Small Towns With Spirit(s)

It was a small town in western Iowa, just a half-square mile in size, with a shrinking population.  It might have well disappeared like many other specks of settlement on the prairie but instead became notorious.  That was due to a law known as the Volstead Act which implemented the new Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, going into effect on 17 January 1920 --Prohibition.

These few hundred farmers were having none of it.

One of them, Alphons Kerkhoff, is said to have developed the recipe for a fine rye whiskey and was one of the biggest producers.  The bootleggers hid their stills (one supposedly in a church basement), and their product for the customers in hollowed fence posts and local cemeteries.  None other than Chicago's Al Capone became aware of the quality of the product from Templeton, which he not only distributed to cities all over the Midwest but called "the good stuff," by which slogan it has been known ever since.  The bad stuff -- hooch, bathtub gin, rotgut -- was made even more lethal in 1926 when the government required a larger quantity of poisonous methanol be added to industrial alcohol (which bootleggers used as a base from which they made their chancy fake liquor) to discourage illegal drinking, which Prohibition was failing to do.  They also promoted adding chemicals such as benzine and mercury; it is estimated that 10,000 people died taking the risk of possibly purchasing deadly tainted alcohol.

From 1920 to 1933, the bootleggers of this enterprising little town brought in three railroad car loads of sugar a month while sending out cattle cars to Chicago filled with barrels, not bovines.  Alphons' grandson Meryl  resurrected the legendary brand, respectably legal now, in 2006.  His birthday is coincidentally January 17, which has been declared Bootleggers Day.  You can't keep a good Iowan down.

(2021 update:  Today's revived Templeton Rye had actually been made in the giant MGP distellery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, but a class action lawsuit forced the deletion of claims on the label of "small batch" and "Prohibition Era Recipe."  Flavor had been added to approximate the original.  Now a new $35 million distillery, visitor center and museum has opened back in Templeton Carroll County, Iowa which will produce 2.4 million bottles annually.  The founder's grandson, one of the principals, says "Grandfather would say this is great, but where's my cut?")

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Prohibition did not interrupt the 121-year operation of Nelsen's Hall and Bitters Club on remote Washington  Island, Wisconsin or even break its stride.  Originally opened as a dance club but thriving as a bar and social center, owner Tom Nelsen wasn't about to close its doors after January 1920, Constitutional amendment or no.  The law allowed medicinal alcohol or sacramental wine to still be served, and Tom had noticed pharmacies selling Angostura Bitters (which happens to be 90 proof, or 45% alcohol) for stomach disorders.  So, with nothing else to sell except for (bleh) near-bear, he offered shots of this "medicine" after he cleverly procured a pharmacist's license.  A visiting Federal agent thought this sure looked and operated as a speakeasy, and charged Nelsen with a Volstead Act violation.  In court, this creative barkeeper demonstrated that it tasted pretty awful and could only be considered a medicine.  The judge agreed that no one would purchase it as an enjoyable drink, so the G-men had to take the loss while Wisconsinites kept on taking the ferry to the Club.

Today you can become a card-carrying member of the Bitters Club (if you can down a shot) and be entitled to "mingle, dance, etc., with all the other members."