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CHICAGO – In a fusing of its rich history with a contemporary ambition to break out of a niche as something of an Iowa novelty, Templeton Rye Spirits – the legal incarnation of the Prohibition-era booze – launched its product into the Chicago market with a classy, nostalgic affair this week.
Dozens of Carroll-area residents, many of them costumed in period clothing from the 1920s, the heyday of the rye trade and its storied connection to Al Capone’s Mafia, mingled with Windy City bartenders, restaurateurs, liquor distributors and others at the Chicago History Museum.
“It’s special,” said TR Spirits president Scott Bush. “I’ll tell you, a lot of my family and a lot of folks from the Templeton area are here.”
The goal: Hype the rye.
“The story as everyone knows is a unique story,” said Templeton Mayor Ken Behrens, attired as 1920s man about town (a look that cost him just $40 in a costume shop). Behrens and about 40 people took a bus from Templeton (and other Carroll-area towns) to Chicago for a slate of events to promote the Templeton, Iowa-based company.
He said the Chicago event “brings it all together” in bridging the connection between the small southern Carroll County city with a big reputation in Chicago.
Bush said the selection of the Chicago History Museum had a strong link to its 1929 founding.
“This is not the first time that a lot of socialites have been in here drinking Templeton Rye,” he joked. “That’s fitting. It feels right.”
Instead of whispers and rumors and surreptitious transactions, commerce between these two unlikely booze-buddy cities is now the stuff that PR firms and distributors are hired to hawk and market.
One of more skilled at that was Carl Carlson, president of California-based Infinium Spirits.
“This is an American story,” Carlson said. “This town (Templeton) is a very special place. Big companies spend millions of dollars to find a story that has a semblance of this. This town is too good to be true. Our owner felt that the industry is based on great stories.”
Infinium, Templeton Rye’s distributor, also markets Seagrams vodka.
In remarks to the crowd and in an interview Carlson talked about “enterprising residents” making it through the Great Depression on the strength of their hooch – which came to be known in surprisingly far-flung places as “the good stuff.”
They poured it in Chicago and Denver and San Francisco. TR lore has it that a bottle or two (or more) of the rye made its way onto Alcatraz island, the infamous federal penitentiary that once housed mobsters and is now a major tourist attraction.
As for the product itself Carlson sees it standing on two strong legs: smooth taste and a delicious backstory.
He hopes rye can gain a foothold in Chicago and then march south down Interstate 55 into St. Louis – and reach into other cities. Carlson recently had conversation with a state liquor official who wants to sell rye because this bureaucrat spots potential for boosted revenues in the state-run distribution.
Carlson sees TR being a “high-image, ultra-luxury product” along the lines of Woodford Reserve, a Kentucky distilled bourbon that has found a nice home among connoisseurs. “That’s a good analogy,” he said.
While the event drew at least three members of the media, much of Templeton Rye’s success will be based on word of mouth, Carlson said.
“I love telling the story to bartenders,” he said.
Several bartenders said they think Templeton Rye will move in their haunts.
Carissa Palaszynski, a bartender at Hackneys in Palos Park, said she had a favorable impression – and she’s not normally a whiskey fan.
Syndee Diloi, another Hackneys bartender, enjoyed her TR as well.
“This is good,” she said. “It should sell here.”
Carter Boe, a bartender at the Kinzie Chop House, slowly slipped the whiskey straight and reviewed it.
“It’s very interesting,” Boe said. “It’s unique in the world of whiskey that I’ve run across.”
Boe said TR has a “nice spicey profile.”
And it is the taste that will sell the product, he said.
Sure, the story and the 1920s Al Capone business will get people’s attention, Boe said.
“But mystique isn’t going to get people to buy something they don’t like,” he said.
Boe thinks many people will like TR.
Bruce Garfield, who owns two Cardinal Liquor stores in Chicago plans to stock Templeton Rye.
“Yes, it’s smooth,” he said.
And Tom Buax of Des Moines, who attended the Chicago launch, is a believer in the future of TR at his Central City Liquor in Des Moines.
Has it sold there?
“Since day one, like hotcakes,” Buax said.
He’s operated the liquor store since 1987.
“This is the fastest-selling product I’ve had in 20 years,” said Buax who got into the spirit of the event by wearing ’20s garb.
“This is what we’ve always been waiting for – the Al Capone tie,” said TR co-founder Keith Kerkhoff.
Along with its blockbuster Chicago launch Templeton Rye Spirits is expanding its distillery in Carroll County.
Plans call for an approximate $500,000 expansion of the Templeton facility, from 1,500 to 9,000 square feet.
“Practically, it’s going to be very nice for us,” Bush said.
Besides providing more storage and production capability, the expansion will allow for merchandising of clothing and other memorabilia.
Bush said Rye Spirits would be moving to five full-time people and about 16 part time. The Templeton Rye recipe is derived from an original developed by one of the families in the early production of the whiskey and handed down through the generations.
With its initial batch, 4,000 cases, Rye Spirits has seen more demand than expected.
“I would say it’s successful on a very small scale,” Bush said. “A lot of what we’re doing is based on where we see the company going.”
In the coming months there are plans for a full-fledged Nadas concert in the Carroll area and a Templeton Rye Iowa State-Iowa football game tailgate party in Ames.
In recent interviews Scott Bush has said Templeton Rye Spirits is considering expansion opportunities in Templeton.
With the Year 2 production coming out in October, in time for another holiday season, TR plans to market more aggressively outside of Iowa. Bush is bullish on Rye’s prospects in other states, and even internationally.
“Someday you will go to a cool bar in New York City and see Templeton Rye,” Bush said. “I guarantee it.”
Besides boosting the local economy, Bush sees a benefit for Iowa as Templeton Rye gains popularity.
“Iowa doesn’t get the respect it deserves for being a cool place
to grow up,” Bush said.
For more information on Templeton Rye or to share a story for the archive visit the company’s Web site at www.templetonrye.com.
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