Growing up in Kentucky, there was always a sense of shame that came with being a Kentuckian, and I was really REALLY from Kentucky — nine generations on my grandmother’s side and eight on my grandfather’s side. Our entire economy was based on coal and tobacco, and both of those were dying. By the time I graduated high school, most of my friends were looking at other states for career opportunities.

Then, the bourbon boom started. Bourbon had bottomed out sometime in the 1980s as Baby Boomers eschewed it for wine, beer, and vodka. In the 1990s Japan began buying loads of Kentucky bourbon and then finally folks in the United States started to catch on to the carefully crafted heritage product with an amazing lineage. There were multiple paths bringing new bourbon lovers into the fold: people who appreciated craftsmanship, people who wanted things made locally, and even people who were suddenly viewing good Kentucky bourbon as a status symbol.

In 2010, I started working part time at the local liquor store. I was selling a lot of beer, wine, and vodka, but then I started to notice a shift. Suddenly, people were coming in looking for bourbon recommendations. I often recommended bourbons like Blanton’s and Booker’s, readily available on the shelf year-round. If I would have known back then what I know now, I would have stocked up. I was also given a bottle of Black Maple Hill, rumored to be old Stitzel-Weller wheated bourbon, that I drank and very much enjoyed. These days something like that would be doled out by the thimbleful by a bartender in a vest with a monocle.

While those days were great with our embarrassment of riches in Kentucky bourbon, I’m so glad everything took off and got so hard to find. Economically, Kentucky is doing better than ever. In 2009 there were 19 active distilling locations across Kentucky, owned by 10 different owners. 

Today there are well over 100 active DSP sites throughout the Commonwealth that provide nearly 24,000 jobs and an economic impact of $10.6 billion, $2 billion of which is wages. This translates to jobs in a number of different ways. Obviously there are lots of people working for distilleries, but there are also completely separate businesses that operate because of Kentucky bourbon, including tour operators like Mint Julep Experiences, people who craft creations from barrels like Drunkwood, people who make candy from bourbon like Art Eatables, and more. And the lifestyle that comes along with this economy even attracts other types of companies and talent to Kentucky, bolstering the Commonwealth’s economic future even more.

So why does this matter so much to me? Even though I grew up a little ashamed of being from Kentucky, I still couldn’t think of another place I ever wanted to live. I have struggled economically for most of my life, but now thanks to the bourbon boom I have hope that my kids will have the option to stay here and have good jobs.

Evan Williams was virtually unknown in his lifetime, so much so that we don’t even have a record of where he was buried. He married one of my sixth great-grandfather’s daughters, my fifth great grand-aunt, in Louisville in 1796, but only lived another 14 years. He had numerous jobs, as was the custom on the frontier. The only reason we know his name or what he did is because Heaven Hill created a brand to honor one of Kentucky’s earliest licensed distillers. Sometimes I wonder what old Uncle Evan would think of the industry he helped to start.

In Eastern Kentucky, my McHargue family built mills and distilled legal whiskey and brandy. Two of the mills were combined nearly 100 years ago and still grind corn to this day. But again, that was just frontier life and it took stumbling across my connection to them to discover what they had done.

I’m not sure the McHargues or Evan Williams would really understand what is happening with Kentucky bourbon, but I think they would be pleased to know they got in on the ground floor of something that has put Kentucky on the map.