Post Civil War in the South. The country is in turmoil, the economy has been swept away, and it is each man for himself. Donovan Macfarland is a poor widow with a starving unnamed baby boy hiding in the thickets. The bummers have just ransacked her house, burning all her paper documents and petticoats. When it is the most bleak, Ellen Macfarland arrives in a creaky old wagon which she was fortunate enough to have found on the road with a newly gut-shot Jonas Witherbee in the seat. Among his possessions is a catche of war weapons and a sock full of three-cent nickles. The chicken barn has been cannon-shot but it gives rise to hope. There the two women will build a distillery of distinction. They know two things for sure: The South is clammering for whiskey and they know how to make it.