Toast of the town

May 16, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Whiskey is a tradition in Templeton, Iowa

By Josh Noel

Chicago Tribune

TEMPLETON, Iowa

There is Templeton Rye whiskey, the golden-brown stuff that’s a tad bitter as a rye should be, available in the clear, weighty bottle for about $40 at the liquor store.

Then there is Templeton Rye whiskey, what locals in this town of 332 consider the real thing. It’s what their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles made in basements and closets for decades, just past the eye of the authorities. It’s a recipe that saved this town from the Depression, then was passed from generation to generation. It supposedly was Al Capone’s favorite. Rumor says it is still made quietly today.

The first version is easy to find in Iowa and Illinois liquor stores and on the Internet. The second one, well, that’s harder. Distilling liquor without a license is illegal, so ask around town, and you’ll get tight lips and shakes of the head, albeit with an Iowan civility.

“Couldn’t tell you,” you’ll hear.

Or, “I’m not really sure.”

Most common of all: “You have to know somebody who knows somebody. Who knows somebody.”

Though the county road running alongside Templeton is Rye Avenue — and the town logo includes a whiskey bottle — it is as if a ghost hangs over this town two hours northwest of Des Moines. A whiskey-soaked ghost.

But flat, sweet-smelling Templeton is still small-town America in the truest sense. Locals navigate the streets, which have never had a stoplight, by tractor or golf cart. Church is Saturday nights because the priest does Mass up in Halbur on Sundays. T-ball schedules are available at the post office, and silos tower above Main Street.

It’s a town that takes care of its own, which also explains how it became wedded to whiskey.

Local lore says the Depression started it all. Falling crop prices knocked Templeton, like so many places, back on its heels and, industrious Germans that the townsfolk were, they turned to bootlegging.

It turned out that Templeton was particularly good at both making whiskey and staying ahead of the law. Locals would erect a still, make a batch, move the still — and repeat. By the time the economic cloud lifted, whiskey was too deeply in the local fabric to give up.

“The heritage of the whole deal has made it pretty important,” said Cole Kerkhoff, 22, a town native who works in construction and farming. “But you’re not going to get too much info on it. It’s just one of those things, and it’s just part of Templeton.”

At the very least, you can get the legit stuff. The Templeton Rye facility opened in 2006, launched by Scott Bush, a native of nearby Wall Lake and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology business grad. He tracked down a recipe from Meryl Kerkhoff (a distant relation to Cole), who got it from his father, Alphons, who was twice convicted of bootlegging.