In 1931, a cardboard cutout of a little brown jug with the words X-Mas Spirits was raised along with the holiday lights above Main Street in Templeton. Many claim it was done with the aid of at least one person who occupied an important position in the civic and municipal affairs of the town. A picture of the little brown jug ended up on the front page of the Des Moines Register, which led to the most intense and sustained period of federal raids on booze-making around the town of Templeton, ever.
This Flickr post by Genie Gratto couldn’t be more timely with the holiday travel season upon us. Genie, a resident of Oakland, California, shares her story below about how her friends “smuggled” a few 3-oz. bottles of Templeton Rye from Iowa to the West Coast.
Friends from Iowa came to visit last weekend, and I had asked them to bring me a bottle of Templeton Rye. However, they were flying with carry-on bags only, so they said they’d have to see what they could do. Thusly and therefore? Here’s a TSA-approved, quart-sized bag of three-ounce bottles of Templeton. My friends rule.
Cheers to Genie’s friends for their craftiness and ingenuity. Looks like the sly spirit of the Iowa farmers who bootlegged whiskey during Prohibition is alive and well.
Templeton Rye’s founder, Scott Bush, was recently featured on Iowa Public Radio’s The Exchange with Ben Keiffer. We’ve posted the audio file in its entirety below. Click the play button to begin listening.
Gale Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Geology at Georgia Southern University, sent us a story about a white loggerhead sea turtle named “Templeton” that was released into the Atlantic Ocean on August 25th from St. Catherines Island.
Templeton the Turtle hatched on August 24, 2008 (one of 81 sibling loggerhead sea turtles from one nest). The nest had just survived the tempests of Tropical Storm Kay on the Georgia coast. Templeton was the second white turtle of the 2008 nesting season (that’s two among 8037 hatchlings). According to Gale, Templeton should return to St. Catherines Island in approximately 30 years as a sexually-mature sea turtle, after growing from the size of a silver dollar to the size of a large wash-tub. You can visit the SCI Sea Turtle Program website at www.scistp.org to learn about what’s happening with sea turtles on Georgia’s coast.
Gale also writes:
Templeton Rye is rapidly gaining favor (or is that flavor?) here on St. Catherines Island, which, in the best of Prohibition tradition, is “run in” by automobile from Northeast Iowa.
Thanks for the story, Gale! We’re delighted that Templeton Rye has found its way to Georgia, and we hope to spot Templeton the Turtle again in 30 years.
By the early 1930s, many Templeton Rye stills had been shut down and destroyed by authorities. Despite these Prohibition efforts, there was still a surprising abundance of Templeton Rye.
The excerpt below from the Iowa News Service describes one young man’s account of the Templeton Rye supply in 1932.
It is estimated by persons who should know that there are now only three stills of any importance in the surrounding county. The rest, they say, were wiped out a year or so ago when for a short time authorities destroyed them at the rate of three a day.
The supply, however, is still adequate. Recently, a young man with an investigative turn of mind barged into Templeton to see what he could drink. In response to his initial inquiry he was informed that finding Templeton Rye these days was like locating a needle in a haystack.
Never, the young man now reports, did he come in contact with a needle so large, or a haystack so small.
During the Great Depression, many Iowans were making and selling Templeton Rye just to get by. The small towns would work together to warn each other when the Feds were coming. “The roads are rough” was code to watch out for the Feds, but it was also very symbolic of the times.
Gerald Gesinger of Carroll County shares the story behind the warning message and his memories of bootlegging during the Depression in the video below:
Notorious 1930s bank robber John Dillinger allegedly wrote a letter to Henry Ford stating, “Your slogan should be: Drive a Ford and Watch the Other Cars Fall Behind You.” We think Ray Bristol might agree.
H.F. “Gus” Schroeder told us this story about Ray and his new Ford V-8 getaway car:
A fellow by the name of Ray Bristol did all that hooch-making at dad’s place. You could write a story just about his adventures, that’s a fact. He would load up eight 10-gallon kegs of whiskey and run it to Omaha for shipment to Chicago.
He was hijacked that one time in Missouri Valley in 1933 — he had a ‘33 Chevy and it wasn’t fast enough. They took his eight barrels of whiskey (that was 80 gallons) and when he got home he traded the Chevy off for a new Ford. The Fords had just come out with the new V-8s and they were fast. He never got hijacked again after that.
Gene Wiese from Manning, Iowa, shared this story about the popularity of Templeton Rye in Chicago back in the late 1940s:
When I was a kid, we just accepted Templeton Rye in our area as commonplace. We thought everybody might have something similar to Templeton Rye, that there was nothing unusual about it.
Soon after WWII in 1947, I exhibited cattle at the Great Chicago International Stock Show. My parents warned me, South State and Halsted Streets, that is a tough end of town. As I was sitting with my cattle, all these different ethnic groups would come.
When people asked you where you were from they would say, “Where is that from Des Moines?” or “Where is that from Sioux City?” Well, these folks in Chicago would look at the sign I painted and often ask, “Where is that from Templeton?” Now, this is Chicago, and they acquainted any town in Iowa with where it was from Templeton. The next question was “Did you bring any Templeton Rye with you?” The stories about its popularity in Chicago are very, very true.
You can listen to Gene talk about the Chicago International Stock Show and getting asked about Templeton Rye in the video below:
Charles Hanson from Odebolt, Iowa, wrote to us with the following story:
When I was a youngster living in Odebolt, my dad and uncle enjoyed fishing in Blackhawk Lake. One evening in the 1930s they were trying their luck on the northeast area of the lake and not finding any kind of bait that the fish were taking.
They had tried worms and several artificial lures to no avail. Dad unwrapped a cigar and even tried using the cellophane wrap as a “fly” lure. Again - no takers. My uncle saw a snake with a frog in it’s mouth and tried to take the frog. The snake held tight. My uncle had visited the bootlegger before going to Blackhawk Lake and had a bit of TR in his tackle box.
He poured a couple of drops of TR in the snake’s mouth and the snake coughed out the frog. While they were casting about 20 minutes later, dad felt something brush his leg and there was that snake with another frog in its mouth! I am now 85 years old, and some of the particulars are a bit dim in my memory, but the “facts” are as true as I can make them!
Garland of Manning, Iowa, sent us this story about a man named George Blade, from Irwin. He writes:
George Blade would ship 8-10 cars of cattle to Chicago several times a year. They would load them on the cars in Irwin and then the train would also stop in Manning to pick up more cattle. While they stopped in Manning, there would be a team of horses and a wagon that would back up to one of George Blade’s cattle cars and unload six or nine sacks of cattle feed.
Upon arriving in Chicago, George would always see that these sacks of cattle feed would get up to his hotel room. After the cattle were sold, the word would go out to the commission men and buyers and various other people that George Blade from Irwin was having some “hospitality” at such-and-such room. By now I’m sure you have figured out that the sacks of cattle feed also contained several bottles of Templeton Rye.
Be careful where you dig — there just might an old barrel of The Good Stuff buried below. Andrew Knuth of Cumberland, Iowa, submitted this story:
I live on a farm outside of Cumberland in Cass County. The farm has been in my family since 1887. Growing up, I spent many summers there running around, playing with the livestock and dogs, and most importantly, fishing the ponds and streams around the farm. Of course, the bait of choice were big, fat, juicy nightcrawlers. In my quest for the best area for digging, I put holes in the ground almost everywhere I thought I could find worms.
My grandfather, who was born on the farm in 1900, cautioned me that if I encountered anything solid (wood, metal, or stone) I was to let him know as soon as possible. This intrigued me and I redoubled my efforts to find worms to fish with and look for anything unusual. To my disappointment, I never found anything like my grandfather described.
As I grew older, my grandfather passed away, and my mother was one of the only people I knew to tell me the family stories. One day in conversation before she passed on, I asked her what my grandfather could have been looking for. She got a gleam in her eye and told me that (legend had it) there was a barrel of whiskey buried someplace on the farm, and if ever found, would surely be the best whiskey ever! She did not know who buried it, but I suspect it was my great grandfather, as my grandfather was working out east during the Prohibition era.
As I look back, I remember that my grandfather often spoke of rye whiskey in glowing terms. I think that the lost barrel must have been The Good Stuff. I still live on the farm today and every time I dig a hole for a fence post I am mindful of my grandfather’s words. I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to want to go fishing and dig for worms.
Since launching this blog, the Templeton Rye stories have been coming to us fast and furious. We love to hear about how folks first discovered TR, and how it has played a part in their family’s history. Keep ‘em coming!
We were touched by the following story that Dave Morse sent us. He also felt inspired enough to write and record a song called “Ain’t No Time To Drink The Cheap Stuff,” which we’ve posted below for our readers to listen to.
I discovered the wonder of Templeton Rye in February of 2007. I am an Iowa Army National Guard Warrant Officer and was tasked with the sad honor to be the Casualty Assistance Officer for the family of young Travis Vaughn. Vaughn, who was serving in Afghanistan with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, (Night Stalkers of “Blackhawk Down” fame), died when his MH-47 helicopter lost power in the mountains.
Several of the Night Stalkers came to Iowa as an Honor Guard for Travis’ funeral. His father, Brad, and stepmother, Kandie, invited all of us to their home in Reinbeck for a little get-together. As a former Night Stalker myself, I knew they would be bringing their traditional bottle of Wild Turkey to drown their sorrows and toast our fallen comrade.
Not wishing to go empty handed, I stopped at the Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits store in Cedar Falls on the way. I was looking for something with an Iowa connection and the salesman, Alan, led me straight to the Templeton Rye. I presented the bottle to Brad Vaughn and we commenced to toasting and remembering Travis. We loved the TR and it put Wild Turkey to shame. Brad and Kandie have that empty bottle on display in their buffet along with other memorabilia about Travis.
As my unit (B Co, 248th AMC based in Boone) prepares for our third deployment since 9/11 — this time to Iraq — several of us have pledged to gather upon our return and share Templeton Rye together. I guess you could say that Templeton Rye is the unofficial “Official Whiskey of Bravo Company.”
We really appreciate Dave’s enthusiasm for TR and his service to our country. Got a TR story of your own to share? Please leave a comment below, or click here to tell us all about it.
Robert from Huntsville, Alabama, wrote us an e-mail with this Templeton Rye story:
I grew up two miles west of Templeton. In 1948, 18 of us FFA students took a 4000-mile trip out west. While in a town in Idaho, a man saw “Manning, Iowa” on the back of our FFA jackets and stated, “Is that anywhere near Templeton, Iowa?” I asked him how he knew about Templeton. He said, “That’s where Templeton Rye was made.”
Just goes to show that TR was still notorious 15 years after Prohibition and many states away. Got a TR story of your own to share? Please leave a comment below, or click here to tell us all about it.
Mike Moore from Madison, Indiana, wrote to us back in October 2007 with this fantastic Templeton Rye story:
My father-in-law, O.J. Berger, is from Templeton, Iowa, and is 90 years old. Mr. Berger tells the family that his mother, Dora Berger, had the only glass funnel in Templeton and some of the farmers would bring their liquor over and use her funnel to pour the Templeton Rye into smaller flasks.
As a child he remembers the local men of the town being arrested and marched off to jail by federal authorities. Mr. Berger tells the story that only two basements were not raided in Templeton — one was the scene of a wake and there was a body in the basement.
Mr. Berger is quite active and my wife and I ordered a bottle of Templeton Rye for him, which he proudly displays to all visitors and family.
The Good Stuff is all about Templeton Rye, our fans, our employees, our industry and our history.
We invite you to join the conversation by sharing your comments and stories.
Templeton Rye Whiskey
When Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1920, many enterprising residents of a small Iowa town chose to become outlaws – producing a high caliber and much sought-after whiskey known as Templeton Rye.
TempletonRye: If you purchased tix online to Rock & Rye this Sat, 7/31, your tix will be available at will call on the day of the event. See you there!
TempletonRye: Rock & Rye tix are still available for $10 (+ nominal fee) in advance: http://ht.ly/2hToD & will be available for $15/person at the door.
