Epilogue

A historical ecology perspective permits an understanding and appreciation of the breadth of influences brought to bear on human events in time and place. Kentucky’s nineteenth-century distilling industry converted from traditional craft work to mechanized industrial production in a very complex process that blended environmental context with Old World knowledge, invention and innovation, associations with complementary industries, and conjunctions with a range of other economic, political, and social processes. Such linkages improved productivity but also introduced chains of contingencies and risk. The telling of this story and the underwriting of its authenticity are supported by archives that record how people of differing backgrounds and experiences, be they innovators or managers or laborers, enslaved or free, contributed to the industry’s development. Much of their work and many of their personal experiences are anonymous, but they are collectively represented in documents, narratives, and landscape.

A Reconstructed Past Lives in the Present

Distillers seek to retain or revive their industry’s history through narratives claiming authenticity for proclaimed traditions that are accepted as their heritage endowment. Heritage, if it is explained and publicized, can be deployed as a marketing tool and an attraction to potential customers and tourists. Kentucky’s distilling industry is notable for how it engages its past. Distillers preserve their heritage by retaining and reclaiming important structures or rebuilding them as replicas and by saving them through historic preservation. Twelve distilleries, five distillers’ homes, an aging warehouse, a bottling plant, and other structures have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Three distilleries have been designated National Historic Landmarks. Some distillers actively pursue their heritage, including signage and archaeological recovery of structures and artifacts.

Temperance Troubles

For many people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, consuming distilled spirits was a cultural tradition, and it was often associated with disease prevention or cure. Others saw spirits as disruptive and debilitating. The American Temperance Society was established in 1826 to organize sobriety supporters; the movement soon gave rise to numerous local and national groups, including the Kentucky Legislative Temperance Society. Some states passed laws enforcing prohibition, as did counties and local precincts. Temperance activists in Kentucky organized local community chapters that featured nationally known speakers and organized summer camp motivational retreats for members. Some distillers sold their products as medicinal whiskey. National Prohibition in 1920 stopped production at all but a few distilleries that were licensed to produce medicinal whiskey.

Signatures of Risk

Innovations in production technology and machinery increased efficiency and productivity but also introduced risk, especially if employees were given responsibilities for which they were not trained. Accidents that maimed employees and destroyed structures and equipment were commonplace. Recognizing and addressing risk were important to business survival. Risk also resided in environmental variability; flood and drought, hailstorms, high winds, and lightning could all affect grain production, river transport, water availability and quality, or distillery functions. Cattle and hogs in distillery feeding pens were susceptible to the same diseases that plagued the general livestock population, often with losses sufficient to force distillers into bankruptcy. Fires caused by mechanical failure, lightning, careless use of lanterns, or arson might destroy an entire distillery works. Insurers developed actuarial risk assessment techniques to reduce their vulnerability, and insurance premium rates forced distillers to consider building fire-resistant structures and increase the spacing between warehouses. This, in turn, changed the distilling landscape and introduced formal external controls into the distilling process.