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Friday, March 9, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Travel
Homegrown SPIRITS
Going on a spring break trip can be as easy as hopping in the car and driving 90 minutes to Weston. Mo
to Weston, Mo.
Twelve years ago, Patricia and Elbert Pirtle expanded a wine-making hobby into a business.
The McCormick plant stores 24,000 barrels of aging whiskey, which is ready to bottle and ship after six years.
Story by Ines Shuk Photos by Phil Ellsworth
W when University of Kansas students think of spring break, visions of Padre Island beaches and Colorado ski
come to mind.
However, close to KU during spring break does not have to be the end of the world.
About 60 miles northeast of Lawrence, the town of Weston, Mo., offers visitors tourist attractions, such as the historic Wellington Co. and Pirtle's Weston Vineyard Winery, which the history and hard-working spirit of the region.
Mccormick is in the Platte Valley, about one mile southeast of Weston, via Highway JJ, which goes through rolling hills, ample fields and orchards.
McCormick is a national supplier of beverage spirits with markets in 42 states. The spirits classification includes whiskey, brandy, rum, gin and vodka.
The company offers visitors free daily tours through its production plant from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The tour season started March 1 and will run until Nov. 30, said Norma Swendson, McCormick tourism supervisor.
The 30-minute tour is a quick stroll in which visitors are taken to an original water springs house, a barrel warehouse and the packing facilities where the guides explain production processes.
Hollady found that the limestone water provided by the springs was an ideal ingredient for making quality whiskey. In 1856 he founded the Blue Springs Distillery to supply whisky for the many wagon train passengers who passed through the Weston area and headed West.
Mccormick's history originated in the mid 1800s, when Benjamin J. Hollayad, a Weston堡人，covered natural limestone springs found in 1864 by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
In 1860, Holladay turned the distillery over to his brother David while he worked to initiate other projects such as the Pony Express and the Overland Stage. Both stage coach companies formed an economic empire that extended across the Great Plains and played a crucial role in opening the Midwest to settlers.
The Holiday family sold the distillery in 1894 to George Shawhan, and after Prohibition, Isadore Singer became the new owner.
Singer bought the McCormick label, then used for a whiskery marketed at nearby Waldron, Mo, and in 1950 the McCormick Distilling Co. was acquired by Midwest Grain Products Inc.
Between that year and 1970, McCormick functioned primarily as a regional distillery.
During the late 1970s it began to distribute spirits nationwide, while its product line expanded. The distillery offers more than 16 types of spirits and alcoholic beverages, such as tequila and brandy.
In 1976, McCormick became one of only two distilleries listed in the National Register of
Historical Sites and the only distillery west of the Mississippi River. It is the oldest to operate at its original site, said Annette Reardon, McCormick Hill relations representative.
Visitors can taste McCormnick products at a 19thcentury saloon replica where samples are provided at 10 cents each, Swendon said.
Reardon said samples weren't offered to visitors under 21. However, she encouraged them to visit the distillery to learn about its spirits-making process.
Visitors also will find picnic areas and historic sites, such as a replica of the 19th- century house of McCormick's founder, Holiday
After visiting McCormick, can you tour another Weston enterprise dedicated to the produce industry (whole beverages, Pirate's Weston Vineyards Winery, about two miles northwest of McCormick.
Pirtle's was founded 12 years ago and is in the former German Lutheran Evangelical Church, 502 Spring Street. The church was built in 1867.
"We couldn't buy a place next to a church, so we bought a church," said Patricia Pirtle, who owns the winery with her husband, Elbert.
The inside of the church is decorated with bonsai trimmed by Patricia, stained glass windows made by Elbert, an old wooden counter that once belonged to Harry Truman, ceramics and many other antique items. Bottles of wine and assorted gifts are scattered among the decorations.
Patricia and Elbert, both 50 years old and from Lufkin, Texas, said people from across the country visited their store.
"It is hard to believe that so many people come into a little winery like ours," she said.
Usually Patricia takes care of the customers, offering them wine samples while Elbert works in the vineyard.
"He is public relations, sales and winemaker," she said. "I'm just public relations and sales."
When asked how she learned about wines, she said it came with the territory.
"I learned listening to customers. We produce more of what they want and none of what they don't like," she said.
During the summer, customers may find homemade baguettes, cheeses and sausages to accompany the wine sampling, she said.
The winery also offers a diverse range of handmade ceramic wine bottles and cups.
"It separates us from any other winery in the world," she said.
The Pirtles lived in Stouffer place at KU for three years until Elbert earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1968. He teaches mathematics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
He began experimenting with wine-making techniques after graduating from KU. He said wine making started as a hobby.
"It was a self-taught thing like everything else is in life," he said.
However, Elbert's hobby became a bigger business than he and his wife had planned.
Elbert grows most of the grapes used to produce Pirtle's eight types of wine. The Pirtles' 13-acre vineyard is in northern Platte County where they live.
The winery's specialities include Rosemum-
chen, Goldestrophten, Apple wine, Mead — or
honey wine — and Mellow Red. All wines were
created and named by the Pirtles.
Although the Pirates never have submitted their wines to a competition, one thing stands clear for Patricia — "the biggest gold medal in the world is the customers that come."
Pirtle made the stained glass windows in the winery, a converted church.
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