Kentucky, Bourbon, and Poetry

You can’t truly love bourbon whiskey without at least growing an understanding and appreciation for the land that it hails from, Kentucky, and the people that hail from it.  This Bourbon Mash-Up pays poetic tribute to Kentucky in this installment.

Distilled spirits could be described as liquid poetry in which ingredients are twisted like words to celebrate their muse.  If bourbon is a poem written by a Master Distiller, Kentucky will always be their muse.

In my favorite poem, Kentucky is my Land, Jesse Stuart wrote the following about his homeland.

“Kentucky is my land.
It is a place beneath the wind and sun
In the very heart of America.
It is bounded on the east, north, and west by rivers
And on the south by mountains.
Only one boundary line is not a natural one,
It is a portion of southern boundary
That runs westward from the mountains
Across the delta lowlands to the Mississippi.”

There are key geographic details in this prose that are the very reason that Kentucky Bourbon originally became widely known and appreciated outside of her boundaries. If the United States were a body, Jesse Stuart equated it to it’s heart.  Located in the middle of the east coast, while nestled with protection on the other side of the Appalachian mountains, it provides a magical climate that helped culture the perfect ingredients necessary for a whiskey.  Access to both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers allowed for a distribution path deep into the south with a destiny to be celebrated in New Orleans.  If Kentucky is the heart, bourbon could be seen as having been pumped into the other areas of this country’s body.

Author Jesse Stuart was born and raised in Greenup County, Kentucky and was named poet laureate of Kentucky in 1954.  His love of Kentucky is woven throughout this poem.

Jesse continues to write about Kentucky’s climate, detailing four distinct seasons that provide agricultural resources that result in abundant crops such as tobacco, cane, and corn.  Spring winds could be felt, tasted, and seen.  Water flows over rocks throughout Jesse’s words.  While I’m not sure that Jesse Stuart intentionally pointed out resources such as corn and limestone filtered water that are key to the production of bourbon whiskey, but he effectively connects the dots.

As someone born and raised in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, but found my way into another place of residence, I long for points of connection to her.  Bourbon is one of those things in my life that I can cling to and open my senses to feel, taste, and see My Ole Kentucky Home upon every sip.

Jesse Stuart closes Kentucky is my Land with the following words.

“And when I get go beyond the border,
I take with me growth and beauty of the seasons,
The music of the pine and cedar tops,
The wordless songs of snow-melted water
When it pours over the rocks to wake the spring.
I take with me Kentucky embedded in my brain and heart,
In my flesh and bone and blood
Since I am Kentucky
And Kentucky is part of me.“

The next time you drink a glass of bourbon, enjoy taking in a part of Kentucky.  Feel it. Taste it. See it. Bourbon is poetry in motion.

Cheers, Y’all!