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BEST ENJOYED BY SIPS, NOT SHOTS
By Bob Fitch
Country songs have long embraced the ability of whiskey to help a person survive heartbreak. Willie Nelson sang “Whiskey River take my mind, don't let her mem'ry torture me.” Morgan Wallen told us “I just wanna sip ‘til the pain wears off … so make them drinks strong 'cause brother she's gone; and if I'm ever gonna move on, I'ma need some whiskey glasses.” Toby Keith put a different spin on it. He admired his “ragged on the edges” Whiskey Girl who needed “somethin’ with a little more edge and a little more pain” than wine, margaritas or champagne.
Instead of a remedy for heartache, a new bluegrass lyric by Dan Tyminski perhaps best captures the pleasures of savoring the taste of whiskey: “I'm a slow sun sinkin', good time thinkin' whiskey drinkin' man.”
According to Dave Ackerman of Rock River Distillation of Rock Rapids, enjoying whiskey is not about inebriation, but rather about finding and engaging your senses in flavors such as oak, spice, smoke,
Roxanne and Dave Ackerman of Rock Rapids in 2020 in Alaska.
vanilla and caramel. Whiskey is aged for years and for most distillers it’s a labor of love best enjoyed by sips, not shots.
FAILED WINE LED TO DISTILLATION DISCOVERY
The journey to producing signature sipping whiskeys began with a batch of wine gone bad. Around 2012, he was making some raspberry wine when all his wine bottles froze in a severe cold snap. He accidentally discovered ice distilling. “So my 14% raspberry wine became 40% raspberry brandy when I poured the liquid off the ice. I started doing a lot of research on distilling and found it really interesting.” He started sampling different distilled liquor and settled on whiskey, which he began selling about five years ago. “What I really try to emphasize is the taste. It’s a sipping whiskey. You pour some into a small glass and sip on it for the flavor and contemplate life. It’s a sophisticated experience.”
His first commercial introduction was Revenant Rye, a whiskey made with rye harvested by his neighbor. The whiskey’s name is inspired by a film called The Revenant, a story loosely tied to the book Lord Grizzly (written by local author Frederick Manfred). The movie and Revenant Rye both have a “relentlessly haunting, dark spirit.”
Dave has produced two bourbon whiskeys. The first, “Double Barrel Bourbon,” is 90-proof with a dark, caramel profile and a robust oak and smoky nuance. The name Double Barrel is a tribute to a double-barreled shotgun from his wife’s family, an heirloom hanging on the barn wall. The name also signifies the bourbon spent two years in a first barrel, before being aged another two months in a second smaller barrel.
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Two of the whiskey products created and distilled at Rock River Distillation: Double Barrel Bourbon and Revenant Rye Whiskey.
Outside the barn is a 1948 pickup, similar to one Dave’s father owned and used to haul everything from cattle to asparagus. The pickup symbolizes rugged perseverance and is the namesake for his second bourbon called “Old 48,” a 120-proof product with oak and char flavors.
“High-quality corn adds to the distinctiveness of our whiskey. The char in the barrel takes the edge off the hard liquor flavor. The oak brings in the color and the flavor, which is augmented by vanilla, caramel or other flavors.” Dave’s next whiskey will be a single malt with only malted barley in the mash bill and will include subtle flavors of chocolate and coffee.
A TRULY AMERICAN PRODUCT
“Bourbon is a truly an American product,” he said. American law says U.S.-made whiskey can be labeled bourbon if it meets certain standards: 51% corn in the mash, stored in a new American oak barrel, and 125 proof or less in the barrel. “Straight bourbon whiskey” must be in the barrel at least two years.
Dave puts his 30-year educational career into practice by teaching visitors about the whiskey-making process. Rock River Distillation doesn’t have regular open hours, but instead schedules tours. The tours walk through the steps of malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation, bottling and blending. The final step is, of course, tasting. Rock River Distillation is licensed and guests must be at least 21 years of age. Product can be purchased on site, at local Iowa liquor stores by request or at HyVee and Fareway stores. To schedule tours, see www.rockriverdistillation.com. Follow the company on Facebook to track special openings on Small Business Saturday and Rock Rapids Heritage Days. Patrons have also worked with him to create a uniquely individual
The interior of Dave Ackerman’s “guy shed” includes a collection of pieces from his parents’ farm, gifts from friends and treasures he’s found along the way. He added an addition onto the east side of the original structure to house his distillery equipment.
barrel for personal use. “I can work with folks to create a barrel or half barrel for almost any occasion or group. The folks come out and bottle their creation and it is a great deal of fun!”
A new “Iowa Mule” is a mix of corn whiskey and ginger beer. It’s produced in collaboration with Rock River Brewing Company of Rock Rapids and is proving to be very popular among locals.
‘ONE SKILL SHORT’
“I'm probably one skill short of being good at anything, but I’ve got a lot of interests,” said Dave, who jokes he has selfdiagnosed ADHD.
“I tried to make craft beer a lot of times, but I just was never very good at it.” He also planted northern hardy grapes and became a licensed winery, but that tied him down every Saturday, plus “picking the grapes was fun the first year, but it got really old by year two and three.”
Re-purposing just about anything is a favorite activity. “I taught high school shop for 10 years, plus I’m an old farm kid. I love antiques and a bargain. I see potential in almost everything. People give me stuff, I find odd things and I live too close to the junkyard. My wife warned me, ‘You cannot go to that junkyard anymore. If you do, don’t bring everything home.’ So I really scaled back.” However, his wife, Roxanne, can be
GRAIN SUCCESS STARTS HERE
Dave in the loft of his barn. At right is a portion of a light fixture created from his dad’s hay grapple. Just above and behind him, this light fixture was made from the frame of an old wooden screen door frame.
an enabler. When she spotted a spiral staircase someone in town had pulled out of a house, she called and told him to get there quickly. The staircase cost him a case of beer and now provides access to the loft of his barn.
CAREERS IN EDUCATION
Dave and Roxanne are both graduates of George High School. Roxanne went to the University of Northern Iowa to become a teacher. Dave spent two years at Westmar College before transferring to Iowa State University and graduating with a degree in industrial arts. After college graduation, they moved to the Des Moines area. In the Bondurant-Farrar Community School District, Roxanne taught first grade and Dave was the high school shop teacher plus was head football coach.
He earned his master’s degree in school administration from Drake University. He was the principal at Sac City for four years, before becoming the principal at Central Lyon High School in 2001. Four years later he became district superintendent, a position he held for 14 years until retiring. Roxanne continued her career as an elementary teacher, retiring one year after Dave. Together, they have four children.
Their oldest, Abby, is a speech and language pathologist and owns her own clinic in Sioux City. She and her husband, Jordan, have three sons. Their son, Ross, is a middle school science teacher in Spirit Lake. He and his wife, Kate, were married last summer and are expecting their first child this summer.
Their youngest are twins. Kelsey is a nurse supervisor at Children’s Hospital in Omaha. She and her husband, Austin, have one son. Daughter Lexi and her husband, Wyatt, live in Sioux City where she is the event coordinator for Scheel’s. They have two daughters.
There’s room in the barn to preserve treasures such as this carving made by Roxanne’s uncle, Bert Kluver.
STUNNED BY SNOWFLAKES
CATTLE ON FEED AT THE TAYLOR AND JESSICA KATS FARM. PHOTO BY BOB FITCH
HIRED MAN DUTIES INSPIRE FARMING AND CUSTOM SEEDING BUSINESS
By Bob Fitch
Cattle, cover crops and trucking have combined into a winning career for Taylor Kats of Rock Valley.
Taylor and Jessica Kats of Rock Valley.
After graduating from Western Christian High School in 2011, Taylor elected to enroll in the Iowa School of Hard Knocks. He found work as a hired man on the farm of Arlin Groeneweg. He helped with cattle, hogs, and custom drilling/seeding. “Working for Arlin is where I developed my love for farming. He had a feedlot and farmed quite a bit of land with Pete and Caron Horstman.” When the boss hit a rough patch in his hog operation, Taylor went out on his own. “Arlin started out with a little 15-foot drill, just doing a few acres of soybeans. He eventually bought a 30-foot drill and later I bought the machinery from Arlin and Pete. I started custom seeding and drilling soybeans, small grains and cover crops.” His company is named Green Field Custom, which has expanded and continues to grow, especially with the increased use of cover crops in the area. He's moved up from the original 30-foot drill to two 42-foot drills.
Taylor headquartered himself at the Kats Implement site where his grandfather, Ed, and father, Don, were machinist-mechanics, working on tractors and other machinery. Ed and Elaine Kats had a small hobby farm at the implement site for many years. After his father retired, Don went to work for Van Zee Enterprises. Don and Julie Kats live on a hobby farm east of Rock Valley, where they’ve
Taylor lived in an old farmhouse on the implement site while starting his custom drilling and seeding business. He also had some cattle on feed.
New Year, New Season.
“When grandpa sold me this place, it sort of all fell into place.” He added a seed cleaning facility and then also started working farmland his grandfather owned. Slowly, Taylor has added other rented ground and custom work. He hopes to begin purchasing the land from his grandfather’s estate trust soon.
After Ed retired and moved to town, Taylor, his wife, Jessica, and their children moved to his grandparents’ former home a half-mile west of the implement site.
Taylor Kats seeding a ground cover crop.
FEEDING CATTLE PROVIDES SATISFACTION
In addition to the farming and custom seeding, Taylor has slowly expanded the number of cattle he feeds. He buys calves at 350-500 pounds from South Dakota and Nebraska, backgrounds them, and typically sells at 1,000 pounds at Stockmen’s Livestock in Yankton.
“Feeding them every day and handling them and eventually dealing with the financial part of it, cattle provide a kind of satisfaction. They're kind of a rush, you might say, you're dealing with pretty big money. There’s satisfaction in loading out big cattle after you took care of them for the past year.”
Before transitioning to own cattle himself, he custom-fed cattle for Mike Koedam for five years.
Taylor also operates a trucking business called Sustainable Farms LLC with his friend, Eric De Jager, who also crop farms. “It started out as hauling cover crop seed for Green Field Custom. When I started cleaning seed, trucking became an expansion of the cover crop business.” In the offseason, the trucks are used in Eric’s business hauling compost.
Between farming, cattle feeding,
Front: Jaelyn Kats. Back: Tyke, Jordyn and Treyton Kats.
trucking and the seed business, Taylor has one full-time employee (his brotherin-law, Jacob Van Ginkel) and two parttime employees; plus his partnership with De Jager.
THE PERFECT PLACE TO RAISE A FAMILY
According to Taylor, his father doesn’t have quite the same passion for farming as himself. “But he comes out often to help after he’s done at his job in town. Most importantly, Dad has been a financial resource, partnering with me on farming the land and feeding the cattle. He’s helped me get started.”
When her hands aren’t full with four small children and one on the way, his wife, Jessica, is right there in the mix of farmwork. “She helps me quite a bit on the farm, working cattle and doing bookwork. The fall and spring are really busy with the custom seeding, so she brings out a lot of meals, delivers fuel, delivers seed, gives rides and runs for parts.”
Taylor and Jessica married in 2014. She is also a native of Rock Valley. They have two daughters, Jaelyn, 12, and Jordyn, 9; and two sons, Tyke, 5, and Treyton, 3. They’re expecting a fifth child in July. The school-age kids attend Rock Valley Christian School in Rock Valley. Taylor said the Rock Valley area and his grandfather’s former home site are the perfect place to raise a family.
Jessica and Taylor Kats with their children, Jaelyn, Tyke, Treyton and Jordyn.
FRESH STORIES TO TELL AT PLYMOUTH CO. MUSEUM
By Bob Fitch
The region’s largest county history museum keeps its story-telling fresh by regularly adding new exhibits and updating existing ones. The Plymouth County Historical Museum is located in the old Le Mars Central High School Building, which was built in 1905 and expanded in 1924 and 1952. Beginning in 1983, citizen efforts saved the building from the wrecking ball. Since then, it has become the five-story home for local history and many community events.
In the past several years, three significant new exhibits have been added. Two of them are connected with farming.
TOY TRACTORS
On the lowest level of the museum, a pristine display of collector toy tractors will bring back memories for tractor aficionados, regardless of one’s favorite color – green, red, orange, blue and others are included. The collection is a donation from the late Denny Lundgren, a long-time farmer, Wells’ employee, and museum donor and volunteer. “At any given time, we have approximately 100 to 150 of his toy tractors on display,” said Diane Nusbaum, the exhibit program coordinator at Plymouth County Historical Museum. “His collection is so large (600 pieces) that we can’t
even display it all at one time. That gives us a chance to keep it fresh as we rotate different pieces from Mr. Lundgren’s collection in and out.” The exhibit opened one year ago. The display cases are also from Lundgren’s personal collection. While the collector pieces are all
The late Denny Lundgren donated his collection of toy tractors to the Plymouth County Historical Museum. About 150 of the 600 tractors in the collection are on display.
Diane Nusbaum, exhibit program coordinator at the Plymouth County Historical Museum.
“look, but don’t touch,” the museum added an adjacent small play area with various farm toys to help keep little hands occupied.
4-H AND FFA
Several stories up, the museum refreshed its fair and townships room by adding memorabilia from 4-H and FFA. “We have updated the room, but it still has the Plymouth County Fair and our townships represented,” said Nusbaum.
In addition to the handmade 4-H frocks and the always recognizable blue FFA jackets, there are also many 4-H scrapbooks created by girls over the years. “These scrapbooks are real pieces of local history. So often in museums, you just get to look, but I think it’s cool visitors can pick up and look through and interact with the scrapbooks. Most of the girls who made these are now adult women, and they love
the fact that girls and boys who are coming here are able to look at the past through their eyes.”
WORLD CHAMPION RACER
A stunning exhibit by any measure honors the legacy of four-time world champion dirt track racer, Emory Collins. The driver and his Red & Black #7 racer were the IMCA sprint car champions in 1938, 1946, 1947 and 1948. IMCA is the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA), the oldest active auto racing sanctioning body in the United States. Born in Sibley, Iowa, Collins grew up in Saskatchewan where he was a
and on
Left to
(a) 1970s double knit style; (b) 1968-1973 pin stripe shift dress Simplicity pattern #7641; (c) 1963-68 McCalls pattern #7032 and Simplicity pattern #4814; (d) 1948-1963 sailor style dress; (e) 1923-1928 dress worn by Elsie Schulz Heimgartner and donated by JoEllen
nationally known hockey player. As an adult, he returned to Iowa and came to live in Le Mars for many decades. He started racing at age 17 in 1921 and didn’t retire until 1951. Collins was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1991.
Original hand-sewn girls’ 4-H uniforms are preserved
display at the museum.
right:
Cronin.
The centerpiece of the exhibit is Collins’ “Red & Black #7” dirt track racer. Collins was the first racer to convert and re-design an Offenhauser engine for dirt track racing. Beginning in 1936, it proved to be the engine able to blow most competition off the track. Collins’ 4-cylinder, 318 cubic-inch racer with 270 horsepower had no speedometer, but the tachometer tracked engine speed at 6,000 rpm. The car had no racing brakes, just a handbrake for use in the pit area.
From 1933 to 1948, Collins and his competitor and friend, Gus Schrader of Newhall, Iowa, dominated sprint car racing. Crowds of up to 75,000 were in attendance.
During the winter months, Collins would completely dismantle his cars to check every nut and bolt. He also would test new designs. Upon retiring, he sold Red & Black #7 and it was driven by two other drivers.
Fortunately, it was not wrecked and eventually a collector purchased and restored it. The race car was purchased by the Plymouth County Historical Museum where the restored classic went on display in 2022. “The museum was very lucky to receive many donations and grants to help us purchase this car. We’re incredibly thankful to own it and have it on display.”
FUN TO SEE KIDS INTRIGUED AND INSPIRED
Nusbaum is a native of Maquoketa in eastern Iowa and a graduate of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake. After college, she put her theatre degree to work as a tour guide at a museum in Wisconsin. “I figured out that I actually love working with history, and I love working with people in general.” She was glad to be able to come back to northwestern Iowa. Her
position here is more behind the scenes, working directly on exhibit development and maintenance, special event coordination and volunteer relations.
“I absolutely love educating the public, and especially the kids who come through here. As they learn about the past, it’s fun to see the gears kick in and they become intrigued and inspired. I love to be able to keep history preserved and alive,” Nusbaum said. Instead of just being a collection of old things, a good museum tells the story behind the preserved objects. “It’s important to accurately present the information and be a proper resource for the community. Not everything that happened in our history was good and amazing and great. We have bad spots in our history, too. If we're not talking about those bad spots, that's the easiest way to repeat those mistakes.”
Four-time world champion dirt track race car Red & Black #7 owned and driven by Le Mars resident, Emory Collins.
PUEBLO PORK & HOMINY STEW
From yummly.com
INGREDIENTS:
3 boneless pork chops (cut into 3/4-inch cubes)
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion (large, chopped)
4 cloves garlic (crushed)
30 oz. hominy (drained)
15 oz. tomato sauce
14.5 oz. beef broth
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. dried oregano (crushed)
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp. flour
Fresh cilantro (chopped)
DIRECTIONS:
Heat oil in a deep saucepan or Dutch oven over mediumhigh heat. Cook and stir onion and garlic until tender but not brown. Add pork, cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until lightly browned. Stir in hominy, tomato sauce, broth, chili powder and oregano. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until pork is tender, stirring occasionally. Whisk together flour and water, stir into simmering stew and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. Garnish with cilantro.
