Moody's Garage: October 2012

Raising the Bar -- Hot Rod Bar

George Dickel Tennessee Whisky

I recently had the opportunity to work on a project called "Raising the Bar". It was an experience I will never forget. The event was sponsored by Dickel Tennessee Whisky and was held during the Great American BBQ at the American Royal here in Kansas City. Over the course of three days, there were six teams of three people per team. Each team had 8 hours to build a bar that seats three people and creatively pours a shot of Dickel Whisky. The whole event was captured on film by an amazing group of people out of California, Original Productions. They are known for shows like Monster Garage and Ice Road Truckers as well as many others that you are probably more familiar with than I am. Rob Dibble, former pitcher for the Cincinatti Reds and sports commentator was the host for the weekend. He is a straight up dude and was fun to work with.

The other two members of my team were Baker Medlock and Carlos Loubriel and together we became known as "Team Hot Rod" during the event. This was due to the fact that we were building our bar out of the front end of a 1953 Chevrolet car. It became clear pretty quickly that our bar wasn't going to be anything like the others.

We decided the bar needed to open up like a transformer when in bar mode and close back up to the form of a kick ass hot rod after last call. The hood and fenders rise while the wheels and front bumper move out and upward forming three seating positions. Then the hood and fenders drop back down into it's original position sporting it's bar mode. The seating postion in the center of the front grill has a leather seat I hand tooled the George Dickel logo on for display, while the other two positions are on spinning wire wheels on each side.

We built a clockworks like mechanism with mechanical gears and pulleys sporting a driving steering wheel at the top that pours a perfect shot.

The body panels of the '53 Chevy sport candies and flakes and pinstripes done by Carlos Loubirel.

We worked on this up until the last second and it was a hit by the end of the night, pouring a perfect shot of Whisky with the flip of a switch.

At the end of the third day, we were honored to be chosen by the George Dickel folks as the 2012 Raising the Bar Champions out of the 6 teams.