| Sumario: | "For more than two centuries, Kentucky distillers have produced alcohol, maintaining their revered traditional distilling techniques. They follow proven recipes and brand their whiskies as "Old," as in Old Times and Old Log Cabin, or allude to historical places and personages such as Rolling Fork and Evan Williams. While many consumer goods manufacturers market their products as "new and improved," modern bourbon sales campaigns continue to emphasize a tradition and heritage that hearkens back to the original frontier craft. In Making Bourbon, Karl Raitz examines Kentucky's bourbon history through the synthesis of three perspectives: making, historical ecology, and landscape. All industrial regions are comprised of intricately layered and interrelated elements but, Raitz argues, Kentucky's nineteenth-century distilling landscape was especially complex. Raitz not only considers the geographical history of the nineteenth century when distilling transformed from artisanal craft to large-scale industry, but also how bourbon makers created the signature distilling landscape that remains at the core of the contemporary industry's identity. The cultural, historical, and geographic history of the region converge to create bourbon's unique story and birthplace. Rural distilleries stood beside springs or creeks and processed grain from surrounding farms. Urban distilleries drew water from rivers or wells and patronized rail lines, which delivered their grain and shipped their product. Skilled coopers and coppersmiths found work supplying barrels and still equipment. The farms and mills, the lumber yards and cooperage shops, and the turnpikes, railroads, and steamboats, contributed elements to this distilling landscape. Today, we are left with land that carries on the imprint of these traditions, and bourbon makers who benefit from a heritage so intricately linked to the hills of Kentucky"--
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