Bourbon is America's native spirit.

• Author: Noe, Frederick Booker, III
• Position: Life in America

I AM A WHISKEY MAN, bourbon specifically. My great-great-great-great-grandfather Jacob Beam first came to Kentucky around 1790, bringing everything he owned in a wooden wagon. He walked through the Cumberland Gap from Maryland looking for a place to put down roots and start a new life. He found that place near a creek about an hour southeast of what now is Louisville. I don't know what he grew exactly, but tobacco, corn, and wheat are pretty good guesses. One thing I do know, though, is that he, like a lot of other farmers, made whiskey. Kentucky's natural sweet limestone water, relatively temperate climate--warm winters and hot summers--and abundance of corn made it an ideal location to ply that trade.

So, old Jacob cooked up some corn, threw in some other grains like rye and malted barley, added some yeast, then ran it through a homemade pot still. When he was done, he had a clear-as-crystal liquid--white dog they would call it--and he traded and sold it.

Soon Jacob forgot all about farming, and focused on perfecting the craft of making whiskey. He got good at it, better than other distillers and, before you knew it, people were coming from different parts of Kentucky for a taste and to fill up their jug. Fill it up, they said, and maybe I'll trade you a side of bacon for it. Some even bought whole barrels.

Demand for Kentucky whiskey, now called bourbon--named after the county it originated from--grew. Consequently, hundreds of distilleries began popping up around the Commonwealth and they had trouble keeping up with orders. In addition to the limestone water and the climate, Kentucky also had more navigable rivers and streams than just about any state or territory in the Union. Those rivers, primarily the Ohio, became whiskey highways, filled with flatbeds carrying precious cargo. Thanks to those rivers and streams, more and more people from around the country got a taste and, when they did, they wanted another and then maybe one more.

Around that time, Jacob and the other distillers began aging their whiskey in new, white oak barrels that were charted or set on fire on the inside. Over the months and through the different seasons, the clear whiskey would flow back and forth between the caramelized layer of wood, picking up color and flavor. This new, reddish-brown whiskey was a big seller; people couldn't get enough. Out West, on the frontier, bourbon emerged as the drink of choice for ranchers, cowboys, and gunslingers. When they...