It is with a heavy heart that I reach out to tell you that we have lost Templeton Rye Master Distiller Meryl Kerkhoff. Meryl died at Manning Hospital, surrounded by his family. I really struggle to put into words how much we all admired this great man. He will be missed dearly.
Meryl was a child of the Depression, born a mile from our current distillery in Templeton in 1929 to Alphonse and Frances (Bluml) Kerkhoff. He attended Sacred Heart School in Templeton and graduated in 1946. Meryl fought in Korea for two years and went on to a successful career as a farmer and auctioneer. He and his wife Imelda had seven children and 14 grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Ohde Funeral Home in Manning, Iowa.
Meryl had a presence that was unmistakable. He was a true gentleman and a man of great stature, both in size and in character. I will always remember how his huge hands, strengthened by a lifetime of farming, would totally engulf those of anyone who would shake them. He dressed well, yet modestly, and had his signature Templeton Rye cap slightly tilted, or “a little cocky” as he would say.
Meryl had a sense of humor and his own language that greatly amused the rest of our team. A nice place was “Uptown” and when things were going well we were “Cadillacing.” He was a caring man who was always excited to see you and would ask, “So, how’ve things been going?” Meryl was a patient man and was more likely to listen than to talk. He gave Keith and I great advice over the years and was always very thorough about issues that impacted our company.
Obviously things will continue at Templeton Rye and Keith has been handling the day-to-day duties for sometime. Genetics are a powerful thing I guess, as I look at what I have written about Meryl, I could very well be describing Keith.
Please keep Meryl, Imelda, Keith and all of the Kerkhoff family in your thoughts and prayers.
At Meryl’s request, we got together a couple of weeks ago to record Meryl, Keith and I reminiscing about some of our experiences with the company. We video taped a portion of the discussion which can be seen below.
As many of you know, a law was passed earlier this year allowing us to be able to sell Templeton Rye at the distillery effective July 1, 2010. Due to our current allocation situation, we will not be selling any product at the distillery until mid-December, allowing retailers to get all of the product. We thank you for your continued patience and support!
Last year we planted and harvested our first crop of rye on the distillery property in Templeton. We used a portion of our home-grown rye to make our last batch and are working to increase the quality and size of our crop. This year’s crop is about three feet tall right now and is a beautiful blue/green. We will analyze it after harvest and hopefully use some in upcoming batches.
Please join us for the 3rd Annual Rock & Rye celebration on Saturday, July 31st, 2010, brought to you by the Templeton Community Betterment Association and your friends at Templeton Rye. Below is the Rock & Rye 2010 schedule of events:
6:00 PM - Beer garden opens. All proceeds benefit the Templeton Community Betterment Association.
7:30 PM - Aged Spirits
9:00 PM - The Nadas
Tickets are available for $10 per person plus a nominal Eventbrite fee in advance (below) and will be available for $15 per person at the door if you choose not to take the charter bus.
We are also bringing three charter buses from Des Moines to Templeton for the party. A seat on the bus is $50 per person plus a nominal Eventbrite fee and includes your ticket to the show. These seats are limited so get yours today.
Buses will be departing the Jordan Creek Costco parking lot in West Des Moines at 4:00 p.m. sharp on July 31st. The buses are air-conditioned with restrooms and will allow beverages (cans or plastic only - no glass) in soft-side coolers. After the concert, the buses will depart from Templeton at 11:30 p.m. arriving back in West Des Moines just after 1:00 a.m. Cabs will be available in the Costco parking lot upon return if requested.
Reserve your seat on the Rock & Rye Charter or purchase advance tickets:
You will receive an email confirmation with your ticket purchase confirming your order. Keep this for your records. Tickets purchased online can be picked up at will call on the day of the event.
Keith and I had the privilege to host some very special visitors at the distillery on Monday, February 15th. Lieutenant Colonel Greg Hapgood and Captain Chris Johnson of the Iowa National Guard didn’t let mother nature ruin their trip to the Templeton Rye Distillery on President’s Day. Lieutenant Colonel Hapgood recently returned from Kuwait, and Captain Johnson is getting ready to leave on his fourth deployment, returning to Afghanistan in the fall. On behalf of everyone at Templeton Rye, we thank you and all of the men and women of the armed forces for doing what you do and giving us the freedom to do what we do. God bless you all, and we will see you soon!
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.
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!
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.
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:
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.
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
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).
Join us this Saturday, August 8th, for the 2nd Annual Summer Music Festival brought to you by your friends at the Templeton Community Betterment Association and Templeton Rye Whiskey. This year’s lineup will feature The Nadas, Manning’s own Brian Joens, The Prairie Cats, Aged Spirits, Dick Prall and the world’s ultimate “80’s Rock” impersonation act, Hairball. Listen to what Templeton Rye President Scott Bush had to say about the upcoming event in a recent interview with Jenna from SingleMalt.TV in this video. See full schedule of events below.
Tickets are available for $20 each at the Templeton Rye Distillery or online at the Templeton Rye store. After purchasing your tickets, you will receive a wristband in the mail. Shipping is free for this item. Only 2,000 tickets will be sold for this event. PLEASE NOTE: Tuesday, August 4, is the last day we can mail out tickets. You may still purchase your tickets online and pick them up at the door (Will Call) at the distillery.
Schedule of Events:
12pm: Pre-party for ticketed concert goers at the Templeton Rye Distillery, including all access tours, refreshments and award winning BBQ prepared by Woodfellas from Ankeny, Iowa. There will also be samples of various Iowa products including Santa Maria wines and Award Winning 21st Amendment Ale produced by Court Avenue Brewery in Des Moines and aged in used Templeton Rye barrels.
2pm: Acoustic performance by The Nadas in the distillery featuring hit songs Templeton Rye and Goodnight Girl.
3pm: Beer garden opens at concert site adjacent to distillery. All proceeds benefit the Templeton Community Betterment Association.
4pm: Manning’s own Brian Joens performs a grab bag of Americana, bluegrass and tremelo-laden musings about classic rock dinosaurs, outhouses, stray dogs and roads (dirt and paved), all with his unique Iowa perspective.
5pm: The Prairie Cats are an 8-piece band hailing from Omaha that deliver an all-original “pop-swing” mix of jump-blues, big band, rockabilly, latin and bop, delivered in an all-out rock attack.
6:30pm:Aged Spirits is a Templeton based band playing a mix of classic rock and blues. Joining the band is special guest Katie Klocke, also a Templeton native.
7:30pm: With a deft pop sensibility, Chicago-based singer/songwriter Dick Prall sings about the good, bad, and fugly moments he’s encountered in life and relationships, turning them into subtle parables that linger longer on the heart and go deeper than most surface-bound pop hits.
9:00pm: Hairball is the world’s ultimate “80’s Rock” impersonation act, recreating the good-time party atmosphere of the decadent decade with unmatched authenticity. They cop the personas of the era’s legendary front men while rapidly changing elaborate costumes, then complete their transformations with dead-on visual and vocal performances.
Please plan ahead and travel safely to and from this event. Hotels are available in nearby Carroll, Iowa.
We recently welcomed several teams of riders from Iowa’s big bike ride across Iowa to our BootLEG Tour at the Templeton Rye distillery. We really enjoy this unique event, and it’s a great way to welcome folks to Iowa and showcase our state and people. Many thanks to everyone who came by for some tours and fun, and all our best to the riders for a fun and safe ride across our great state.
Bob Hoffman of Carroll County, Iowa, talks about growing up in Templeton and how he and his friends would capitalize on the success of the bootleggers by redeeming their empty bottles for five cents each. Once they redeemed the bottles, the hotel clerk on Main Street would put them in a storage shed on his lot for safekeeping. Find out in the video below how Bob and his friends “liberated” the bottles to keep them moving.
The Templeton Rye team recently welcomed some special visitors to the distillery, Troy Cobb and Zach Snavely. The duo set out from Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, on their bicycles and are headed all the way to Oregon. Needless to say we were impressed with their dedication. You can track their ride at crazyguyonabike.com/troyandzach.
Troy and Zach ran into some Templeton Rye fans in eastern Iowa, who suggested they come through Templeton. We gave the guys a tour and treated them to a nice lunch at the Corner Station to help fuel their ride. We also gave them a couple of Templeton Rye shirts to wear at their various stops. Best of luck to Troy and Zach and thanks for stopping by the Templeton Rye Distillery.
The Templeton Rye team recently welcomed a group of bartenders from Ames to the tour the distillery. Our visitors consisted of folks from Es Tas, Legends, Mickey’s Irish Pub and Thumbs. They toured the distillery and learned a lot about the history of Templeton Rye, dating back to the Prohibition Era. They also received a cocktail tutorial featuring the Classic Manhattan and TR’s own Shirley Templeton. After the VIP tour, the group had a great lunch at Templeton’s own Corner Station and went on a tour of the town. We invite all of you to check out one of these great bars the next time you are in the Ames area.
If you have a bar that is interested in a tour of our facility, please email us at info@templetonrye.com.
We continue our 4-part TR story series with a video of residents of The Plaza, an assisted living facility in Manning, Iowa, reminiscing about The Good Stuff with Templeton Rye’s Keith Kerkhoff and Jason Walsmith during their weekly happy hour.
One resident tastes the “legal” Templeton Rye for the first time at the age of 91. Another resident, Florence Parson, shares a story about a doctor nursing her mother back to health with Templeton Rye in 1929.
Staff from Trostel’s pose for a photo with Templeton Rye team members
We were pleased to welcome various members of Trostel’s Dish and Greenbriar staff to Templeton for a visit in June.
It was a great day, with a lively bus ride and great tour focusing on the history of Templeton Rye and the production, aging and bottling process. We really appreciate the enthusiasm for Templeton Rye shown by these great restaurateurs.
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.
Fans enjoying The Nadas in barrel warehouse.
