6 Sep 2025 - Legends Distillery Tasting & Tour with Brad & Beth Herren + Dinner

 

What an awesome day!  We watched the intrastate rivalry football game between the Iowa State Cyclones and the Iowa Hawkeyes. During the game our friends Brad & Beth Herren arrived from Big Canoe GA.  As explained yesterday, Brad & I (and Doreen) served in the Air Force at a radio site near Loring Air Force Base back in the 70's.  We were all so young back then.  I arrived on 4 Jan 1974 and was fresh out of Air Force tech school, barely 18 years old.  Doreen was still home in Cedar Falls Iowa and we were engaged but not yet married.  

In March 1974 I came back to Iowa from Maine on leave and married my high school sweetheart and we embarked on a journey of a lifetime!  We headed back to Maine through Canada, and established residency in an apartment in Caribou Maine. We bonded with the others that worked at "The Site" with me and we became family and friends for life.  We worked together and played together.  We shared holidays together,  and the not so good times together.  As time went on, others came and went.  One of those that joined us was Brad Herren, from  Georgia.  Brad was a power production specialist who maintained the huge generator at our radio site.  We worked hard there but we had a lot of fun too. Our radio site was located several miles off base, so we were kind of isolated.  Seldom did anyone come out to visit us,  We had a pool table and ping pong table inside, and weather-permitting, we had a basketball/tennis court outside for entertainment. We built a barbecue area and had picnics and some absolutely awesome parties on the weekends. Our transmitter site was located in the middle of a northern Maine potato field, and many times we would head out into the field and harvest a few potatoes.  We would buy pecks of clams and have steamed clams and potatoes along with a beer or two.  Down the road from the site was a trout stream that we called the "swimming hole" and in the summer we would enjoy a dip in the swimming hole on Friday afternoons. We loved out time in Maine, but Doreen and I transitioned back to Iowa in 1977 and I went to work for the Iowa Department of Public Safety Communications Division.  I maintained the radio equipment for the Iowa State Patrol, and various other state departments.  I also joined the Iowa Air National Guard as a traditional guardsman, continuing my military service.  Little did I know that just a few years later in 1984 I would land a full time job with the 132d Communications Flight Iowa Air National Guard that would become a military career spanning 42  years, 2 months and 16 days!  

Brad & I with my "Iowa or Bust" sign.  There was a "Georgia or Bust" sign also 

as he was headed back to Georgia.

So that was a lot of info that may or may not have been interesting, but the bottom line is all those great Airmen we served with in Maine we have stayed in touch with over all these years, thanks to Doreen.  Several of them, including Brad Herren, came to our daughter Michelle's wedding at Camp Dodge in Oct 2000.  We have visited many of our "Maine-iacs" in our retirement RV travels.  I even had several that traveled to Camp Dodge for my military retirement  in 2015.  We treasure our Maine Air Force family and have enjoyed visiting them as we travel around with our RV.  

So, from above, today we reconnected with Brad and Beth Herren.  They joined us at our RV then we headed out to tour the Legends Distillery here in Cumming GA.  Brad introduced me to Legends bourbon a few years ago and I marked it on the map as a place to visit when we were in the area.  

Legends is a fairly new distillery, established in 2010.  After seven years of trial and error, Gerard, May and Allen perfected and patented their Quantum Purity Technology. Their process—owned by Spirits USA and used exclusively in Legends spirits—decreases impurities such as methanol, butanol, and ethyl acetates down to levels never before seen in the industry while allowing the spirit to keep its flavor profile.  Bottom line is they produce some of the smoothest bourbon I have ever had.  

We ordered flight a piece of bourbon and Doreen and Beth ordered something different.    The bourbons were amazing.  The bitterness and cut were gone resulting in a smooth pour.  

Soon we embarked on our tour of the facilities.  They explained their processes and how they differ from their competitors  They have perfected the Quantum Distillation Refinement Technology (originally known as Quantum Purity), and in the process, created a new method for distilling and purifying spirits.  The result, again,  is some of the smoothest bourbon I have ever had. 

How their spirits compare with others.

The tank where they process their bourbon

Storage barrels where the bourbon gets it's flavor and color

The bottling facility

  

The bourbons we sampled in our flight

We had an awesome time here at the Legends Distillery.  From here we moved on to a local restaurant and continued our fellowship.  Tomorrow we will travel to Big Canoe and enjoy an afternoon on a boat with Brad and Beth.