A few minutes later, the guard held up a bottle of bourbon and arched a questioning eyebrow. Most of all, it is a symbol of Kentucky. From the Bluegrass country near Lexington to the Bardstown hills, the Kentucky bourbon industry is enjoying a renaissance that, for the visitor, is fun to watch and tasty to sample. Burned sugar, caramel, spice, toffee, smoke and honey are just a few of them. Corn, Scheurich said, supplies the sweetness and the starch.
Rye lends the spice.
His discovery made what was then the Old Pepper brand the choice of statesmen and generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. Today, distilleries freely disclose their percentages of corn, rye and barley, but none says much about its yeast. That's the secret ingredient that defines, along with white-oak barrels, the taste of a particular bourbon. The ingredients are put in a cooker one at a time, at temperatures ranging from 155 to 212 degrees. The mixture cooks for about six hours, then it's pumped into open cypress or metal tanks to ferment for three days.