My friend Cam had his 40th birthday party at our local Black Bear Distillery, in Green Mountain Falls, being about halfway between our town and Colorado Springs. I’ve been keeping track of these guys since about the time that they had a website and Facebook page (before they started producing spirit), and though they’ve been open for business and open for tours for a while, the timing was never right to visit myself, until now. As an aside, most of the people in these pictures go to my church; the owner of the distillery goes to a church just down the street from us.
The Black Bear Restaurant dates back to the late ’30s (was called Pike’s Pub & Grill for a long time) and the current owner was operating the restaurant until a few years back, I don’t know exactly why the restaurant closed but I’m happy to have a distillery now. The manager took us through the history of the building (including ghost stories) as well as giving us the low-down on modern “moonshine,” and why theirs is better/more authentic. And considering it’s owned by a 4th generation North Carolina moonshiner I’ll take their word for it. I think the first bottle I ever bought from them was their Craft Shine Reserve (no longer offered) but the only one I would (and have) actively looked for is their Irish-style whiskey. It has a quite salient corn flavor compared to Irish whiskey, though evidently it’s about 80% barley. I asked about the possibility of a single malt, and evidently they’ve been trying but they haven’t found a way to age it properly in the Colorado climate. A Straight Boubon is in the works though! I’m pretty excited for that. They get their grain from the Colorado Malting Co. in Alamosa, and do the rest of the process in-house, which is always great to hear. I remember reading their original plans where they were going to soak the barley in the stream, grind it with two reclaimed millstones run by a pack of donkeys…sadly the residents of GMF weren’t too thrilled about that part of the operation.
I shot a roll of Tri-X pushing two stops but it was pretty dark in there, and I could have benefited from either more light or a faster film. Not feeling quite confident to push Tri-X to 3200 or beyond I decided to shoot at 1/30 second throughout. The Yellow 50 made it possible, though at f/1.4 its depth of field isn’t the largest. I keep thinking about one of the Tomioka f/1.2 lenses except they cost about a grand…that’s a lot of money for an extra half-stop. Since I’m retaking Advanced Photo I’m developing my own black & white film again, using the Sprint chemistry and I think this is the first time pushing film with Sprint (at 75F as I thought the fewer agitations would keep the grain under control). I’m pretty happy with the results, though I intend to experiment with pushing Tri-X to 3200 and beyond, probably with Caffenol.
The Resurrected Camera 
Looks like it was a good evening. I did a tour of Islay once and visited all the distilleries on the island. I was using my digital camera and I got everything from ‘absolutely no photos, it might ignite the fumes’ to ‘shoot whatever wherever, no problem.’ Needless to say I bought a lot more whisky at the latter type.
Ooooh, Islay! That sounds like heaven, pics or no! I’m more of a Scotch man myself, Kilchoman is one of my favorite distilleries and I recently tried Ardbeg 10, love that a lot too! I fail to see how photography could spark a fire, except in a figurative sense, but no one complained at Black Bear, so I’m a happy photographer.
Fantastic evening and really excellent photos of it. You got some nice compositions and moments. Love that Takumar bokeh too.
BTW, yeah, I keep Tri-X at 1600, above, in HC110b anyway, my results start to get a bit less reliable. I know it’s not screw mount, but have you considered the SMC 50/1.2? I think they’re usually around $300-$400.
The Takumars definitely give me *that* look. That 1.4/50 Super-Takumar is the one with the thorium-coated element that turns yellow, I never shot color film with it so almost never used the thing, but as I’m shooting Tri-X exclusively this semester that lens has really come into its own. Best $15 I ever spent! And that’s part of the problem, I’d be paying $385 for an extra half stop, I’m not really in a place financially where I can justify that. I have some K-series and A-series glass, and some modern automated bodies like the A3000 but if I’m going to abandon M42 for the K-mount, I want an LX, not impressed with most of the other bodies. And the thing is, for the money I’d spend, I might be better off getting a Nikon F3 and some AI’d lenses instead. But anyway, that’s a couple years down the road at least, so I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.
As far as developing, I’ve seen some good stuff with Tri-X being stand developed, mostly in Rodinal, but I think it might do well with Caffenol C-L at 3200. I hope I have time to test that assumption this semester 🙂
Well, in any case, it doesn’t seem like you actually need anything other than your current kit to make fantastic images! I would love to get rid of my F3. Useless in low light with its crappy meter display. I “downgraded” to the F2sb and am far happier with it. I switched from Pentax to Nikon years ago for paid/important work primarily because of the greater fast lens selection. I am perfectly content with a K1000, 50/1.2 and 28/2.8 though. I need to get rid of the rest of my Pentax gear really. The LX and other automated/electronic bodies don’t appeal to me much. I would think you’d appreciate all manual bodies with less frills also.
Kind of you to say so, but really I am content with what I have. On the occasions that I use two cameras I prefer to have a manual and an aperture priority body, so I think I would pair the LX with the K2 or KX or F3/F2 (and FM2?) if I go the Nikon route. And you want to talk about crappy meter display in low light, I wouldn’t say that the SPII with its stop-down metering is the easiest in that regard, but I’ve learned to live with it.
Also regarding the LX, something that is quite nice (and is carried over from the ES/ESII) is that all fast shutter speeds are mechanical and work without batteries. And anyway as much as I complain about the possibility of running out of charge mid-roll it’s never happened to me in my electronic cameras.
These are terrific shots. You knew what your limitations were and worked within them well.
I’m happy I got anything at all, really!