Bourbon's Backroads: A Journey through Kentucky's Distilling Landscape

by Karl Raitz

With more than fifty distilleries in the state, bourbon is as synonymous with Kentucky as horses and basketball. As one of the commonwealth's signature industries, bourbon distilling has influenced the landscape and heritage of the region for more than two centuries. Blending several topics―tax revenue, railroads, the mechanics of brewing, geography, landscapes, and architecture―this primer and geographical guide presents a detailed history of the development of Kentucky's distilling industry.

Nineteenth-century distilling changed from an artisanal craft practiced by farmers and millers to a large-scale mechanized industry that practiced increasingly refined production techniques. Distillers often operated at comparatively remote sites―the "backroads"―to take advantage of water sources or transport access. Some distillers adopted mechanization and the steam engine, forgoing water power―a change that permitted geographical relocation of distilleries away from traditional sites along creeks or at large springs to urban or rural rail-side sites.

Based on extensive archival research that includes private paper collections, newspapers, and period documents, this work places the distilling process in its environmental, geographical, and historical context. Bourbon's Backroads reveals the places where bourbon's heritage was made―from old and new distilleries, storage warehouses, railroad yards, and factories where copper fermenting vessels are made―and why the industry continues to thrive.

216 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 2019

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a “wet” subject the book is awfully dry. The author, Karl Raitz, is a professor at University of Kentucky and his writing here is very academic. While his information, graphs, and other illustrations are undoubtedly accurate, it becomes very uninteresting. The book is pretty comprehensive as far as his subject goes, it just wasn’t for me.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemingly rooted in both Historical Geography and Economic History, this book shines in providing thoroughly researched details about raw materials, production quantities, transportation, and locational nuances of distilleries in Kentucky. However, the preference for specificity in the aforementioned details and not in telling the stories of particular distillers may leave many readers wanting more than is delivered.

[Armand Rosamilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of facts and figures. A dry but interesting read about the origins of bourbon in Kentucky, and how it all came about and why specific areas boomed.

[Timmytoothless · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fascinating read on the central importance distilling in the industrial development of Kentucky and, to an extent, the Ohio River valley. While the academic writing may strike some readers as dry, the content deftly illustrates the impacts of landscape, settlement patterns and industrialization on Kentucky’s distilling heritage. In doing so, bourbon is revealed as spirit inextricably tied to the history and culture of the United States.

This history reveals the ways in which bourbon should be celebrated in the ways that other prominent heritage distilling cultures around the globe are celebrated.

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about bourbon landscapes in Kentucky

[Jacob Kiper · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a resident of Owensboro, KY... I rather enjoyed the discussion of Daviess County. This is the only bourbon history book I’ve encountered out of nearly all of them that gives more than a passing mention to Owensboro