Vodka

[benfranklin]

Long story, but eventually on topic.

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was in Peoria, IL, on business. The person I was meeting with, a big frog in the little pond, was giving me a mini-tour of the city on the way to his office.

We were driving along side the Illinois River, and passed a large industrial complex owned by ADM (Archer Daniels Midland, one of the largest agri-businesses in the world). He told me that the plant manager was a friend of his, and that one of the major functions of that plant was to take in barge loads of grain and produce grain alcohol.

The grain alcohol was then loaded into tanker barges and shipped down the Illinois to the Mississippi and then to the Gulf. There the grain alcohol was loaded on a tanker ship and taken to Russia, where it was used to make vodka. Stoli Vodka.

Since that day, I have had much difficulty keeping a straight face whenever I hear discussions about fine hand-crafted imported vodkas. Give me a break--it comes from Peoria [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]