Jimmy Russell, bourbon legend and creator of Wild Turkey 101, greets visitors to the Wild Turkey distillery in Barton, Ky. Photo by John Blanchette.

A reporter from the Great Northwest, found heaven in the hills of Kentucky. Calling it his dream assignment, John Blanchette visited the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Calling bourbon his “drink of choice” he didn’t understand the history and patriotism that lies along the Bourbon Trail.

Bourbon is the spirit of America.
The next day we departed for Jim Beam, the first of seven bourbon distilleries open to the public on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. It is the world’s largest Bourbon distiller and the maker of Knob Creek. About 25 miles south of Louisville, it stockpiles an impressive reservoir of spirits. You can also visit the Jacob Beam House and the Outpost, where you can view a film that details the Beam family’s growth into a distilling dynasty.

Almost all the distilleries I visited are located in isolated, rural areas, usually at the end of long, winding, single lane-roads through forests and hills, lying at the bottom of a hollow.

At the Barton Distillery and Oscar Getz Whiskey Museum, Blanchette learned the origin of the term “booze.” In 1840, Philadelphia shopkeeper E. G. Booz started putting his own label on whiskey. Soon after, folks started asking for a bottle of “Booz.”

Blanchette was following the American Whiskey Trail outlined by the Distilled Spirits Council.