It's not all bad.........

 Well look at this. The still house has been completely repainted and repaired by the Barrys (Current owners of the Michter's Distillery site). This is a great thing to see and should stop the rumors that the entire site is going to be bulldozed. Even the wooden pump houses have been restored into a very nice condition. Unfortunately the future of the fermentation building and labs doesn't look so bright. They've been largely stripped out and it would certainly take a lot of cash to rehabilitate them. We can only hope they are deemed good enough to save! Here are some pictures I took today of the distillery:

The fresh paint on the Still House makes the fermentation building look a bit run down....

It's summer of 1986 all over again- A Shadow Blue 86 Mercury Capri GS parked along the road in front of the distillery. If only the Jug House was still selling fifths of Michter's today!

The Capri Returns...

Let the pictures describe how awesome it looks now:

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ANDY SENSENIG!! He is the man responsible for the excellent work!

Summer projects...

This summer, since I've once again found gainful employment, I plan on doing something that I've wanted to do for 10 years- have the Capri restored. Back in college I did a very rushed paint job on it and it shows. The car also needs a proper rustproofing and some other areas repaired. So far this spring I repaired the sunroof, did an oil change, repaired the driver's door armrest, and put a new hood weatherstrip on. I found a guy that's local that does classic car restorations during the summer (He's a school teacher) and he came over and we discussed the car. He is going to take on the project, so early this fall I should have a VERY nice looking, solid car!
As for other projects? I am going to fix up the 94 Escort wagon and sell that (so I can buy a 99 Escort wagon!), do some more work around the house, and of course stay involved with everything Michter's! After doing a little more research, I am going to start my whiskey rebarrel project. I still haven't selected the barrel size or what whiskey to use, but I've narrowed it down. I am probably going to buy 3 3 liter barrels and put Old Grandad 100 in one, Old Heaven Hill 100 in the second one, and Cabin Still 80 in the third. This gives me 3 very different whiskeys to experiment with and see what happens when they are aged an additional few months.

The Capri turns 24.

Today marks the 24th anniversary of my 1986 Mercury Capri coming off the assembly line at Ford's Dearborn plant. 1986 also marked the last year for the Capri and carburetted 2.3L 4 cylinder engines. Why is this car worth keeping? In 1986, only 20,869 Capris were made. Of those, only 1,774 were made in the Shadow Blue Metallic color- most of which were ASC McLaren coupes. The options package on my Capri is what really makes it unique. It has power locks, power windows, a 3 speed automatic, premium sound, a flip-up sunroof, and rear defrost, BUT no air conditioning and only the cloth interior. This options package would have had to have been pieced together, which would have made it very expensive. You could have gotten a decent V6 or base V8 engined car for the price. I have owned the car since July of 2000 and I've done an awful lot to it. When I bought the car, it had an Earl Sheib paint job, smoked a little, and needed a few other repairs. I fully repainted the car while in college and since then have done quite a bit of engine work. The Ford 2.3L OHC engine in it has 221,000 miles on it (From what I suspect. However, there is no 100,000 marker on the odometer so it's hard to say.). I put a rebuilt head from an 89 Mustang on it, the carburetor is a rejetted Motorcraft-Weber 5200 2 barrel from a 77 Pinto, I replaced the camshaft with a roller cam out of a 90 Ranger, the ignition was modified to a Duraspark-MSD hybrid system, I removed the air pump and a bunch of other emissions junk and also reworked most of the vacuum system. My modifications replace a computer controlled 1 barrel Carter carburetor and lots of other old, worn out, pathetic parts. Here's a few pictures of the car today: