Chef Andrew Meek of Sbrocco in Des Moines, Iowa, talks about cooking with Templeton Rye whiskey. Chef Meek likes to incorporate local ingredients into his dishes as much as possible, including his Chocolate Walnut Torte.

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Hello, Templeton Rye fans,

Kevin Boersma, Distillery Manager, here with a little winter storm news. Not only has this been a long, snowy winter, but we were recently pummeled with a crippling ice storm. This storm left thousands without power for several days including the distillery, which was out of power for nearly four days. We received close to an inch of ice in the area, which led to downed power lines, poles and many, many trees. Crews from Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Nebraska were in the area trying to restore power so everyone could try and get back to normal. Clean-up of trees is still going on and will continue into the spring. I thought I would share a few photos with you from around the distillery. Here’s to warmer weather!

Cheers,
Kevin

A view of the distillery from behind the snow piles.

Snowfall totals in Iowa have exceeded 3.5 feet this winter (that’s twice as much as the average snowfall per year)

Power lines outside of the distillery were coated with an inch of ice.

Tree branches covered in ice after the freezing rain ice storm.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the miracle Minneapolis Lakers corn field landing in Carroll, Iowa. On January 17, 1960, the Minneapolis Lakers departed St. Louis after losing to the St. Louis Hawks 135-119. Shortly after takeoff, the DC-3 charter plane began experiencing electrical problems, and eventually lost all electricity, including the fuel gauge. Unable to turn back because of air traffic in St. Louis, the plane flew for three to four hours above a massive winter storm. Eventually the plane started to veer off-course and the pilots decided they were going to have to make an emergency landing. Co-pilots Vernon Ullman and Harold Gifford managed to catch sight of Highway 71 in the snowstorm and land safely in a corn field (the Emma Steffes farm).

Carroll resident John Steffes, whose parents owned the farm where the plane landed, described the story behind the landing on Mouth of Midwest on 1700 the Champ this week. Listen to John’s story here. After landing on the Emme Steffes farm, the players were transported to a hotel in Carroll. The pilots and team were pretty shaken up by the whole incident, and rumor has it that one of the players ripped off the liquor cabinet door at the hotel and poured himself a big glass of whiskey. “The Good Stuff” perhaps?

On January 17th, 2010, the good people of Carroll, Iowa, remembered the miracle landing of the Minneapolis Lakers 50th anniversary with a ceremony. A monument was unveiled by 86-year old co-pilot Harold Gifford in Carroll’s Veteran’s Memorial Park, less than 100 yards from where the plane stopped.

Read more on about the Lakers landing in Carroll:
Valiant efforts saved Lakers – Omaha World-Herald
Happy anniversary: Lakers survive crash – Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Iowa Landing Was ‘Magic’ for the Lakers – Daily Yonder
50 years ago today: Lakers narrowly avert disaster - ESPN.com

Terry Wessel of Carpentersville, Illinois, shared his story with us about a bottle of The Good Stuff that was gifted to him by his good friend Don Burkett of Algonquin, Illinois, in celebration of Terry’s recovery after a successful but serious heart surgery. Don is an amateur photographer who enjoys sharing his vision and experiences with others. He wanted the bottle of Templeton Rye to develop some character before giving it to Terry, so he took it on a road trip and documented the bottle’s adventures, sending the photos to Terry during his recovery.

Below are few photos from the bottle’s adventures. Follow the entire journey of Terry’s bottle and see more images from Don’s galleries here. We’re glad to hear that Terry is feeling better and wish him a full recovery.

“The boys at the Carpentersville Fire Department thought this whole thing was great fun and contributed both the equipment and some great ideas to the project.” - Don Burkett

“Since rye whiskey is aged in charred oak barrels, I couldn’t resit a shot with the bottle sitting inside the hollow of an old tree.” - Don Burkett

We’re sure a few of you will find yourselves lugging packages up and down Michigan Avenue this holiday season. Be sure to stop in and see our friends at Hard Rock Hotel’s Base Bar. The bartenders really know how to mix up some amazing cocktails with their favorite house whiskey, Templeton Rye. Of course, they have many creations to satisfy a weary shopper.

Staying true to one of the Hard Rock mantras (”Save the Planet”) - Base Bar offers hand-crafted specialty libations with a focus on high-quality, sustainable ingredients and a beer and wine list showcasing products of organic and biodynamic practices. So, get your holiday shopping done and stay in good cheer by joining our friends at the Hard Rock Hotel. Tell them Templeton Rye sent you.

Here is Autumn (a bartender at Base Bar) talking about Templeton Rye on YouTube:

We are proud to announce that Twisted Spoke at 501 N Ogden in Chicago is the only bar in America to have Templeton Rye on tap! Come in on Whiskey Wednesdays when all whiskey is half price. Here is a photo of Killmer and the staff christening the new barrel.

“Templeton Still Life” by Jeff Allen

Jeff Allen of Solon, Iowa, recently shared his Templeton Rye inspired painting entitled “Templeton Still Life” on our Facebook Wall. We thought it was really cool and wanted to share it with all of you. Jeff explains the story behind the painting and his inspiration below. Enjoy!

When I was working on set up for the Templeton Rye painting, I was looking for objects that represented travel and adventure, exploring places that lie far from the run-of-the-mill tourist traps that most people visit. What would such a traveler take along with him? What would remind him of home, of the familiar in an unfamiliar place? That’s where the Templeton Rye comes into the picture. Templeton Rye represents an old friend; a traveling companion who’s never out of reach and reminds the traveler to stop and enjoy the best life has to offer.

For the composition of the painting, I placed objects that one would normally take along on a long trip on top of a wooden ammo box (my daughter picked it up at a garage sale). The hat and camera are common accessories for most travelers. The vase adds a touch of class to a bare-bones motel room and it adds a touch of mystery, makes you ask, “Why would someone bring a simple brass vase along on a trip? Maybe he’s not be traveling alone?” I wanted the viewer’s eye to move around the painting and have the viewer’s mind ask questions.

I painted this still life over the course of about a month. I set up the still life in my studio under cool north light where I could leave it up without being disturbed. I prefer the solitude of my studio with only the company of my German Shepherd, Tanner, when I paint. And, of course, a tumbler of Templeton Rye when I’ve done.

Thank you for sharing your story, Jeff. Do you have a Templeton Rye inspired creation that you would like to share with us? Feel free to tell us all about it in the comments below, or post your photos or video to our Facebook Page.

A Templeton Rye fan sent us this video he saw on Comcast Sports last week, featuring Chicago Bears’ Israel Idonije wearing a Templeton Rye t-shirt during a Game Time Dine segment.

Game Time Dine at “Berry Chill” from DC Crenshaw on Vimeo.

Ilina from Raleigh, North Carolina featured this Templeton Rye cocktail recipe on her blog Dirt & Noise a few weeks ago as part of her 5:00 Fridays cocktail series. Ilina’s recipe was inspired by a neighborhood tradition called “Brown Liquor Night,” and features a homemade basil simple syrup.

Many of us have outdoor fire pits or fireplaces so we engage in porch pyrotechnics on a regular basis. Brown Liquor Night just begs for some rocks glasses clinking fireside. So far the drinks flit between whiskey on the rocks or bourbon on the rocks. It’s high time to jazz things up a bit, no?

So for the gentlemen (and occasional gentle women who join the par-tay) here’s my contribution to Brown Liquor Night:

Porch Rye
1 ounce Templeton Rye
3 ounces ginger ale
2 teaspoons basil simple syrup (or a tish more if you like it sweeter like I do)

For the simple syrup:
Stir together 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup torn basil leaves in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir frequently and heat until sugar is dissolved. Strain into a container and chill about 30 minutes. This should keep up to a month in the fridge, but I bet you’ll use it up before then.

Mix all the ingredients together in a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a basil leaf or two. If you are feeling particularly industrious, add basil leaves to an ice tray, fill with water and freeze. Voila, basil ice cubes! Go on and go all Martha Stewart on your friends.

Cheers Llina! I love the “Brown Liquor Night” - it sounds like something every neighborhood should start up! Drinking American whiskies straight up or mixed in cocktails is a growing trend as palates change and a quest for domestic products increases.

Nothing says I am a cocktail person more than ordering a rye whiskey cocktail. Rye whiskey offers the perfect combination of dry spicy notes that can stand up to the sweet, herbaceous or fruit juices you might be mixing it with. Making your own different syrups with local seasonal products is easy, just follow the 50/50 water to sugar ratio, steep your creation and strain. Don’t be intimidated.

Cheers,

Michael Killmer, Brand Manager

Feel free to embrace the “Classic Cocktails” at our Barkeep site and on our YouTube Channel.

You might remember bikers Troy Cobb and Zach Snavely from their visit to the Templeton Rye distillery back in July. After graduation, they set out on a cross country biking adventure from Pennsylvania to Oregon, passing through Iowa along the way. We welcomed them to Templeton, Iowa with a tour of the distillery, treated them to lunch and gave them some Templeton Rye gear for the road. The guys completed their trip to Oregon in mid-August and recently sent us this “thank you” note and photos from their trip. Congratulations to the guys for completing their tour. We love meeting people who are doing cool things and were excited to be a part of their journey.

Hey Scott,

Wanted to thank you so much for the generosity you and the rest of the
Templeton Rye crew showed us as we were passing through. We concluded
that Iowa was the most fun state that we passed through, mainly
because of the great people that we met there. Troy and I completed
our trip to the Oregon coast in mid August. I’m attaching a few
pictures we took along the way with our TR gear including Mount
Rushmore, Bighorn Mountains, Yellowstone National Park, and our
continental divide crossing in Idaho. Have been telling everyone here
in PA about the uniqueness of your product; hopefully someday we’ll be
within your sales area! Hope to visit Iowa again soon. Thanks again
and best wishes!

Sincerely,

Zach Snavely

Many of you have been asking about our increased allocation during the holidays so I wanted to take a minute to explain this to you. As you may know, our product spends at least four years aging in the barrel. We can’t go back in time and make more so we “have what we have” until some of our scaled-up production becomes available late next year. We’ve chosen to allocate the product we have until then, and we send product to Iowa and Illinois at the beginning of every month. In Iowa, we have basically sent 400 cases per month to the State from Jan-Sep of 2009. We backloaded our allocation around the holidays and sent 1,200 cases to the State for October last week, and we’re following that up with another 1,200 cases in November and 600 cases in December. The good news is that it should be a little bit easier to find a bottle of The Good Stuff for the next few months. We will return to a lower allocation in January but are quickly approaching November of 2010, the date when our scaled-up production starts to come on line. We sincerely appreciate your patience as we move toward that milestone date.

Cheers,
Scott Bush
President, Templeton Rye

We recently hosted some of our friends from Wirtz Beverage in Templeton. They were treated to a uniquely Iowa experience complete with golf carts, apple pie and bowling. You can see some highlights of the visit here:

Michael Killmer, Templeton Rye Brand Manager and Brand Ambassador for Chicago, demonstrates how to make a cocktail he created called The First Lady in honor of Michelle Obama.

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Templeton Rye bottler Pat Zubrod talks about writing the labels and other aspects of working at the distillery. If you are a fan of The Good Stuff, you would probably recognize Pat’s handwriting as she fills out the batch, barrel and bottle numbers on the back of each bottle.

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Bob McDermott, owner of The Beer Bistro in the heart of the West Loop in Chicago talks about why he likes Templeton Rye and how he serves at his bar.

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Centenarian Art Rix shares a story about taking a trip to Omaha during the prohibition era and how he and his wife ended up at a speakeasy that served Templeton Rye.

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Michael Killmer, Templeton Rye Brand Manager and Brand Ambassador for Chicago, demonstrates how to make a Shirley Templeton.

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We are proud to report that we have successfully grown and harvested our first crop of rye in Templeton. While this was a small crop grown for testing purposes and will likely not go into our whiskey, we are one step closer to our goal of growing a portion of raw materials locally and bringing back a traditional Iowa crop

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Dick Prall performing at Rock & Rye

The second annual Rock & Rye Summer Music Festival was held on Saturday, August 8th in Templeton, Iowa, and was a great success. The day started at the Templeton Rye distillery with a fermentation and distillation demonstration by Assistant Master Distiller Keith Kerkhoff and distillery tours led by TR Founder & President Scott Bush. Guests were treated to a BBQ lunch prepared by award winning BBQ team the Woodfellas and wonderful beer, including Templeton Rye barrel aged products from Court Avenue Brewery and Rock Bottom Brewery. Local Carroll County winery Santa Maria was on hand as well.

The festival featured a variety of great musical acts. The Nadas played a terrific acoustic set in the distillery on a stage constructed from used whiskey barrels. Outside, Brian Joens played a great acoustic set and was followed by the lively and talented brass swing band The Prairie Cats. Fans rushed to see local favorites Aged Spirits perform their own rock version of Templeton Rye by The Nadas. Dick Prall wowed with a incredible set, and Hairball left no doubt that they came to rock the house. It was a great day in Templeton.

Scott & Keith explaining fermentation and distillation to guests.

Fans enjoying The Nadas in barrel warehouse.

A view of the stage from above.

Fans beginning to arrive.

Kevin and Scott with a member of Hairball.

Hairball being introduced by their biggest fan (Kevin Boersma).

Festival attendees rocking out to Hairball.

Jeff Donahue of Province in Chicago shares the story of the restaurant and how Templeton Rye fits in perfectly.

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