Bourbon and bikes: Discovering Kentucky's distilleries on a cycling adventure

As we pedaled our bikes over the rolling hills of Kentucky, I could practically taste the bourbon.

There'd be a glass waiting for us at the end of the ride, of course - two fingers of whiskey, with a single ice cube. But being surrounded by the raw ingredients had the flavor tickling my tongue. Fields of corn beginning to brown in the August sun. Clear water trickling down limestone cliffs into a massive underground aquifer. The scent emanating from the distilleries themselves, that sweet corn mash being transformed into America's favorite elixir.

Whiskey was once the de facto currency throughout much of the country in the late 1700s. Corn would rot if not used quickly enough, so farmers took their unsold crops and turned them into whiskey, which they