(This is a post from my Facebook page, @AmericanWhiskeyHistory, December 9, 2022. But my thoughts have not changed on the subject!)
I need to say this because I’m SOOOO tired of reading it over and over again. Pennsylvania was NOT an industrial distilling state ANY more than Kentucky was. I get that most American whiskey history is written from the perspective of bourbon. That’s understandable because it’s what we can connect to in a tangible way through the whiskeys that we drink today and through the brands that we know and love. The modern American whiskey industry (of the last 30 years) was built upon modern bourbon-making traditions. But the history of American whiskey does not begin and end with bourbon. I love learning about the history of American whiskey and the people that built it. But enough already with the stories about how Kentucky was the birthplace of whiskey and how every other distilling state’s legacies- Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc.- were just prequels to Kentucky bourbon! It’s just not based in fact! Honestly, it’s insulting. The history of America’s distilling traditions are as complex and nuanced as the men and women that built the foundations of the industry. Please let’s try to be a little more open to studying ALL of American whiskey! Let me explain what set this rant off.
I’m reading a great book right now. Genuinely enjoying it. I would truly recommend it to anyone that was interested in a great whiskey history book. There just seem to be endless passages explaining what shaped American distilling traditions while ONLY laying out the distilling traditions of Kentucky. Which is great because I love to learn more about early bourbon making traditions. But it’s framed in a way that excludes the possibility that other methods existed at all. As if bourbon were created in a vacuum. But okay…I read lots of books that exclude Virginia’s while describing early 18th century whiskey-making traditions before Kentucky was carved from it. And many more that exclude the importance of corn whiskey by calling it bourbon. But one series of statements set me off.
“Although craft and early industrial bourbon distilling left distinct imprints on the landscape, the manufacturing process did not ravish the land. Unlike the heavy industrial development in southwestern Pennsylvania, where coal mines coke ovens and steel mills created a pervasive “black country,” Kentucky’s small rural distilleries fit glove-like into the countryside.”
I honestly didn’t know what to think when I read that. This was an historian writing this. I was floored. The first steel mills were built in New York and Ohio- two other states famous for their whiskeys. Pittsburgh’s steel mills didn’t come in until the late 1870s. Coal was a nasty business and coke production blackened the skies- there’s no denying that- but Kentucky was/is also a coal state. The implication was that Pennsylvania was an industrial distilling state before the Civil War. Distilleries, by the way, didn’t (and don’t, yet) sit glove-like into the countryside. They produced massive amounts of refuse from their stills and from the livestock that were raised for meat beside them- regardless of where they were located in the US. Pennsylvania’s distilleries were plentiful and most of them were located in the countryside, not in the bustling cities (with some exceptions, or unless they were rectifying firms). Pennsylvania’s distilleries became industrial the same time Kentucky’s did- in the 1870s and 80s. Many grew in size and scope to compete with the Whiskey Trust in Peoria in the 1880s and 90s. But this excerpt implied that there was a great difference between the environmental impact of the distilling industries of Pennsylvania and Kentucky in the early 19th century. That is simply false. If anything, the scale of industrial distilling was comparable once the industrial Revolution began. One can easily compare the distilleries- their sizes and outputs. Perhaps our whiskey historians need to look further into the traditions of other states. It would do us all a world of good. Especially when the competition in our modern whiskey industry is so fierce and determined to succeed. New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, California…the list goes on…They all have their stories to tell. It’s time we tell them and be proud of how their stories fit “glove-like” into the story of American whiskey.
