<Announcer> Support for "Reconnecting Roots" is provided by the following: RPC.

♪ gentle acoustic guitar ♪ "Plain Values," a magazine on a mission to find joy in the simple things.

Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down, digging into community, and encouraging good for goodness sake.

Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future.

Sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful Paradise Valley, Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in "Reconnecting Roots."

At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country and improves our lives by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades.

TowHaul, proud sponsor of "Reconnecting Roots" and public television.

♪ Show me no way to the next whiskey bar ♪ <Gabe> Farmers, families, and preachers helped craft an original American product, until some of them outlawed it.

<Rob> It's about Kentucky culture, American culture, our history, and it's something that we can all be really, really proud of.

<Gabe> How the most iconic spirit in America was born and reborn thanks to the creativity of the American Spirit.

♪ I must have whiskey ♪ ♪ I'm Gabe McCauley.

Join me as we explore the greatness of America.

♪ Beautiful, for spacious skies ♪ ♪ Amber waves of grain ♪ ♪ Purple mountain majesties ♪ ♪ On the fruited plains.

We're home ♪ ♪ gentle music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ gentle music continues ♪ Tracing the roots of progress from then to now and how, this is "Reconnecting Roots."

<Gabe> September 3rd, 1783.

Congratulations, America.

You officially won the Revolutionary War.

No more of that taxation without representation and weird British tea.

We drink spirits from now on.

And sure, we need to figure out how to run this brand new country of ours.

But that's a problem for tomorrow.

Tonight, we celebrate.

So let's raise a toast to a long and prosperous future in this great and enchanted land.

Also, we're gonna need to charge you for that drink.

See, America won the war, but was left with a tab and needed a way to pay for it.

So in 1791, Congress passed an excise tax on all distilled spirits, which was a big deal to the distilling farmers of Western Pennsylvania since whiskey was their livelihood.

Heck, they didn't even have the cash to pay the tax because whiskey was the currency they knew best.

So how did they take it?

Not well.

♪ We're not gonna take it ♪ ♪ No, we ain't gonna take it ♪ <Gabe> From Southern New York to northern Georgia, farmers began to rebel against the law which levied small producers at a higher rate than large ones, eventually resulting in a mob of several hundred men in a gunfight with federal revenue collectors.

This was an existential threat for our new nation, which had just fought a war over unfair taxation.

So much that President George Washington himself mounted a horse and personally led a militia of 13,000 men to calm the uprising.

♪ The years' long conflict came to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion, and was the first major crisis faced by the new government.

So it's fitting that in that era, whiskey evolved to become bourbon, a drink synonymous with America.

♪ Bourbon is to whiskey what champagne is to wine.

An act of Congress declared it a distinct product of the US, ♪ which means it just has to be made in our country.

♪ Although 95% of bourbons are from Kentucky.

But there are also other rules such as bourbon having to be made from at least 51% corn, aged in new charred oak barrels, no less than 80 proof, smooth as the day is long.

Okay, that last one isn't official, but you get the idea.

♪ gentle music ♪ Today, bourbon is a multi-billion dollar industry known the world over, full of iconic grands and craft distillers.

To find out how bourbon became a defining American product, I hit the trail, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, where modernized distilleries are keeping certain traditions.

♪ <Rob> Today, almost all of our guests are traveling great distance to be here.

And I can remember working here as a youngster, almost everybody, they were locals.

And now, it is becoming a destination.

<Gabe> Emulating Napa Valley, the Bourbon Trail sees around 1.5 million visitors annually who come for the unique offerings only available on site, such as tasting rooms and special edition whiskeys.

As the trail reaches peak bourbon, distilleries are even expanding into entertainment venues.

<Rob> Today, thankfully, with the energy in this bourbon renaissance, I think there are 60 or 65 licensed distilleries in Kentucky.

I think there's 1,300 distilleries across the nation.

I think it's a celebration both of our legacy, but also our future.

We Kentuckians have always cherished our history and our legacy, and we love sharing what we do here with our friends.

In fact, Maker's Mark was the first distillery in America ever to host guests.

And my grandmother designed this entire distillery not like an engineer would design a factory, but she set everything up with purpose, so she could swing open the doors and have friends come experience the true legacy of bourbon and the distinctiveness of what they were creating.

It's a higher order than I think of what's even in your glass.

It's about Kentucky culture, American culture, our history, and it's something that we can all be really, really proud of.

<Gabe> This renaissance has brought new life into the historic home of bourbon, Bardstown, Kentucky, where visitors explore the mystique of this uniquely American spirit from its epicenter.

<Rob> While bourbon can be made anywhere in America, it's not an accident that almost all of it's made here.

The iron-free water is essential to make bourbon.

Corn is our native grain here in Kentucky.

Corn is required to have a minimum of 51% in the mash bill.

Oak trees are native in the region, and the bourbon barrel is produced from American White Oak.

Climate is conducive for a fast maturation with our hot summers and cold winters.

And then many of the early settlers, like my ancestors were of Scotch-Irish descent, and when they arrived here, they already had a still, (laughs) So they took advantage of all those local resources.

<Gabe> And had the knowledge, I'm sure too.

<Rob> They had the knowledge, the passion, and the resources.

<Gabe> Of course, the most precious natural resource to any distiller... is time.

The barrel aging process is what makes bourbon distinctive, though from a business perspective, it keeps the product from getting to the shelves as quickly as other spirits.

But that's the point.

What is it about the culture right now in society that's so interested in these processes that are so old, so slow?

<Freddie> We look at it not as a science equation.

It's a living, breathing thing.

This whole thing, the distillery, our yeast, our process.

You make whiskey one day and you gotta let it age for quite a bit of time.

There's evaporation that occurs across that time.

So, you'd wanna pull it out as fast as you can, but yet we're coming out with products day in and day out that maybe have older ages on them, differentiated processes that take more time, but all of that and an eye for the highest quality bourbons or highest quality whiskeys and all for trying to get that into our consumers' mouths and let them know that there's still a family here at James B. Beam ushering this thing along and making sure that those purposefully inefficient things we do, remain that and don't remain a thing of the past.

♪ <Gabe> In colonial America, when British blockades cut off supplies to make rum, the colonists turn to a different drink, whiskey.

Roughly 90% of Americans lived on farms at the time, and just about every farmer made whiskey out of any leftover grain they couldn't sell so it wouldn't go to waste.

Immigrants in the Kentucky region found that corn grew very well in the area, so they worked with what they had.

It's like that old saying, when life gives you corn, or rye, or just anything, make whiskey.

But who was the first to turn that whiskey into the bourbon we know today?

<Reverend Elijah> If you could just bless me with a moment of your time, I think you'd find it worthwhile.

My name is Reverend Elijah Craig and I'd like to talk to you this morning about the spirit, the spirit that's central to this community, the spirit that courses through our bodies when called upon, the spirit that I pretty much invented, bourbon.

Why bourbon, you can use it, when you don't have to clean water to drink.

I've even heard it'll cure the common cold.

<Basil> Pardon me, Reverend?

<Reverend Elijah> Yes, Brother Basil Hayden.

<Basil> Ever since I led over 100 Catholic parishioners to this area, I've seen others making this same kind of whiskey as you've been, including the distillery I set up years ago.

Shouldn't we get some of the credit too?

<Reverend Elijah> Well, maybe.

But I was the first to age whiskey in charred barrels after a fire accidentally broke out.

<Basil> With all due respect, there's no historical evidence of that.

<Reverend Elijah> Or did I put them in sugar barrels?

<Issac> I heard you aged them in fish barrels.

Jewish immigrants like myself, Isaac Bernheim, also created one of the biggest bourbon brands in the world right here in Kentucky.

I worry we might be overlooked.

<Reverend Elijah> Hey, settle down all ye.

Look, it ain't fair.

Even though Baptists, Catholics, Jews, and other religious folks contributed to the rise of bourbon, for some reason in the future, everyone will refer to me as the inventor, the father of bourbon.

<Basil> Even if your achievements may be nothing more than a local legend.

<Issac> Amen.

<Reverend Elijah> Hey, why don't the three of us walk into a bar and chat about it some more?

<Issac> A Catholic, a Baptist, and a Jew walk into a bar?

What kind of setup is this?

<Gabe> How bourbon got its name is another mystery with several popular theories.

Bourbon County was established in Kentucky in 1785 named after a French royal family.

When this region's corn-based whiskey was shipped out, the barrels had the county's name printed on them.

The association of the name bourbon with corn-based whiskey stuck from then on.

Another claims this unique drink was so popular in the saloons on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, it picked up the nickname from there, and popular it was.

♪ By 1810, more than 2,000 distillers were making roughly 2 million gallons of whiskey and bourbon per year.

It was abundant because views on alcohol were different back then.

People saw it as a creation of God, sometimes referred to as the water of life, which may be why so many religious people were distillers.

They also thought it was healthier to have alcohol in your daily diet.

10 gallons a year on average.

♪ There was a period where you had to pay higher life insurance premiums if you didn't drink.

And with such a high surplus of bourbon, it was cheaper than coffee, tea, even milk.

That made it hard to resist.

♪ It's so smooth.

(record rewinding) ♪ Whiskey river take my mind ♪ ♪ Don't let her memory torture me ♪ ♪ ♪ Whiskey river don't run dry ♪ ♪ ♪ You're all I got, take care of me ♪ ♪ ♪ Whiskey river take my mind ♪ ♪ ♪ Don't let her memory torture me ♪ ♪ ♪ Whiskey river don't run dry ♪ ♪ You're all I got, take care of me ♪ ♪ ♪ upbeat music continues ♪ ♪ I'm drowning in a whiskey river ♪ ♪ ♪ Bathing my memory in mind in the wetness of its soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Feeling the amber current flowing from my mind ♪ ♪ ♪ And we went hard, you left so cold ♪ ♪ ♪ Whiskey river take my mind ♪ ♪ Don't let her memory torture me ♪ ♪ ♪ Whiskey river, don't run dry ♪ ♪ ♪ You're all I got, take care of me ♪ ♪ ♪ classical music ♪ (music stops abruptly) <Gabe> So bourbon was pretty much everywhere.

However, by the turn of the 20th century, another movement was maturing.

The concern of overindulgence fueled the temperance movement.

Its seeds were planted early in the 1800s with the second Great Awakening.

This religious revival equated alcohol consumption with sin.

It also connected salvation with good works, which inspired many Christian folk to spread the word about the evils of alcohol.

♪ ♪ With the virtue of our country at stake, these temperance activists hit the bars, and they were like, "all right, everyone, there's a lot of crime and homelessness, joblessness, and we're totally 100% positive, it's all because of alcohol.

So we're here to pray for your troubled souls and stuff".

And then they'd have these utterly perplexed bartenders sign a pledge to no longer sell alcohol.

♪ And the movement also boasted more radical members like Carrie A.

Nation.

And this lady put the temper in temperance.

She had lost her husband to alcohol, so she'd addressed the bartenders with "good morning, destroyer of mens' souls" and then destroyed the establishment with her hatchet.

♪ <Patron> Woo!

<Gabe> Even Susan B. Anthony campaigned for prohibition, along with the woman's right to vote, and both of these things would soon come to fruition.

♪ Hang on, this stuff's going right through me.

<Gabe> Sorry.

Be right back.

♪ So the movement was becoming widely accepted, and by 1919 it had played a huge part in ushering in prohibition, the 18th amendment to the Constitution, and also the Bull State Act to enforce it.

President Herbert Hoover called it the great social and economic experiment.

♪ (alcohol trickling) (silence) (alcohol trickling) (toilet flushing) (Gabe sighs) It was now illegal for alcohol to be made, transported, or sold.

♪ I should definitely switch to decaf.

♪ But there was still a thirst for alcohol, and gangs stepped into quenching.

They organized their crime, if you will, and set up bootlegging operations that raked in hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, federal tax revenue from distilled spirits dropped by hundreds of millions of dollars.

With no official quality control, drinkers risked getting sick, going blind, and even dying at an alarmingly high rate from unregulated booze.

But in many respects, prohibition seemed to accomplish at least some of its goals.

For a time, it reduced alcoholism, violence, domestic abuse, and death by cirrhosis.

But by 1933, it became the only constitutional amendment to be repealed, in no small part due to the pressure from surviving distilleries and the fact that the government could sure use that tax revenue again, especially during this new not-so-great depression.

Bourbon sales went back up, especially during the 50s and 60s, and companies were producing millions of barrels to try and keep up with demand.

But then almost overnight, tastes changed along with the culture.

Younger generations wanted lighter drinks, especially young women.

People even say the popularity of James Bond's famous Martini chipped away at bourbon sales.

It was now seen as the stuff your dad drinks.

Distillers were stuck with a huge surplus of bourbon.

So they cut prices to try and move more bottles, but it backfired.

Bourbon was now not only uncool, it was cheap.

♪ gentle music ♪ So when you're down on your luck and hit rock bottom, sometimes the best option is relying on family support.

At least that's what bourbon has done.

So far it's working out well for everyone.

♪ If I drank this, what would happen?

I'm not going to.

<Lynn> You'd go blind.

It'd be like drinking fingernail polish.

♪ <Gabe> Log Still is a new distillery built where the old Dant family distillery once stood.

Lynn Dant uses her chemical engineering background along with her pedigree in bourbon history, a pedigree shared with her cousins, Charles Dant and founder Wally Dant to rebuild a legacy while rebuilding a community.

<Charles> Wally and Lynn had handwritten mash bills from their grandfather and great-grandfather.

So we've been doing some experimenting and just seeing what we like.

<Gabe> And when you say mash bills, it's like the recipe from your-- <Wally> So our family recipe.

<Gabe> Oh, wow!

We know what the original Dant produced from a mash bill perspective.

We know what my great-grandfather, Lynn's grandfather, produced here when he had the Dant head distillery.

And so we're utilizing those mash bills in a smaller fashion.

right, so we can experiment here before we actually bring it over to what would then be the big production facility back here that's being built.

<Gabe> Aside from updating the stills, these Dants are building new economic opportunities where the effects of the prohibition are still widely felt across the bourbon belt in towns like New Hope.

<Wally> You know, there used to be a saying, no hope for New Hope, right?

There was once a proud distilling heritage here.

Within the three miles of this campus, there were 11 distilleries, pre-prohibition.

Only two of them opened post-prohibition.

<Gabe> 11 within three miles.

<Wally> 11 within three miles.

The big thing... for us was to bring back good paying jobs into this place.

For us to be able to do something like this in Kentucky, what you're hoping is that from an ancillary perspective, that you're creating opportunities for others to work on our shoulders to support what we're doing out here.

♪ <off screen Gabe> Alcohol is a socially accepted intoxicant, and in the age of social media, it led to a prohibition style black market that Facebook had to ban from their site.

One historic brand with a cult following is Pappy Van Winkle.

This unicorn of the bourbon world has been called the bourbon everyone wants but no one can get.

There are lotteries not to win a bottle, but to buy a bottle.

It's so coveted, when 200 bottles went missing almost a decade ago, it made international headlines.

Brand name is just as, if not more important, than what's inside.

This sense of history, whether real or perceived, carries a lot of weight with bourbon enthusiasts, as does that familial touch.

A family brand can be equated to values, integrity, and endurance.

Now that's branding 101.

With the rise of elite bourbon connoisseurs, it's not uncommon for the right bottle to sell for thousands of dollars, sometimes as high as $50,000.

♪ upbeat music ♪ <Gabe> Those oak barrels are used only once to age bourbon.

So what happens to it after that?

♪ (Gabe clears throat) <Presenter> Am I supposed to say something?

<Gabe> Yes.

<Presenter> Uhhhh...

They used to throw it out, but not anymore.

<Gabe> Now these barrels are used to age all sorts of things, putting a very bourbony twist on things like syrup, <Presenter> Wow!

<Gabe> Hot sauce <Presenter> Yep.

<Gabe> Other types of alcohol.

<Presenter> Had those too.

<Gabe> Even soaps.

<Presenter> I've never been so excited about anything in my life, Gabe.

♪ <Gabe> But that's not all.

Distillers are testing out different types of oak barrels instead of traditional American oak, running experiments the same way people did generations ago.

♪ Make no mistake.

It's boom times for bourbon.

But as we've already seen, its success hasn't come without its fair share of hangovers (hiccups) or hiccups.

Overindulgence of alcohol is still a problem.

140,000 people die each year from excessive alcohol use, making it a leading preventable cause of death in America.

What's more, the number of death certificates mentioning alcohol more than doubled from 1999 to 2017.

♪ ♪ gentle music ♪ To trace the history of bourbon is to trace the history of America, of families, and of the men and women who craft it.

It also shows what happens when our government tries to mandate a set of morals through law.

How do we balance the freedom to enjoy something that can have negative consequences when misused?

It's an issue that continues to be addressed in moderation.

But thanks to the creativity and ingenuity of farmers making the most of the Kentucky Frontier, a little flavor was added to America's history.

♪ ♪ upbeat music ♪ ♪ ♪ upbeat music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ Moonshine lit up, not a cloud to be seen ♪ ♪ From the still of the night comes ♪ ♪ That North Kentucky dream ♪ ♪ Gonna laugh when I'm hungry, ♪ ♪ Bring the rain when I'm dry ♪ ♪ But if I can't get whiskey, then I know I'm gonna die ♪ ♪ I'm gonna laugh when I'm hungry ♪ ♪ Bring the rain when I'm dry ♪ ♪ But if I can't get whiskey, then I know I'm gonna die ♪ ♪ Gonna laugh when I'm hungry ♪ ♪ Bring the rain when I'm dry ♪ ♪ But if I can't get whiskey, then I know I'm gonna die ♪ ♪ upbeat music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ upbeat music continues ♪ ♪ Gonna laugh when I'm hungry ♪ ♪ Bring the rain when I'm dry ♪ ♪ But if I can't get whiskey, then I know I'm gonna die ♪ ♪ ♪ upbeat music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ upbeat music ends ♪ ♪ gentle music ♪ ♪ ♪ gentle music continues ♪ ♪ >> Connect with me, Gabe McCauley, and "Reconnecting Roots" by visiting reconnectingroots.com.

Where you'll discover music, blogs, behind the scenes, our podcast, and more.

Join our email list and never miss a beat.

♪ <Narrator> Support for "Reconnecting Roots" is provided by the following.

RPC.

♪ gentle bluegrass music ♪ Plain Values, a magazine on a mission to find joy in the simple things.

♪ Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down, digging into community, and encouraging good for goodness sake.

Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future.

♪ Sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful Paradise Valley, Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in "Reconnecting Roots."

At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country, and improves our lives by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades.

TowHaul.

Proud sponsor of "Reconnecting Roots," and public television.

♪ delicate music ♪ ♪