A Carroll County story from the 1920s, revived in 2006.

Templeton is a small town in Carroll County, in western Iowa, and its name was attached to whiskey long before the modern brand existed. English Wikipedia, citing a 2006 paper by Lisa Ossian in Agricultural History, says rye whiskey was made around Templeton during Prohibition as a way for farmers to supplement their income, and that it had a reputation in speakeasies in Chicago, Omaha and Kansas City. The same article repeats the local legend that it was said to be a favourite of Al Capone; that story has always been told as legend rather than record.

The modern company grew out of one family’s version of that past. Distillery Trail reported in August 2018 that Alphons Kerkhoff was a bootlegger in the 1920s who sent his rye to Chicago and the surrounding area, that his descendants restarted the family business in 2001, and that they found a partner to make a legal, modern version of the family recipe. The Des Moines Register described Kerkhoff as the grandfather of co-founder Keith Kerkhoff. The brand went on sale in 2006 under Templeton Rye Spirits, LLC, and English Wikipedia, citing the Des Moines Register, says distribution outside Iowa began in August 2007.

Keith Kerkhoff’s co-founder was Scott Bush, who served as the company’s president. WhiskyCast reported in July 2015 that Bush had stepped aside from day-to-day duties while remaining a director, and that the company said the change was unrelated to the litigation then under way. The whiskey was bottled in Templeton itself.

Indiana whiskey, an Illinois lawsuit and a changed label.

The liquid inside the early bottles came from elsewhere. English Wikipedia, citing the Des Moines Register in August 2014 and the Chicago Tribune in July 2015, says the whiskey was distilled and aged in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, by MGP, and then bottled in Templeton. According to the ABA Journal of 25 September 2014, Templeton’s chairman, Vern Underwood, told the Des Moines Register that the whiskey was made in Indiana and blended with other whiskeys and water in Templeton, and that federal regulations prevented the company from using the old recipe.

A consumer lawsuit followed. The ABA Journal reported that it was filed on 29 August 2014 in Cook County, Illinois, and alleged that the marketing suggested a whiskey made in a small Iowa town to a Prohibition-era recipe; the company said it would change its label to say the whiskey was distilled in Indiana. Further class actions were brought, and in July 2015 Templeton agreed to settle, Shanken News Daily reported on 15 July 2015. The terms required changes to the wording on bottles and on the website, and a reserve for customer refunds; co-founder Keith Kerkhoff said the brand’s marketing “should have provided more clarity.” Templeton had argued that blending, bottling and labelling the whiskey in Templeton made the local framing fair.

WhiskyCast, reporting the terms on 23 July 2015 from the Des Moines Register, said the case sat in the U.S. District Court in Chicago and still needed a judge’s approval. Under the deal “Distilled in Indiana” would be added to the label, the phrases “small batch” and “Prohibition Era Recipe” would be removed, and the brand could still say its whiskey was based on the Prohibition-era Kerkhoff recipe. Purchasers going back to 2006 could claim refunds, English Wikipedia says, citing the Chicago Tribune.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all American whiskey names known for rye, often alongside bourbon: Sagamore Spirit, Old Overholt, Templeton, Pikesville, James E. Pepper, Willett and Catoctin Creek. They sit at very different points in the trade, from family-run distilleries to labels that belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single name can stand for a working distillery, a revived old brand or a whiskey made somewhere else and bottled under the label.

In the United States the word on the label has a legal meaning. Federal rules on spirits labelling (27 CFR 5.143) define rye whisky as whisky made from a fermented mash of at least 51 per cent rye, distilled at 160 proof or less and stored in charred new oak barrels at 125 proof or less; a whisky called “straight” must spend at least two years in those barrels. The same rules set out bourbon on the same pattern, with corn in place of rye. What the rules fix is the recipe and the barrel, not the look of the bottle, so the identity of each brand is carried by its name, its label and the place it claims.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its whiskey is actually distilled, aged and bottled. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its whiskey is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From a bottling hall to a Templeton distillery.

The Des Moines Register reported in August 2018 that criticism of the “made in Iowa” framing had prompted plans to bring production to the state, and the Omaha World-Herald reported in April 2017 that the company was restarting distilling in Iowa, English Wikipedia says. Ground was broken in Templeton in April 2017, and the company was distilling again twelve months and two days later, Distillery Trail reported on 17 August 2018, when the distillery held its grand opening. The site, on 20 acres in the town, has a visitor centre, a museum and a tasting room, and its column and pot stills were made by Forsyths and shipped from Scotland, the same report said. “This completes us,” Keith Kerkhoff told the Des Moines Register in August 2018. “We’re all home now.”

Shanken News Daily reported on 2 April 2024 that Fortitude, Templeton’s first bourbon, was the first commercially released whiskey distilled at the brand’s Iowa distillery and was rolling out across the United States. The same report described Templeton as one of the lead brands of Infinium Spirits, the California-based marketer owned by the Underwood family; Distillery Trail had identified Vern Underwood in 2018 as an investor and chairman of Young’s Market Company. The brand’s own website now trades as Templeton American Whiskey.

For a design guide, Templeton Rye shows how a small-town name, a family bootlegging story and a label that had to be rewritten can sit at the centre of one identity, and how a brand can move from bottling bought-in whiskey to distilling in its home town. Compare WhistlePig, the Vermont farm rye, and High West, the Park City whiskey house. For this guide we use rye amber, prairie gold and label cream with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Templeton Rye’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.