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June 7, 2014

6/7/2014

 
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Good afternoon to you.  We've seen patchy sun in between clouds this Saturday, though sunrise was brilliant.  We didn't have any precipitation Friday or thus far today.  Friday's high temperature was 62 degrees with a low of 48.

Today I'm going to pass along a story Al Bedinger, a former LeConte Lodge crew member from the 1970s, told me about the genesis of syrup making on the mountain.  Al tells the story better than I, but I promised I'd tell it earlier this year and here goes.

After the Huffs left the top of the mountain, Herrick Brown ran the show at LeConte Lodge during the period when Al worked on the crew in the 1970s.  By any account, and I've spoken with several folks, Herrick was a good man and a fine boss who cast a long shadow across Mt. LeConte.

It's kind of a conundrum, but you have to be a practical kind of unpractical person to run the lodge.  If you were a strictly practical person you'd never live at the top of a mountain without electricity or a road.  However, you also have to find a way to make things work up on LeConte--a practical unpractical person.

Like all good LeConte managers, Herrick was always looking for a better way to do things at the top of Tennessee.  Then, as now, part of a LeConte Lodge breakfast included pancakes--"We've fixed two pancakes per person.  Watch the platters because they're awfully hot.  We've got a small griddle, but we'll bring out the rest of the food as soon as we can get it cooked."

LeConte's guests wanted syrup on their pancakes, a perfectly reasonable request (if difficult to fulfill)
.  In those pre-llama days, the horses would have to lug the heavy jugs of syrup up the Rainbow Falls Trail.  Even though the guest numbers were lower in those days, we still went through enough syrup to wear a horse out.

One day
a crew member presented Herrick with a magnificent solution.  "Most of the weight in syrup is from water.  Herrick, we've got the best water in the state from the (LeConte) spring.  Why don't you just order up some sugar, and we'll make our own syrup from LeConte spring water?"  That's exactly what happens to this day, though the spring water is tested daily and treated now.

Herrick thought that was a brilliant idea.  So, he ordered several hundred pounds of sugar and made plans to haul those bags up to the lodge.
  However, the folks on LeConte weren't the only ones paying attention to the breakthrough idea.

It seems there were some federal agents awfully interested in a brand-new purchase of several hundred pounds of sugar headed deep into the Tennessee mountains.  Now, we get visits from federal employees all the time at LeConte Lodge.  I had a nice visit with Mark Pitt, the National Park Service inter
pretive ranger who works LeConte Thursday through Sunday morning, today.  Like Mark, most of the federal agents we see wear the park service's arrowhead patch on their uniform.

However, after Herrick's sugar purchase, LeConte Lodge got a visit from the IRS, whose agents suspected some untaxed corn liquor was being distilled at the top of Tennessee.  Evidently, they sampled the LeConte homemade syrup and were happy enough that was the strongest brew cooking on top of the mountain.  That story was told to me as true, and I don't know how much embellishment flourished during the last 40 years.

As promised, that's the tale of how the IRS got mixed up in the LeConte syrup business.  Thanks for reading.  Happy trails.

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Rhododendron blooms near Inspiration Point on the Alum Cave Bluff Trail last week.
Anna
6/7/2014 09:33:39 am

GORGEOUS pictures, Nathan!! Thank you!

norman
6/7/2014 09:35:41 am

AGREE with you!!

Larry O
6/7/2014 09:56:12 am

Nathan, now I know what was in that jar you were drinking with lunch yesterday. jk

Hamp Kirkland
6/7/2014 10:55:37 am

Darn revenuers spoil all the fun, aim't nothin wrong with some good corn squeezins

Sandy Rumsey link
6/7/2014 12:16:43 pm

My papaw (appalachian for grandfather) brewed corn whiskey in those mountains back in the 1920's and 30's. His best friend pretended to be a preacher while my papaw sold their corn squeezin's to the faithful few. The revenuers got after him too. He evaded them as did the Leconte crew. Great story. great place. When we come up in November, we'll pass a jug or two :)

doug y link
6/7/2014 12:17:26 pm

That's a great story Nathan ! Thanks. That has added to my personal knowledge of the history of the Lodge and I appreciate hearing your account. I grew up taking a mixture of 50% honey and 50% Kentucky moonshine, sometimes with a wee bit of other flavoring. I was continually plagued by tonsillitis and strep throat up into my early twenties. My mother would give me one to three tablespoons of this old fashioned remedy with every bout of those maladies. To this day I could drink the 'shine straight, but I don't drink much of anything except an occasional glass of wine, and especially when I'm staying at the lodge. I have made it here at home as recently as a few months ago, small batches of course ! I keep about a quart or two of the mixture on hand just in case. Darn it, I haven't had a sore throat in a long while ! Oh, and when you get out your lawnmower in the spring, it will start more easily if you add a tablespoon of moonshine to the fuel. Bloody thing fires right up !! Good evening to all.

Janet
6/7/2014 03:31:10 pm

Here's a different kind of syrup story... Not too far from where I live, some people were making maple syrup. REAL maple syrup! They had the trees tapped, and the fires going to boil it all down. The works. A couple of county deputies came in, weapons drawn and all! They were busting them for... a meth lab! Yep! The deputies thought these people had a meth lab going! Well the weapons were holstered and the deputies got an education that day on homemade maple syrup. Funny how the paper never got their names either!
Love the photo of the sky you posted. Looks like the sky is on fire! That one is going to make it my favorites list. Trouble is, that list just keeps growing!

Les Rust
6/8/2014 02:00:14 am

I remember Herrick and his family well from the days of my youth; they were fine folks and did a great job with the lodge in those days. You would think the Revenuers would have had enough sense to know that you can't make moonshine without corn--and there sure wasn't any corn growing up there!


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