‘Moonshiners’ Exclusive: It’s Always Something As Mark And Digger Wrestle With Big Sloppy
One of the more enjoyable slices of life brought to you from the hill country is Moonshiners on Discovery. The two men featured in TV Shows Ace exclusive clip are Mark Ramsey and Digger Manes, business partners and stars of the series. Fans know that Mark and Digger have an awesome distillery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee that retails their special blends.
And with national supply chains fully disrupted thanks to COVID, Mark and Digger’s unearthing leads to a ton of free ingredients for them to use.
They are loading their still Big Sloppy with a rye ball along with the fixings for a new batch of shine when a small calamity strikes. A leak has sprung up, and to make matters worse, the copper lined still is throwing out water where shine should be coming out of.
Also on the episode tonight, Tickle helps Josh build a submarine still farm and Mike designs a first-ever backwoods column still, perfect for endless runs of high-quality low-cost liquor.
What happens with Mark and Digger on Moonshiners
The narrator lays out the scene, saying that in Tennessee and with a stockpile of surplus grain and sugar, Mark Ramsey and Digger Manes face the challenge of
producing high quality shine at their lowest price point ever.
The two are filling their still with the ingredients needed to make the shine when a leak is noticed. At first the two think maybe a mole or a mouse caused it, but they aren’t sure.
Describing the economic landscape, Mark says: “You know the money is not there now…people simply don’t have it. So the goal for this season is to make
as much liquor as we can at a bargain basement price. Big Sloppy…she’s a 300 gallon steel [and] you’re looking at 36 to maybe 42 gallons per run.
So if we can run three times a week you do the math, it’s a lot of liquor.”
They make a paste of rye flour to ferment and seal the leaks. They describe how they make a “big old dough ball” out of it.
As they proceed a spray of water now comes out of a pinhole at the bottom of the still.
What happens this season on Moonshiners?
Just as their forefathers discovered how to survive during the last century, these modern day outlaw shiners today are thriving in the face of adversity. While the global economy has killed so many businesses around the country, the moonshine business is bursting at the seams.
When the economy took a huge nosedive at the beginning of 2020, so many businesses around the country closed, especially bars and restaurants.
The national supply chains experienced a huge demand surge and were disrupted, leading to massive quantities of surplus ingredients for backwoods shiners to produce an endless supply of high-quality liquor for very little money.
Now, with an abundance of fruits and grains and unfortunately some very distracted law enforcement, Moonshiners aren’t letting the opportunity pass them, as this season they look to develop new recipes by building bigger stills and taking bigger risks than ever before.
Already well versed in living a socially distant lifestyle, Tim Smith, Steven Ray Tickle, Mark Ramsey, Digger Manes, Josh Owens and the rest of the Moonshiners crew are masked up and they are ready to prove that while times may be tough, the silver lining of demand in addition to a government stimulus handout is a golden ticket to a killer season of profits.
In an all new season, our favorite outlaw distillers will be tested like never before as they take on more risks and beef up their backwoods businesses to meet unprecedented customer requests while taking advantage of an oversupply of raw ingredients that is a windfall to the shiners.
And as the crew explains, these hard times make the best shine, and the cash flow hum.
The executives behind Moonshiners
This series is produced by Magilla Entertainment. Executive producers for Magilla Entertainment are Matthew Ostrom, Laura Palumbo Johnson, Jason Fox and Chris Tetens with David Jacobs serving as co-executive producer.
For Discovery Channel, executive producer is Bill Howard and associate producer is Paola Espinosa.
Moonshiners airs Tuesdays at 8pm ET/PT on Discovery.
In addition to watching Moonshiners on Discovery, viewers can join the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #Moonshiners and following Discovery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
