Special Collections Research Center

In May of 1964, the United States Congress declared bourbon whiskey a “distinctive product of the United States.” Distilling whiskey in America began centuries earlier though. Scot-Irish immigrants were some of the first to distill whiskey in American Colonies. The barley they used in Great Britain did not grow well in American soils and so they grew and distilled corn instead. In addition to a corn-based mash, white oak barrel aging, proof limits and aging requirements would all become tenets of bourbon whiskey’s definition. This pathfinder provides an introduction to scholarship on the birth of the American whiskey industry. This pathfinder does not cover moonshining and illicit distilling in great detail. A few titles included here do discuss moonshining and are included to illustrate the place of small-scale whiskey production in the history of the American distilling industry. Most works cited in this pathfinder can be found in either the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection or the main stacks of the Belk Library at Appalachian State University. The location of those titles is indicated in each citation.