There is a distillery in PA
 

April 18th, 2014. Good Friday day off. A good friend of mine and RV7A builder Jeff Vaughan is one the founding fathers of a newly opened still works. They had Grand Opening and he invited me as an official vodka tester or so he said. :D

Sometimes I am occasionally busy but I can quit everything for an adventure. Straight run to Pottstown Municipal airport was boring and I dotted my own route. Half of it was done in perfect VFR the other half - in super perfect. This was the route according to APRS.






Here I go hand flying "The Bottled Route" I had to cross local Mississippi twice.





Negotiated a touch of Class C airspace.






Avoided couple hills and towers and arrived at the destination. Pottstown Municipal airport N47 do you see a brick warehouse? That's where I am heading need to hold that heading good APRS beacons are hard to herd.







Parked at the only spot available.







An FBO girl questioned my intentions.







My taxi.







In 2 minutes I was about to enter the magic enterprise...

Is this the beginning of the "modern" moonshine running?

IF they are buying it somewhere with a SIGN, they already paid the Federal Tax on it. Now if there are any local or STATE Taxes, that may be another story.

I wonder how many times a "Fighter Pilot" has taken a Bottle of "Jeremiah Weed" across a state line where it cannot be purchased?

You can check out the True Story of Jeremiah Weed here.

Added following note:
If Vlad wants a bottle of "Weed", I will GIVE him one but we have to meet first. Just remember that this is the US Fighter Pilot drink of choice.

First thing you see when you enter are these shiny rectifier columns. A work of Italian art.






From different ports here depending on the height they can extract anything - from MEK to avgas to spirits. :D






Ask Jeff if you don't believe me. Here they are two college buddies the founding fathers. As students they toured USSR in early eighties so this factory is probably their nostalgia for good forgotten vodka :D











I enjoyed the folk tales about genealogy and evolution of recipes.







Charred barrels. In two years this whiskey will be ready to bottle.

Must be hazing ritual then because I'm a whiskey snob and JW ranks towards the bottom of whiskey's I've drank!

What happened next was very unusual and exciting. They put me in the middle of a bottling crew. Gave me a heat gun and put to work sealing corks :D






Hundreds and hundreds of bottles flew past me. For an hour or so we barely made a dent in a white whiskey storage. The great thing is they put any new volunteer/tourer in the middle of young and beautiful women. I strongly recommend anybody who is a ladies' man come, take a tour and volunteer.







There were pizzas and a great social. The Still Works is thinking about holding an event where all proceeds would go to an animal shelter or PnP. I don't know exactly how they plan to do it but they plan to do it. Here is young Piper, an adopted dog the distillery king.







So my taxi was leaving in 10 minutes. The day was great and I received a gift. Not Jeremiah Weed but comparable :D







Now my Alaska survival kit is almost complete.








Go visit ManatawnyStillWorks.com you won't regret. Thank you Jeff for making my regular day exceptional.

Awesome!!!

Vlad many thanks for ALL your help on the bottling line. It sure was fun!!!

For those that want to fly in we are only a 5 min walk from the airport.

I have this vision from I Love Lucy of Lucy in the candy factory trying to keep up with the conveyor belt, as I read of Vlad's plight in sealing corks. :D

Beautiful stills, not the kind we have up here in the hills of North Georgia. ;)

Can't wait to make the very short trip
 

To help out!! Good luck Jeff!!