Travels With Mike

The great East Coast Factory Tour

by Mike Rank | August 18, 2002 This is my Vacation look. I rock. Buy books on starting your own business! With my casino winnings from the previous week, it was time to blow some cash and see some sights. While the East Coast is rich in early American History, it seemed a waste to spend time paying homage to events and people who are no longer around to appreciate the attention. Instead, it seemed appropriate to visit the pioneers and trailblazers that have forged the economic staples of our society. Armed with a fistful of pamphlets and a road atlas, I hit the road in search of places that made stuff, because stuff is good. In Massachusetts I found the Yankee Candle Company, a Mecca for elderly women and homosexuals alike. Sadly, the facility is a massive complex dedicated to consumer spending and they don't actually show you how the candles are made. While I did attend the presentation on early candle making in the U.S., the entire demonstration turned into a bashing session when I correctly guessed that an entire sheet of beeswax would only yield half a candle. My waterloo was explaining that the material was too porous to bear a significant amount of wax. The irate, frumpy woman venomously referred to me as "college boy" for the rest of the show. Following my internal compass, the trek took me northward to Vermont, a state known best for its maple syrup and liberal policies on gay marriages. It's a green wonderland of rolling hills, rest stops which resemble suites at a quality hotel (a plus for gay men looking for a quickie or a life partner to share their love of candles with) and a minimal amount of freeway exits. It's amazing. Eighty miles of highway and only thirteen exits, each more bland and uninviting than the previous. But a mile off exit ten you'll find the first of three Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Plants. The tour of the plant starts with a movie, which was proceeded by the mournful cry of a toddler who moaned "Mommmmy, I just want to eat the ice cream!" We all laughed with the eager little chap before telling him to shut up so we could watch the film. The actual assembly line was quite impressive, as all of the little ice cream trolls scurried from machine to machine, working to churn out 195,000 pints of ice cream a day. They had two separate lines working, producing two flavors each day. Once the pints are packaged, they're shipped to spend two hours on a spiraling elevator in a room where the temperature is -70 degrees with wind chill, preparing the pints for their travels across the country, into our tummies. Dinner that night consisted of a dozen thimble sized samples and a full size cone from the snack bar. Day 2 saw it's beginning at the Lake Champlain Chocolates, a small confectionery that was located in a warehouse in a dilapidated section of Burlington. They did an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of making chocolate, detailing all processes including how they manage to screw the consumer on large chocolates by hollowing out the centers. While the tour guide was polite and friendly, she became somewhat irate when I kept asking her to show us where they kept the Oompa Loompa's. Next was the Magic Hat brewery, a small microbrewery with distribution across the northeast. Established several years ago, they have a half dozen major brands that they produce. I recommend arriving in the morning or afternoon, before the tours begin. Not only will this help you avoid the soft-spoken, mousy tour guide, but it will give you the chance to see the brewery line in full production. You can follow the bottles from their filling, capping, labeling and their ultimate packaging. It's just like a 3-D episode of Laverne and Shirley. From here, the trek took me back across Vermont and through New Hampshire. It's a frightening little state where the Canadian-friendly road signs list distances in kilometers and miles. It was perplexing to see the Freeway signs advertising a liquor store several exits away. I had to pull over to see the liquor store which was important enough to be advertised by the state and was amused to find a "state sponsored liquor store" situated next to the "state sponsored safety rest area". I tore out of there, realizing that I was trapped with a bunch of maniacs that provide liquor exclusively at freeway rest stops, then print their state motto "Live Free or Die" on their license plates. Rounding off the trip was a tour of the Sam Adams Brewery in Massachusetts. They have an impressive display of memorabilia and awards on display and even provide you with a nifty video narrated by Jim Koch, founder of the company. While the Boston plant doesn't produce for distribution, they still use the facility for making test batches and they take you on the floor to see the different beer tanks used. The best part is that they have their own bar where they serve you several different brands of their world-renowned brew. Sadly, they don't serve you any of their millennial blends, which range anywhere from 30 to 50 proof. They're a bunch of madmen there. And we love them for it. During the video presentation, Jim Koch went into detail about how he named his beer after Samuel Adams, a man who helped start a revolution to build this country. It's nice to see that entrepreneurs are still able to strive and flourish in this great land of ours. Even more encouraging was to see that all of these businesses were started by a bunch of hippies with a new product and dream. It helps me to believe that my goal of creating a restaurant chain of "gravy-fried-gravy" logs may some day be a reality.