Bourbon's Backroads
Part I of this book is a geographic history of Kentucky’s distilling industry, focusing on the nineteenth century. Kentucky distillers have produced alcohol spirits, bourbon, and rye whiskeys for more than two centuries. This part examines the change from craft distilling practiced by farmers and millers to large-scale industrial distilling using mechanized processes and refined production techniques. Some distillers relocated their works away from traditional sites along creeks to rail-side sites, whether in the countryside or in towns. The changeover to commercial-scale distilling was accompanied by increasing government taxation and oversight controls. Mechanized distilleries readily expanded production and increased their demand for labor, grains, cooperage, and copper stills. Improved transportation allowed distillers to obtain grains and equipment from more distant sources, while also allowing them to distribute their products to national and international markets. A by-product of industrial production was spent grains, or slop,which was disposed of primarily by feeding it to livestock. The nineteenth-century temperance movement eventually led to national Prohibition, which was in effect from 1920 to 1933. A small number of distillers survived by making medicinal whiskey. Part II consists of three chapters that outline the concentration of industrial distilling in the Inner and Outer Bluegrass regions as well as in Ohio Valley cities.