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[acoustic guitar notes 
lead bright, resonant tones]

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♪

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(narrator) 
Halfway down Redbud Lane,

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a little northeast 
of Forest City

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and not far 
from the town of Bostic,

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Blue Ridge distillery 
sits quietly

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alongside Grayson's Creek

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in a tranquil spot 
called Golden Valley.

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♪

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You may be a whiskey fan

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or not care a whit 
for the stuff,

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but either way,

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you'll be intrigued 
with the ingenuity

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behind the mountain spirits 
created by men

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who seemed destined to come 
together for that reason.

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Their success 
is all about these bubbles,

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drifting up through 
cut spirals of white oak

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immersed in newly distilled 
white whiskey,

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bubbles that will 
transform your thinking

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about how fine spirits 
can be made,

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without waiting 
10, 12, or 15 years

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for it to age in barrels.

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♪

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Tim's family 
was from Connecticut,

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but his grandfather 
purchased land

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in the North Carolina 
mountains

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in Golden Valley.

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(Tim) 
So I got here when I was 16, 
and I fell in love with it.

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I loved everything about it.

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I felt a human freedom here,

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and it felt like comin' home 
for the first time.

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(narrator) 
Tim's parents 
opened his eyes to the world,

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giving him a native sense 
of dissatisfaction

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with the way he found things, 
so as a young man,

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he tried some of this 
and some of that:

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built fire trucks, 
went to diesel school,

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worked in a gas station.

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(Tim) 
I was having 
a conversation one day

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where somebody was talking 
about commercial diving,

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and it was one of those things 
where I was almost upset.

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I was upset that I hadn't 
heard about it before now,

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almost like, 
how dare people have careers

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as commercial diving 
and not let me know?

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Like, that's not fair.

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(narrator) 
So he went to dive school

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and eventually became 
a freelance diver.

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(Tim) 
So I started working 
inland diving;

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I started working 
offshore oil;

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I started working 
international salvage

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all at the same time

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because they are 
very seasonal industries,

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and I started 
Defiant Marine.

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I had $400 cash 
that I went down and--

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and started the company with.

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Within three months, 
first contract

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comes out of the blue, 
Deepwater Horizon,

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the BP oil spill.

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(narrator) 
Salvage diving means 
traveling the world

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among a loose fraternity 
of like-minded men

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who come together 
as projects demand.

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(Tim) 
You get to call 
the best people

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you've ever worked with 
and say,

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"Hey, we're going to Sicily; 
hey, we're going to Egypt.

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Hey, let's-- 
let's go to Greenland."

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You have a family of--

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of rough-and-tumble, 
hairy-chested,

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knuckle-draggin' 
deep-sea divers.

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You learn to create 
this civilized chaos.

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(narrator) 
And sometimes 
amid the civilized chaos,

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you make a friendship 
that sticks.

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(Tim) 
I met Bob 
sittin' in a terminal

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at the Miami airport, 
and, uh, Bob shows up,

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and you can spot-- 
you learn to spot divers.

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And he comes walkin' in 
in a pair of, you know,

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black elephant hide 
cowboy boots

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and a pair 
of Ray-Ban sunglasses

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and a Hawaiian shirt 
and, I think, you know,

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sits down next to me 
and probably made some crack

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like, so you're goin' 
to this job too?

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You know, 
I liked him instantly.

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(narrator) 
Bob Weihe is the gray-hair 
of the bunch.

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He started diving at 18

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and had been at it 
most of a lifetime.

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He and Tim quickly bonded.

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So how do you go from salvage 
diving to making whiskey

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in a quiet 
North Carolina valley

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once known 
for its gold deposits?

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Well, sometimes 
your phone doesn't ring,

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which means you've got to find

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some other way 
to keep your team working.

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So I was sitting there alone, 
trying to figure out,

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how do I make Defiant Marine--

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or how do we keep 
this momentum going

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in a way that makes sense but 
diversifies us a little bit?

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And I was, like, 
lookin' at the still, going...

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"Is it that simple?

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Is it right in front of us?"

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I called everybody 
the next day,

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and I said, 
"Guys, I'm flying you in.

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We're building a distillery."

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I said, "I Don't know anything 
about whiskey.

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Don't know if I wanna."

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He goes, 
"It's easy."

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Water, barley-- 
throw it in the still.

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Little bit of yeast-- 
that's it.

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And glad 
that we thought that way

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'cause that 
was necessary, again,

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to get us as far 
as we've gotten.

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(narrator) 
The Defiant guys' ability

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to look at a project 
from odd angles,

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as it turned out,

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not only suited 
whiskey-making just fine

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but helped them create

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a smooth, 
new American single malt

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in a way 
that defies tradition.

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I wanted to do something 
that was unique,

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and out of, you know, 
financial necessity,

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I thought about making 
a single-malt vodka,

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which would have been 
a mash of 100% malted barley

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distilled at a high-enough 
proof to be a vodka.

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But there's so many vodkas, 
and the reason is,

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is they're easy to make.

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I didn't wanna make "easy"; 
I wanted to make "remarkable."

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[easy guitar tune]

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(narrator) 
Beginning with the barley,

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Defiant whiskey is made

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with plump and juicy 
two-row pale brewers' barley

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with a golden amber to it.

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The water comes 
from a spring on the property

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and is perfect 
for whiskey-making,

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but the oak they use 
to mature the product

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is Defiant's key ingredient.

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(Tim) 
Most whiskeys 
that are on the market

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are aged 
for a minimum of eight years,

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which means eight years

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of burning up every dollar 
you can put your hands on

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to get spirit 
into a barrel that--

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you don't know if it's gonna 
be successful or not,

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to then go and engage a market

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where you need money 
for marketing

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that we didn't have.

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And what I had been taught-- 
or what I had accepted

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was that 
a four-year whiskey's OK,

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a six-year whiskey's better,

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a ten-year's whiskey's 
better than that,

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up to, you know, 
a 50-year whiskey,

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and I had been sold 
on that as a fact.

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The word whiskey

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doesn't mean 
"aged in a barrel."

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The word whiskey is 
an old Gaelic term or phrase,

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uisge beatha, which means 
the "water of life."

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It doesn't mean 
"aged in a barrel,"

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and so I started 
to rethink things.

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I thought, wait a second.

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Someone could just sit down 
and say, you know what,

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we're gonna put 
our whiskey in a barrel

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because what the wood 
has in it

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is gonna be complimentary.

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They found it out by accident 
because a barrel

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was the storage and shipping 
vessel of the day.

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(narrator) 
And then Tim 
met a barrel maker

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who showed him an oak spiral.

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And when you put this oak 
in our distillate,

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you watch the amber's 
washing out of this oak

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within 15, 20 minutes,

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like dippin' a tea bag 
in hot water.

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It's changing

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from this white, crystal-clear 
new-make whiskey,

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and we found 
that within 60 days,

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you really reach 
the saturation point,

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so we like to say, 
instead of putting

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our whiskey in the barrel,

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we put our barrel 
in the whiskey.

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(narrator) 
The whiskey world took notice

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of the Defiant new American 
single malt

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almost immediately.

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(Tim) 
We launched the brand 
in 12/12/12,

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December 12, 2012, 
and within 12 months,

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we won 
best new whiskey of 2013.

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(narrator) 
Gary Crunkleton 
should know whiskey.

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His bar, 
the Crunkleton in Chapel Hill,

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has been a part

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of the national 
cocktail renaissance.

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(Gary) 
But I've heard that what 
they do is, they run the--

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the spirit, the distillate, 
through wood chips,

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and then, when it comes out 
the other end,

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it's--it's this color.

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So there's no time at all 
in a barrel,

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and that's amazing to me.

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They--there must be 
some pressure

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or somethin' to get 
some osmosis going to--

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to pick up the molecules

193
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from the wood 
to get into the whiskey,

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but it's a great product.

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I enjoy drinkin' it; 
I enjoy mixing with it,

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and again, 
it's a beautiful packaging--

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I'm proud that we have it 
in North Carolina--

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proud of it.

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(narrator) 
The Blue Ridge Distilling crew

200
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makes an enthusiastic 
and efficient team.

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Everybody does 
a little bit of everything,

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whether it taste-testing

203
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the most desirable 
heart liquor,

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packing product, 
making breakfast,

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or just enjoying the scenery.

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(Bob) 
I like where we're at 
in Golden Valley.

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I mean, this is 
a wonderful place to work.

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The mountain's 
right out the door.

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I can go for a walk 
in the woods anytime I want.

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(narrator) 
It's an ideal place 
to take a break

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from those 
physically demanding

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Defiant Marine projects,

213
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like that time in New York 
following Superstorm Sandy.

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(Tim) 
And you're sittin' there 
in Battery Park.

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The sun's just comin' up, 
and you're poppin' the cork

216
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on a bottle of Defiant whiskey

217
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that you make on your farm 
in North Carolina

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at your own distillery,

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and you're the guys that are 
tasked with pumpin' out

220
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the New York City 
subway system?

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It's--surreal moments-- 
you can't help

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but shake your head 
and look at each other

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and just quiet-- 
there's nothing to say.

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We make it right here, 
every single drop,

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and we make it our way,

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and it's working, 
and people love it.

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[resonating strings fade]