Unwrapped 2.0 (2015) s02e05 Episode Script

On this episode of "Unwrapped 2.
0," it's all about the flavors.
From refreshing mints you can't resist to a sticky candy with a salty title to a classic cookie favorite, these treats are infused with flavors that will make your mouth water.
Growing up, my favorite part of eating out was when the mints would come at the end of the meal, and nothing topped seeing the waiter bring over these shiny green wrappers.
One bite, and, snap, you know you've bitten into an Andes mint candy.
Andes Candies was founded by Andrew Kanelos.
The original name of the company was Andy's Candies, but he quickly found out that men did not want to buy a box of chocolates with another man's name on it.
So, he changed the spelling, and we get to enjoy that perfect combination of mint and chocolate.
Those iconic three layers start off with basic ingredients.
Sugar, oil, cocoa, and milk powders are blended inside these giant mixers for ten minutes.
Once the batch emerges from behind the walls of the mixers, it falls onto a conveyer belt that takes it through a refining process.
We're trying to knock off any of the rough edges of the product.
During the refining process, the chunks of chocolate ride through sets of rollers, breaking it down into tiny powder particles.
There's a simple reason for going to all this trouble.
That's the beginning process for what we want in the end product a very creamy texture for the candy.
After refining, the chocolate is ready to turn from a powder into a liquid form.
The powder blends together with small amounts of oil.
Before long, the powder and oil drop into a large mixing bowl called a conch.
It's here that the chocolate will churn in 100-degree heat.
That's where the product really picks up flavor and texture characteristics.
It's called a conch because its shape resembles a conch shell, but this one holds of milk chocolate.
After slowly blending for four hours to get that signature creamy taste, it's finally time to start forming that iconic three-layer candy.
The chocolate, being the first layer, is deposited through a nozzle in a pre-formed mold.
To create a level base, the trays of liquid chocolate are shaken to ensure the chocolate settles evenly.
Once the first layer is set, it takes a chilly ride down the cooling tunnel.
This ensures the chocolate doesn't mix together with its counterpart the mint.
That mouth-watering crème de menthe mix is blended in a separate conch bowl away from the chocolate.
A mixture of proprietary ingredients stirs with peppermint oil and green food coloring, waiting patiently to join the fun.
The liquid mint flows into the trays just like the first layer of chocolate.
Only, with one easy-to-see difference that signature mint-green color.
The trays are shaken once more and run back through the cooling tunnel.
Then it's time to put the cap on this confectionery treat.
The top layer of chocolate sandwiches the mint, giving us the classic three-layer candy.
The three layers stand only about a quarter of an inch tall, but each one packs a ton of flavor.
The minty pieces of candy move onto the cooling tunnels.
At a brisk 48 degrees, these minty treats travel up, down, and back again, over and over throughout a 30-minute cool-down period to harden.
When they pop out of the tunnel, they've already got their classic Andes inscription, thanks to the molding trays.
Each piece is carefully inspected for any bumps or bruises.
Once they clear the inspection process, it's time for the mints to get dressed in those shiny green wrappers.
And that dressing happens fast at over 1,000 pieces per minute.
Out of one batch that's made in refining, we'll yield about 340,000 individual Andes pieces.
That'll make for a lot of happy customers waiting for their after-dinner mints.
Once they're wrapped, they're put into bags and then boxes, ready to fill your candy bowl.
In one month's time, we make enough Andes candies to feed every person in the United States one single piece of Andes candies.
But seriously, who can eat just one? Coming up, learn the secret behind this tasty, salty treat.
And later, discover how these chocolaty bits are just beginning to be eaten right out of the oven.
Every time I head to the beach, I always seem to come back home with a handful of these sticky treats.
Although the name "saltwater taffy" originated on the Jersey shore over 100 years ago, here at Taffy Town, they've got a history all their own when it comes to making candy.
This all started over with my great-grandfather.
He gathered to start making some peppermint chews.
Before too long, he was delivering on bicycle, and that's what gave birth to Taffy Town.
Eventually, the company branched out to saltwater taffy.
Every year, they create exciting new flavors like banana split, bubble gum, and frosted cupcake.
No matter which one, each batch starts here in a mixing bowl.
Despite its name, there isn't any actual saltwater in saltwater taffy, but there is salt and water.
They blend 30 pounds of sugar and 100 pounds of corn syrup.
This sugary combination is cooked until it reaches a searing Nearby in a separate mixer, they add egg whites, sea salt, and palm oil.
The giant egg beater whips the concoction, creating a meringue-like texture that's fluffy and smooth.
When that's finished, they add some food coloring.
On the schedule for today is cotton candy.
As it mixes, liquid sugar is slowly added to the batch.
Then they add the unique flavoring and just a little goes a long way.
Creating this flavored treat is no simple feat.
It requires two separate batches one pink and one blue.
Inside this mixing bowl is a batch of hot, gooey taffy weighing in at about 200 pounds.
The bowl is carted over and hoisted onto a cooling table.
This sticky stuff is too hot to touch, so the workers use hand tools to spread out the taffy evenly on the table to start chilling.
After 5 minutes, the batch is still warm, but not scorching hot, so they're able to start chopping up chunks and transferring the taffy into holding bins.
It sits overnight because it's too hot to work with right now.
And so, we have to allow it to chill enough to be able to handle it the next day.
This may be an air-conditioned room, but it's not exactly cold.
These colorful candies sit in so that they don't harden completely.
The following morning, the chewy treat is ready for the design team.
We go the extra mile to the designs of each of our candies.
We can do stripes, dots, swirls, stacks, zig-zags.
When it comes to cotton candy, it's all about the swirl.
To make that happen, the batches are run through a sizer wheel.
When they come out the other end, the slabs are about The pink batches are set slightly overlapped and then wiped with a damp cloth.
Then it's the blue batch's turn.
It runs through the sizer wheels and is stretched to match the two pink batches before being placed on top.
The moisture from the damp cloth helps the two colors adhere.
All three batches are then rolled together into one giant mound of taffy.
With the three batches now joined together, it's time to take this mountain of taffy and make it into bite-size pieces.
That's a job for the batch roller.
This spinning machine rolls and squeezes the 18-inch log of taffy into a longer, thinner rope eventually shrinking it down to just 2 inches in diameter.
Now the perfect size, the taffy takes a ride down to the cut wrapper.
This machine take the rope of candy and cuts it into individual pieces.
The machine jams the little bites into wrappers and twists the edges before popping out saltwater taffies with that blue swirl right in the middle.
All of that happens at a rapid pace because this machine cuts and wraps 500 pieces of taffy per minute.
The pieces are sent into a hopper that weighs out the candy to 5-pound batches.
Once the scale is tipped, the taffy is released and drops down into the packaging machines below.
We make 312 million pieces of taffy every year.
That's quite a mouthful.
And no matter the flavor, each and every one will make you feel like you're back at the beach.
Coming up, a high-tech take on a classic treat.
There's nothing like a fresh-baked cookie, and so many flavors to savor oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, snickerdoodles wow! But the one cookie I can never resist is a classic chocolate chip.
Biting down on those little morsels of chocolate chips is the best part of my day, and that's the experience Christie's Cooking Company wants everyone to share.
Your first bite of a Christie Cookie chocolate chip cookie is the best experience you're ever gonna have.
Founded in 1983, their Nashville cookie factory has been putting smiles on faces for over 30 years.
It is a special cookie.
It's buttery.
It's sweet.
It's got that just the right amount of chocolate.
You can find them just about anywhere in stores, online, and even in places you don't expect like my belly.
But seriously, you can even have these tasty treats shipped right to your home.
And each cookie starts with the perfect mix of ingredients.
We get truckloads in typically on a daily basis of our raw ingredients.
It's those raw ingredients that can make or break a cookie, and just like at home, making sure there's just the right amount of each is crucial to making a perfect cookie.
When it's time to make a cookie dough batch, they kick it off with what they call a creaming process.
For 5 minutes, they blend butter and sugar until it's thoroughly mixed.
Then they add flour, egg, vanilla, and more sugar.
And most importantly, loads of chocolate chips.
Last year, just in one size, we ran almost 400,000 pounds of chocolate chips.
You heard that right chocolate chips.
The ingredients blend together in a mixing bowl until they get a massive batch of cookie dough.
Each one weighs in at almost 300 pounds.
The bowl gets rolled over to the forming machine.
We can typically run Inside the forming machine, the dough is formed into a forming plate.
As it pushes forward, the dough exits the machine to be sliced by cutting blades, creating cookie dough pucks.
Because the pucks are made with no preservatives, they need to be kept fresh, so they move straight from the cutting line towards a flash freezer.
This is a lot colder than the freezer in your kitchen.
Inside here, the temperature is negative-141 degrees.
Liquid nitrogen freezes those little pucks of cookie dough solid in 5 minutes flat.
When the cookies exit the freezer, they're sorted by machine into which are then dropped into boxes.
Then they're sealed and run through a labeler.
The boxes are shipped out to a large cold storage facility until it's time to bake.
And that baking happens here inside these giant rotating ovens.
First, the frozen dough pucks are loaded onto trays and slid into 6-foot racks.
Each rack can hold nearly Once they're crammed with cookies, the racks are wheeled over to the ovens to start cooking.
They're baked at around anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes.
I can't get enough of that freshly baked cookie smell, all 200,000 of them each day.
The orders are then filled by hand in the packaging center.
The cookies are placed in tin containers that are ready to ship out to customers like myself.
They're so moist.
It's a cookie that you would have from your grandmother.
It's like a little piece of home.
Up next, what famous American drink made in the mountains of Tennessee will put hair on your chest? Stay tuned.
Deep in the mountains of Tennessee, a centuries-old tradition is alive and well.
We're the first legal moonshine distillery in Tennessee.
Ole Smoky Distillery pumps out gallons upon gallons of the classic mountain libation just like they did back in the old days with one important distinction.
We basically just pay our taxes.
Oh, right, there's that.
But that's not all.
The moonshine that we're making here at Ole Smoky, it's a 100-year-old family recipe.
That original family clean, cool, Tennessee spring water, and good, old-fashioned yellow corn.
We're in east Tennessee.
We have great water here.
All that stuff plays into a good jar of moonshine.
And this modern moonshine has a new twist grain alcohol infused with a rainbow of flavors from apple pie to piña colada, even watermelon.
Before they add the flavor, today's hooch, like that of a century ago, starts the same way filling a large vat with fresh mountain spring water, and then adding the corn all 1,250 pounds of it.
In about a month's time, we'll actually go through about 100,000 pounds of good, yellow corn.
The vat is brought to a boil, which allows for starch conversion to take place.
That converts the starch from the corn into sugar.
Once it's boiled for about an hour, we'll actually cool that down to about 150 degrees.
We'll add our malt to it.
The malt breaks down the starches from the corn and turns them into simple sugars.
After another half hour or so, they'll cool it down to room temperature and add the key ingredient that makes this mash come alive yeast.
Adding the yeast kicks off a fermentation process which lasts almost four days.
Four days' later, the mash is ready to be turned into moonshine.
Now, most distilleries just use the water from the mash, but here at Ole Smoky Distillery, they don't stop with just the water.
They use every piece of mash, and I mean all of it.
The corn, the water, the yeast, the everything, we'll move it and pump it into the still.
We want to get all the flavor out of the whole mash.
They pump the mash from barrels into a massive copper pot.
Then they use steam to control how quickly they heat it up.
As the mash heats up, it eventually turns into a vapor.
That vapor moves across the pipe into the thumper, which swirls around the vapors.
From there, it'll kind of swirl around, almost like redistilling it for the second time.
Then the vapor takes a quick ride over to the condenser, which they affectionately call the worm, because it's filled with coils.
Cold water runs through the bottom, and as the steam goes down through the coils, the cold water then turns the vapor back into a liquid.
Then you have moonshine.
But they're not satisfied with a single pass distillation.
At Ole Smoky, they repeat the process.
We'll actually move it to a second distillation still and redistill it again for the final product.
Distilling the product a second time gives the normally throat-searing moonshine a cleaner, higher-proof pour.
And it really just makes a more drinkable product.
From there, we're able to add water to it, bring it back down to 100 proof, to our selling point.
Once the proof is set, they have two options bottle that original, rich, smooth moonshine spirit, or infuse the batch with those fun flavors to give it a real boost.
Then the moonshine is bottled with a touch of classic Americana flair mason jars.
Around since the 1800s, Ole Smoky couldn't imagine any better packaging than these old-fashioned jars.
My favorite time to drink it is at a family get-together.
You just take the lid off the jar and simply just pass it around.
Perfect for family get-togethers? Hmm.
Could make Thanksgiving dinners a whole lot livelier.
Let's roll on it, yo.
I'm just trying to help y'all out 'cause there's some funky breath after lunch over there.
I can't work like this! You should smell it, and then touch your finger.