| In 1856, just outside Weston, Missouri, Lewis and Clark discovered natural limestone springs... And Ben Holliday, a shrewd Kentucky businessman, knew that these springs were perfect for producing pure and high quality whiskey... |
| In 1856, Ben opened the Holladay Distillery with his brother, Major David Holliday, and would later develop the Pony Express route to San Francisco, build steamships and own railroad lines... David ran the distillery, and the operation remained in the family until 1894... |
| In 1894, the Holliday family sold the distillery to George Shawhan who renamed it Shawhan Distillery. Insisting on the strict quality controls and attention to detail as his predecessors... He produced a well-received whiskey which became a Midwestern favorite... |
| The Shawhans sold the business in 1936 to the Singer Brothers, who renamed it 'Old Weston Distillery'... Committed to making the finest whiskey possible, the Singers employed the best quality materials, personnel and technology of the era... Tours were offered and continued to operate until 1995... |
| The McCormick name, used by another distillery in nearby Waldron, was purchased by the Singers and still graces the Distillery's labels today... |
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In 1950 the McCormick distilling Company was purchased by Cloud Cray of Midwest Grain Products, keeping the name and quality intact...
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During the 1976 BiCentennial, McCormick was listed in the National Register of Historic Sites, one of only two distilleries
nationwide receiving this distinction. McCormick was also recognized as the oldest distillery in the country still operating
at it's original location... Here friend Jonny Bob taking the usual mandatory pic in front of McCormick Springs... |
| And that water really tasted good, cold and pure and just right in a glass of Missouri Bourbon... |
| In 1993, Ed Pechar and Mike Griessar purchased the distillery and have overseen McCormick's growth from 35 employees and $50 million in sales in 1992, to 186 employees and $150 million in sales in 2006... |
| This is one of the Sunday public tours that later were discontinued because of the traffic jams that occurred, backing up traffic on the narrow two lane roads leading to the distillery... |
| They would check your ID at the entrance then give you two drink coupons for each adult... |
| Hey Guys, leave that tank alone, you're gonna spill the booze... |
| The idea is, get your tickets, get your first drink and then follow the crowd through the tour... |
| We just follow along behind this lady into the darkness of the fermentation cellar.. |
| Traffic a little backed up on the tour at the moment... |
| OK, we get inside and then climb to the upper level where we can peek into the fermenting mash... |
| In this stage, they call the mixed and cooked mash 'beer'... but it isn't quite beer... Sort of the same process so far though... |
| This pic is on a tour we took with the Van Club but these are IBM people, Bill in the backgrund, John on the left, and Betty, Bill's wife... |
| At 50.95 gallons an inch, this is a lot of booze in the process in that two story tall vat... |
| We're a bit out of step in the process here, they clean the grain first, mix with water, then cook the mash before it gets to the fermenter vats in those first pics... |
| From the meal hoppers, then into the mash cookers, then it's 'beer' and into those fermenter vats for several days... |
| And then into this 'column still'... Steam is fed into the bottom, the filtered beer into the top... Then the beer trickles down through perforated copper plates, evaporating the water and siphoning off the pure alcohol... It leaves the still at close to 200 proof... Then is poured into new charred white oak barrels and stored in the U.S.Government bonded warehouses... To be called bourbon, the mash has to contain at least 51% corn and aged in a new charred oak barrel for at least two years... |
| After touring the distilling process, we go across the street to the Bottling house... All of this process is overseen by agents of the U.S.Government... |
| The tours are held on Sunday so the bottling line is closed, and dark so you can't see much... |
| From what you can see here, it looks like quarts of McCormick Gold being filled on the left and unfilled pints on the right... |
| Next to the bottling house is the 'Re-Gauge' operation... If a barrel springs a leak in the warehouse, it is brought to the re-gauge house, the whiskey removed from the barrel, the barrel repaired and the same whiskey acording to Govenmnent regulation has to go back into the same barrel... |
| And I am re-gauging this barrel but it looks like it's all gone... |
| After the tour, time to get a refill and rest up and sip a bit... |
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Now, here is a giant step into the past, late 1965 or so I am thinking... The American National Bank in St. Joseph had arranged for a tour of McCormick Distillery for their employees and to fill out the tour, they asked the local IBM office to join in... |
| And we had a private limo to take us there and deliver us back safely... |
| A private tour like this had several advantages over a public tour... For one thing the drinks were unlimited, and they served a nice buffet and had 'gambling games' in the 'Ancient Cave' there, previously used to age whiskey... |
| But first of course... 'Cocktails are Served'... |
| Here are some of the ladies from the bank... I knew most because I had worked on their IBM typewriters... |
| Of course the usual clowning around with the barrel... |
| And they furnished the silly attire for the procedure... Somehow I lucked out of this picture... |
| And a 'class portrait' in front of the famous McCormick Springs which supplies the pure limestone spring water required for high quality bourbon... For a time they bottled and sold that water in a liquor store in St. Joseph... It mixed right well for a 'Bourbon and Branch'.. |
| And our private tour was conducted and narrated by officers of the company... |
| They took their time and we were given a lot of detail about just how they distill and bottle bourbon... They made sure we all had a full glass before we started out... |
| This pic is from a much later tour, here are friends Frank and Raymond... But this is the only picture I could find of the exterior of the 'Ancient Cave'... |
| Inside the cave was the bar and buffet and games... This is Bill, my co-worker in St. Joseph for 30 years, getting primed for the gambling games... |
| They gave us a number of chips to bet with for some pretty nice prizes... But of course with my usual luck, I didn't win anything... |
| Somehow the ladies walked off with all the best prizes, now how did they work that out? |
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But then.. all good tours must end... And how many give you a free 'One for the Road'... and a good thing we had that big bus to take us home to St. Joe... |
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