Day 39:  Ari picked me up to get our day and field trip started.  We got to the distillery and got the final stages of the contract work underway and checked on the Rye mash.  It was going gang busters. I took on the exciting chore of cleaning some rye stuck to the outside of the Mash tun.  It got there when we had a slight boil over.  It was hot and sticky in the distillery so I was sweating bullets the whole time.

 We were finishing up when Justin came in.  He was up late running the mash and came in a bit later than normal today.  As soon as he showed up Ari and I packed up his car with the necessary elements to clean a still for Mike Beck at Uncle John's Cider Mill.  Mike makes some great ciders and a vodka and brandy made from apples.

Ari had to run back to the distillery to get some paper work he forgot for Mike.  So I got to hang with Mike for a few hours while we ran the cleaning loop on this older Carl Still.  As I was finishing up, Ari called me to say he was going to take longer to get out to the cider mill.  Mike is one cool guy and took it upon himself to see I had a good time while I was waiting.  He ran me out to parking lot and hooked me up with a golf cart so I could run around the farm and check out the surroundings.  I explored the whole 250 acres.  Mike has Apples, Sweet corn, blueberry's and pumpkins.  He's got a great place and you can see much of it in the pictures.  Mike keeps a small quantity of aged brandy in this stack of barrels.  He was asked to take part in a project put together by another winery in the area to get barrels made from Michigan Oak.  I got to try a bunch of these brandies, taking samples from a  barrel made with french oak, and one from the Michigan oak.  I truly favored the Michigan oak.  You can see my hand holding a glass of it.  Great stuff.

Here is a picture of the runway going down between two fields of corn.  This should give you an idea of the size of operation he is running.
On the right is his rack for tri-clamps and hose parts.  I'm guessing this a manufactured thing, but I am planning on building one for my place when the time comes.

 Mike paused for a photo with me after the cleaning was done.  On the right I blew off a little steam on this bouncy balloon thing Mike has for the kids.  Ari tried to shoot me when I was up in the air but no luck.

On the left Mike and Ari are talking about different marketing concepts for Mike's products.  They are standing in front of one rack of Mike's products.  Incidentally, one of his ciders was just awarded an honorable mention from the Queen of England at a cider competition in Great Britain.  According to Mike he is the first American cider maker to get any award at this event.  Mike sent us home with boxes of different ciders and he gave me a bottle of both his apple brandy and vodka.  Can't wait to try these in the comfort of my new place in Minnesota next week.  You have to watch out how you answer when Mike asks "Hey, you want some sweet corn?"  If you answer "Yes." he might just drop a bag of 72 ears in your lap as he did for Ari.  Luckily Ari has a big event going on in form of a bachelor party for his brother.  So the sweet corn will go to good use at the party.