Kentucky Bourbon has a relatively short history compared with other beverage traditions such as wine or beer. While the alembic still is commonly thought to have been invented by Maria the Jewess sometime between the first and third centuries AD, it wouldn’t be used to make whiskey for another thousand years. By the time settlers came from Europe to North America, a still was a standard piece of farm equipment. As westward expansion pushed settlers further into the continent, whiskey making became even more important. In the late 1700s, Kentucky was still part of the Wild West. The rye that had been grown in the Northern colonies didn’t do very well in the wet, humid climate of Kentucky, but corn grew exceptionally well. As Wild Turkey’s Jimmy Russell likes to point out, if rice had grown here then bourbon would be made of rice. As it stands, corn has long been the cornerstone of Kentucky’s economy, and that’s why its amber nectar is celebrated every September during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
A little over a decade ago, there were eight large distilleries in Kentucky; peppered among them were a few smaller distilleries that would eventually be called ‘craft’. It had been this way since about the 1970s, when America’s love of Kentucky bourbon had declined, and this combined with overproduction issues put several distilleries out of business. But slowly consumer interest in bourbon was renewed, and the now widely recognised bourbon boom began to percolate. Today there are more than 90 distilleries
