Iowa Legendary Rye Finds Prohibition-era Still Near Templeton

According to the Des Moines Register, Iowa Legendary Rye has recently discovered a huge part of their past having thought to be lost... a still that was used and buried by Lorine Sextro outside of Templeton, Iowa.

Let's back up here.... if you don't know of the Iowa Legendary Rye, well it's a distillery in Carroll County that uses a Prohibition- era recipe from 1932 to make small-batch whiskey. And they have a legend that goes back to where it all started, Lorine Sextro. You see, Lorine Sextro apparently housed a bootlegger that showed her how to distill whiskey and apparently a still and 15 barrels were buried 90 years ago during Prohibition and the great Depression.

It was thought that the still and barrels were still there, so in 2018 Iowa Legendary Rye got specialists to come in to search for the missing still and barrels. Although there were strong leads, it wasn't until they used a specially trained dog to use the scent of the rye to sniff out the barrels and still. The search found bottles with the date marks of the era and oak which was the same material used to make the rye barrels.

You can read more about what this find means for the Iowa Legendary Rye here.