Distilleries in Dry Counties

[ydforums]

My wife and I will be in Bardstown for the beginning of the Bourbon Festival. Is there somewhere I can find a list of distilleries that are or are not located in dry counties?

Thanks.

[craigthom]

I don't think any of the ones in Kentucky are in dry counties.

A little poking shows operating distilleries in Jefferson, Nelson, Marion, Franklin, Woodford, and Anderson Counties, and all of them have liquor stores.

[boone]

My wife and I will be in Bardstown for the beginning of the Bourbon Festival. Is there somewhere I can find a list of distilleries that are or are not located in dry counties?

Thanks.

Click this link for Distillery tours http://www.kybourbontrail.com/#map It has "The Bourbon Trail" :grin: :grin: Make sure you click the "side top banner" to see the newest member :grin: :grin:

Bettye Jo

[cowdery]

Here is a map that might be helpful regarding Kentucky's liquor laws. However, the only distillery I know of that is in a dry county isn't in Kentucky. It's Jack Daniel's in Moore County, Tennessee.

Kentucky's distilleries tend either to be in the larger urban areas (Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, Owensboro), or in the areas settled originally by and still dominated by Catholics, who tend not to oppose alcohol consumption (Bardstown, Loretto).

Kentucky WetDryMap.pdf

[Jono]

Here is a map that might be helpful regarding Kentucky's liquor laws. However, the only distillery I know of that is in a dry county isn't in Kentucky. It's Jack Daniel's in Moore County, Tennessee.

Kentucky's distilleries tend either to be in the larger urban areas (Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, Owensboro), or in the areas settled originally by and still dominated by Catholics, who tend not to oppose alcohol consumption (Bardstown, Loretto).

Were the early distillers predominately Catholic? If so, it is something I never considered or was aware of....my impression of KY was that there weren't alot of Catholics.

Here is some info.... http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6617

Basil Hayden was a Catholic pioneer.....interesting.

Learn something new each day.

[cowdery]

The Beams are all Catholics, the Mattinglys. Why do you think all those distilling families have so many kids?

Nelson County, Marion County, all up in through there is filthy with Catholics. My background is German Roman Catholic, 19th century immigrants to the big rust belt cities. Those are my people: Germans, Poles, Italians, Irish.

Down there, it's all English Catholics from Lord Baltimore's Mary-Land, who came over in the 17th century and came to Kentucky in the 18th. There's a Trappist monastery, a couple of big convent schools. Almost every house has a BVM in an upturned bathtub in the front yard.

It's not that the early distillers were predominantly Catholic. In the beginning, everybody made whiskey (which, coincidentally, is how my version of the Bible starts). But in the post-war era (Civil War, that is), there was a growing anti-alcohol movement in the Protestant-dominated areas that never affected the Catholic areas. There was never a stigma attached to it. So distilling came to be concentrated in the urban areas and in the Catholic areas of rural Kentucky.

[Jono]

Thanks....historically there was probably alot of friction as years ago..."Papists" were not looked upon to kindly by the more severe forms of Protestantism. I tend to think of the south / mid-south as predominately Anglican, Baptist and other assortments of evangelical etc. churches...at least outside of Louisiana where the French influence was present. Considering the Irish and English & German Catholic emigration it is not surprising that large groups of Catholics reside in the area. Impression adjustment complete.

[cowdery]

I had exactly the same impression you did until I experienced it for the first time about 30 years ago. There aren't many pockets of rural Catholics in the South outside of Louisiana, but that part of Kentucky is one of them. The people tend to be as socially conservative as their evangelical neighbors and there are evangelical Catholics in those areas too but some things, like opposition to alcohol, card playing, dancing, etc. are different. The heritage is mostly Irish and English, with a little bit of German. The rural Catholics of German descent can be found more in the upper Midwest, which you probably know even from southern Wisconsin.