Most towns 20,000-some bicyclists pass through on RAGBRAI (The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) are known for something. It’s a strongly (though not exclusively) American  impulse: to find that one thing in one’s burg, no matter how small, that connects with the national consciousness, no matter how tenuously.

My hometown of Clarion (RAGBRAI overnight stop 1993, meet-up town 2007), for example, is the birthplace of the 4-H  emblem – each of the four leaves of a clover representing one of the H’s of the agricultural youth organization’s pledge.  I never joined 4-H, what with being a solid small town urbanite who grew up a full block from the corn fields. The local point-of-pride that interested me more was Glen Buxton, Alice Cooper’s lead guitarist, who retired to semi-obscurity in Clarion and whose death in 1997 sparked a brief media blitz. Once – while I was volunteering some service at the cemetery with a local youth group I was a part of – my quest to find Mr. Buxton’s gravesite was detoured by an adult leader who steered me toward the grave of a high school girlfriend of his who had died young, him lamenting (during the steering) that there were plenty of other people who had lived and died around here too. Anyway (whiskey is coming, I promise) at several local events during my own high school years, I portrayed O.H. Benson, the local school superintendent who, in 1906, decided to attach the clover symbol to the Wright County Agricultural and Homemaking Clubs, inspired by a gift of seven of the good luck charms from children at the one-room schoolhouse that now sits in the Clarion’s Gazebo Park. In 1911, Benson went to Washington D.C. to help develop such groups nationally and brought the symbol with him. Five minutes ago, you had probably never heard this story, but every child who goes through the Clarion-Goldfield public school system knows a simplified version of it by some combination of heart, hands, head and/or health.

Several miles up the road from Clarion is Woolstock, birth place of TV’s original Superman, George Reeves. Further in Southwestern Iowa, the McDonald’s in Denison has a wall display dedicated to native daughter actress Donna Reed. Towns without a vaguely-recognizable figure who was born or died there tend to adorn their welcome signs with gentle hyperbole like “Crossroads of the Nation” (Early, pop. c. 600) and/or hyperbolic puns like “A Gem of a Town in a Friendly Setting” (Jewell, pop c. 1,200) or hyperbole and gently-obscene-but-not-really puns like “The Friendliest Town by a Dam Site!” (Quasqueton, pop. c. 500).  While RAGBRAI didn’t pass through any of the above towns in 2011, one of the great joys of the ride is seeing how local pride manifests itself in the friendly people at each stop who are trying to sell you pie. A highlight this year for me: Oxford, in which photographer and resident Peter Feldstein took pictures of all but three of  town’s 800-some residents in 1984 and 2005-6 and published a book about it. Usually, however, a town’s fame does not precede it – nobody knows Elkhorn & Kimballton (2011 Day Two stops) have the greatest rural concentration of Danes outside of Denmark until they see a giant windmill and are confronted with a long line for ethnic pastries and – interest perked – later check Wikipedia.

An exception to this relative obscurity is Templeton (population c. 300, a 2011 Day Two stop) or “Little Chicago,” according to a serviceman in the Philippines as recounted by Templeton Rye company co-founder Keith Kerkhoff. During Prohibition, informal distillers around Templeton (Kerkhoff’s grandfather Alphons among them) made a rye whiskey known for it’s quality that was allegedly favored by Al Capone. Today, the legal variation of Templeton Rye has been selling out wherever it’s allocated in Iowa and going for $18 a shot in (Big) Chicago. Shortages caused by the four-year distilling process and Iowa’s alcohol distribution laws have turned finding the stuff into a cross-state treasure hunt. Templeton Rye jerseys were everywhere on RAGBRAI (look above and to the right) and personally, it’s been a factor in my switch from gin martinis to Manhattans. I won’t embarrass myself by attempting to describe the flavor with adjectives other than “tasty” and “drinkable,” though those are words I’ve never before used to describe whiskey.

Spirited Enterprise – Profile: Keith Kerkhoff, Founder of Templeton Rye

Keith used to play football for Buena Vista University (whose marketing department for which I work) and after graduating came within a few picks of making it to the pros. I was lucky enough to get to profile him – and the story of Templeton Rye – for the July issue of our magazine, BV Today. If you’re curious about how illicit Depression-era stills begat what’s fast becoming 21st-century Iowa’s best-known high-end beverage, 70s college football, the minutia of liquor distribution and three generations of the Kerkhoff family story, pour a shot  and fire up the ol’ PDF viewer.  I said one shot! You’ll want to keep a level head while reading.