The Whiskey Rebellion and the Rebirth of Rye
Page 9
Menashe, Jeff. “Why Craft Beer is Next.” April 2013. Powerpoint presentation.
Menashe, Jeff. “State of the Wine Industry 2013.” April 2013. Powerpoint presentation.
Menashe, Jeff. “State of the Craft Beer Industry 2013.” April 2013. Powerpoint presentation.
Menashe, Jeff. “State of the Spirits Industry 2013.” American Distilling Institute Conference. Sheraton Hotel, Denver, CO. April 2013. Session presentation.
Chapter 4: The Rebirth of Craft
Rodgers, Grant. Des Moines Register, “Templeton Rye reaches lawsuit settlement.” July 13, 2015.
Acknowledgements
This book rests upon the work of the many passionate historians and volunteers who have captured the history of pre-Prohibition regional whiskey. We have tried to harness this collective recorded regional history and expand upon it in our modest way, knowing that our work is a small contribution to an ongoing history that is being written over decades. We hope that another whiskey lover will be inspired to take the next step and capture more of the pieces of Pennsylvania whiskey history (and beyond!) that we did not tend to in this brief book.
We appreciated visits from branches of the Wigle family from Pennsylvania, Canada, and West Virginia. Nadine Wigle Hoffman of West Virginia generously shared with us her family notebooks and her knowledge of the Wigle lineage.
Visits to and from staff at Whiskey Rebellion sites in western Pennsylvania—including the Presley Neville house, the Oliver Miller homestead, and the David Bradford house—were helpful in understanding the historic and ongoing importance of this episode in the history of western Pennsylvania and our regional identity.
Jessica Kadie-Barclay and the West Overton Village team have worked for years to tell the Overholt story, and have created a beautiful site that should be on any whiskey lovers must-visit list.
We cannot thank enough the librarians in the Pennsylvania Department at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, especially Marilyn Holt, and the wonderful staff at the Heinz History Center for their patient help in identifying and accessing materials. A special thanks to Andy Masich, Sandra Smith, Leslie Przybylek, and Caroline Fitzgerald, who have embraced partnership with us with open arms to bring whiskey history programming to life over the past five years. And double thanks to Leslie Przybylek, who graciously stepped down from her curatorial perch at the Heinz to offer a beautiful foreword to this humble book.
Many thanks also to Eric Meyer, who spent six months putting together the tour about the Whiskey Rebellion that we still use today at the distillery, and that helped frame the outline for the Whiskey Rebellion chapter. His brother, Jeffrey Meyer, our family librarian and archeologist, spent countless days pouring over contemporaneous materials in the rooms of the Carnegie Library.
The comprehensive books by Thomas Slaughter and William Hogeland were invaluable in understanding the events that comprised the Whiskey Rebellion and their context. We recommend these works to anyone who wants to dive deep into this topic. An anonymous author put together an Overholt family history which we relied on heavily. Martha Frick Symington Sanger’s biography of Henry Clay Frick is one of the most beautiful and haunting biographies and reading it was one of joys of writing this book. We also highly recommend Quentin Skrabec’s Frick biography, which was of great use in our research.
On the craft spirits front, we owe thanks to Michael Kinstlick, who did much work to capture the early growth of craft distilling, and to Harry Kohlman, who is always one of the smartest people in the room—no matter the room. Harry has given more thought than likely anyone to the future of craft distilling, and kindly suffered through many conversations on the topic with us.
Thank you to Anne Trubek, who came to Pittsburgh and convinced us to bring this nascent book to life. She has been an amazing support and is a visionary force in developing and growing regional identity throughout the Midwest and Midatlantic. We owe a deep thanks as well to Anne’s team: Michael Jauchen, who patiently and thoughtfully edited this text, and to Nicole Boose who cleaned it up again thereafter. Thank you also to Meredith Pangrace, John Tarasi, and Jessica Pierson Turner who each lent their design talents to this process.
We were lucky to have some of the region’s most talented bartenders: Drew Cranisky, Angela Smalley, Cecil Usher, and Dawn Young, take time to develop cocktail recipes for this book. The other cocktails included here draw heavily on the work of Wes Shonk from his time on the Wigle team.
Without customers at the distillery, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity or the platform to tell this regional history and so we thank everyone who has visited us in Pittsburgh!
And finally, we give special thanks to Mary Ellen Meyer and Alexander Grelli who kept constantly feeding us tidbits and edits while offering endless moral and childcare support. And to Effie, who put up with many summer Saturdays filled with far too many binders and books and too few hours at the playground—thank you. We love you all so much.