The area around Collinsville, IL, is the self-styled 'horseradish capitol of the world.' The open stretch of agricultural land in the northeast of the American Bottom (roughly a 2,000 acre area between Horseshoe Lake and the limestone bluffs) produce 60% of the world's horseradish-with upward of 85% of the worlds production occurring in the southern Illinois region. Much of this product is ground and exported to Germany and China-where the specific American Bottom heat is a delicacy. Potash, distributed over millennia by the meanders of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, is the key soil ingredient for the spiciest horseradish. Armoracia rusticana-as horseradish is known to the botanical world-is a labor-intensive crop, which may be why growing has been consolidated to about a dozen famers in a three county area of the American Bottom. Each year in June, since 1988, Collinsville holds it's annual International Horseradish Festival-with booths, tastings, and naughty root-themed t-shirts. Also not to be missed: just atop the bluffs from the farmland sits the Brooks Catsup Bottle Water Tower-the world's largest ketchup bottle--which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.