Kentucky Bourbon

We drove to Louisville for lunch enjoying a wonderful meal at a small highly recommended restaurant ( TripAdvisor). We passed several distillers on the way to city, whiskey is big business here. The original Kentucky settlers grew abundant corn crops on their fertile farmland but the isolation from markets made survival tough here. The solution was to distill the corn mash into whiskey, a compact high value product easy to ship down the Ohio River to New Orleans, a new industry was born. The countryside is now sprinkled with these distilleries, a booming industry supporting many high paying jobs. We visited Heaven Hill Distillery, makers of Elijah Craig Bourbon. Their huge storage buildings each hold 20,000 aging barrels. These giant buildings are seen sprinkled across the Kentucky countryside. Our tour guide mentioned that the distillery jobs are so coveted that a majority of workers spend their entire careers there.