Pilgrim Haven Staff 1959

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staff1959_6.jpg
staff1959_6.jpg
Brewing moonshine in the old dining hall kitchen.

This is a story. This photo was taken so that it could be proved that we did set up and distil moonshine in a church camp. In the photo Judy is holding the crock container we used for fermenting. Norm is kneeling, and Ruth looking on, bored that it is taking so long. We are in the process of making moonshine from scrap material around camp.

I forget who thought up the stunt, but first of all were were in a church camp and certain things like drinking was not allowed. Let alone constructing a distillery. Not all the kitchen girls were in on the stunt. Jan, Ruth and Judy were, but Gertie and Mrs. T were not. We started with plum juice which was left over after the large jars of plums were used up. We kept the juice in the back shelves in the walk-in cooler. Think Jan and Ruth were in charge of that. But Gertie (head cook) in one of her cleaning sweeps found the old juice in the cooler and threw it out. A cooler is an ideal place and temperature to ferment juice. (You could do it with apple cider until several years ago when all cider was required to be pasteurized.) After that we had to let Gertie in in the plan. To prevent anyone else finding out, we stored the juice in a large crock in a root cellar that was located somewhere between the farm house and the the bluff. The only people who knew about it were me, Norm, Jan, Ruth, Cory and Lois Matters, and Rev. Matters.

So we thought. While fermenting, there was a staff hunt where staff goes and hides in the evening and all the campers look for the staff. Some very ingenious methods were used to hide the staff (both weekly and permanent staff joined in). Jim Williams was on the weekly staff (as a minister) and he was a former handyman. He hid himself in the root cellar and found the crock. So we had to let him in on the secret.

The next problem was where and when could we distil the juice. It happened that the only place that no one frequented was the kitchen of the old dining hall. And the only date that the camp was free was a day when Rev. Matters was not in camp and for some reason there was no one there Saturday evening. I think some weekly staff came in early, before regular campers came in Sunday. So that was the date.

The condenser was obtained from an old refrigerator that was to be thrown in our dump. Before we threw it in the dump, I removed the copper condenser unit. Right after we had stripped the 'frig and dumped it, Rev. Matters ask if we could salvage some of the copper tubing for use around camp. He was always trying to salvage things. I had to make the excuse that is was already covered over with trash and we could not get to it. Quickly we went down to the dump and piled stuff on it and started a trash fire. For the outer casing I used a large tin can that peanut butter came in. I used extra bed straps to clamp the can on wood frames. The whole unit was soldered shut in the can with copper inlet and outlet for both the cooling water and the distillate. We used a maple syrup can to boil the fermented plum juice.

Unfortunately we only had rubber tubing to connect the units, which imparted a rubber flavor to the moonshine, or plum whisky. What did we do with the moonshine? We mixed it with a little pop (soda) but the flavor was pretty bad. It was strong whisky though. Rev. Matters did not learn of the stunt until his retirement party, although many of the younger clergy in Michigan had heard rumors. Where did it end up? A half pint still sits up in a cupboard in my kitchen as a memento of Pilgrim Haven.