📘Bourbon: Why Kentucky's First Settlers Weren't Making Whiskey

The story of Kentucky Bourbon often begins with settlers arriving on the frontier, planting corn, and turning their surplus grain into whiskey. But that familiar picture skips over a rather important question: how did those settlers survive long enough to build farms, let alone distilleries? As John Miller and his family venture into the dangerous wilderness of Kentucke, we discover just how uncertain life was for the people who first attempted to settle the region. Before there could be a Bourbon industry, there had to be communities, working farms, and people willing to risk everything to establish them.

This is Chapter One, Part One of The Lost History of Bourbon, presented as a reading from an early manuscript draft. Unlike regular Whiskey Lore Stories episodes, these chapters are presented without music or sound effects. The manuscript is a work in progress, and some details may change.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT: https://www.whiskeylore.org/episodes/x01a-the-lost-history-of-bourbon-the-wilds-of-kentucke-country

MORE WHISKEY HISTORY: https://www.patreon.com/whiskeylore