks, What's the one job you thought you wanted but
realized you didn't?
Damn, I think we stumped him.
I thought I wanted to grow a corn crop.
Yeah, I wanted to be a.
Delivery driver at one time, too.
That first delivery and that doll came out.
Well, you know, I mean, you ended up making deliveries.
Just. Just. Just not.
Just not for the postal Service.
All right. There's plenty more of the kickoff summit to come, including Mark and
Digger's big reveal.
You don't want to miss it.
You know, this season we got some competition in town.
We got Richard Landry trying to sell liquor in our territory.
Get ready to run.
Oh, yeah. Tastes pretty damn good.
But we've got popcorn.
Sutton son. He may be an ace in the hole for me and Jerry.
He's been taught the old way, which is nothing wrong with that.
You might want to pay attention.
Oh, she's running.
You got liquor, brother.
Got a little spitting going on there.
You want to take my pecker and stick in there?
What?
Yeah. I was about to use this stick right here.
Put that pecker out. It's good luck sticking your pecker in it.
Oh, God.