Kentucky Historians Explore the Role of Slaves in Kentucky's Bourbon Legacy

In archives across Kentucky, Erin Wiggins Gilliam is on a search for the faces and names of slaves who worked in America's first whiskey distilleries.

She and others know for a fact that slaves helped create what is now one of the country's most iconic industries.

They've seen tax records that list slaves as property alongside distillery owners' horses and homes. Auction rolls that note slaves' whiskey-making capabilities. And photos of black faces behind some of the bourbon world's most celebrated pioneers.

What Wiggins Gilliam and others don't yet know is who the slaves were — and whether they might actually deserve credit for some distilling processes that are still used today.

Wiggins Gilliam is now part of a small but growing group of Kentuckians who are dedicated to learning the true history of an industry that's long taken pride in telling stories of its past.

Their work coincides with a national movement that seeks to better recognize slave and African American contributions, not only to distilling, but to any food systems that came to prominence in the 19th century.

Many involved in the movement hope that by highlighting those forgotten and ignored contributions, they can encourage more people of color to take interest in industries that remain mostly white more than 100 years later.

"African American consumers are underrepresented as bourbon consumers," said Tim Knittel, an adjunct professor of bourbon studies at Midway University. "... I believe bringing African Americans into the bourbon category as consumers needs to coincide with restoring African American history."

In recent months, Wiggins Gilliam — an associate professor of history at Kentucky State University — has begun combing through century-old photos and letters kept by Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, hoping to learn more about the slaves who likely worked there.

Soon, she'll move on to documents maintained by the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, which has promised to incorporate the stories of slaves into its "Spirit of Kentucky" exhibit.

The exhibit features a digitized "dining room table" that lets visitors work their way through more than 650 stories of people, places and events in the bourbon industry's expansive history.

Frazier president and CEO Penelope Peavler said stories of slaves, freed blacks and African Americans will be added to the table's library as they're confirmed.

"We're committed to telling all sides of the story," Peavler said. "The stories of African Americans who have influenced the bourbon industry and their forebearers, enslaved Africans, had a big part in that.

"Our exhibition is an attempt to uncover those hidden figures and their stories, have them take their rightful place among the rest of the history that's being told."

Wiggins Gilliam will also present information and photos she's uncovered at the inaugural Bourbon on the Banks festival in Frankfort.

More than 50 community members have come together to organize the festival, which plans to highlight black contributions to bourbon at several events between Aug. 22-24, executive director Wendy Kobler said.

On Friday, historians will discuss African Americans' roles in bourbon at a free community event in downtown Frankfort. On Saturday, 30 ticket holders will join the Kentucky Black Bourbon Guild for a day-long "Black Bourbon Cultural Experience." And that night, a double-blind bourbon competition will be dedicated to all slaves and African Americans who've worked in the industry.

Proceeds from the festival will also go toward scholarships for Kentucky State University students who plan to enter the school's fermentation and distillation program, which launches this fall.

Kentucky State University serves a large population of minority students, and it hopes the new program will help more people of color land high-paying jobs in the rapidly growing fermentation and distillation industries, said Kirk Pomper, dean of the college of agriculture.

In 2018, Kentucky's distilling industry boasted an average salary of $95,000, up 23% from 2009, according to the Kentucky Distillers' Association.

The industry is now worth an estimated $8.6 billion in Kentucky and generates more than 20,000 jobs with an annual payroll of $1 billion, according to the association.

"This is a field in which minorities are not properly represented," said Michael Adams, vice president of the Kentucky Black Bourbon Guild. "These are high-paying jobs and good opportunities that we're just not considering.

"We've got to break that mold and create more people like Freddie Johnson," he said, referring to an African American tour guide at Buffalo Trace who was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. "Not just work at the gift shops and on the bottling line. We've got to become the chemists, we've got to become the key marketers, the distillers. There are key opportunities we're missing just because we don't know."