TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/988448
doorstep. Kentucky's bourbon distillers had a product with a richer heritage than its ex- isting marketplace understood; they were also, much like the horsemen, splintered across so many sites that their collective story was not terribly legible. In 1999 the Kentucky Distillers' Association duly de- vised the Bourbon Trail, enjoyed during the past five years by nearly 2.5 million visitors from all 50 states and 25 different nations. Those whose Trail "passport" is stamped by all member distilleries are rewarded with a tee-shirt testifying to their stamina. More importantly, they will also take home a heightened sense both of bourbon's history and its continued economic impact. The horsemen noted how historic divi- sions in the surrounding community—from bootleggers to Baptists—were healed by the Trail's coherence of structure, message and indeed revenue. "Bourbon were 18 years ahead of us," Price says. "With this single point of con- tact, they had all these people staying in rural hotels, eating in rural restaurants; and their lobbying association found that the switch had flipped in all the surrounding counties. They'd fought the tax on ageing bourbon [as against bottled for sale] since Prohibition, but it wasn't until the Trail that they managed to get it repealed. "And here we were, with a similarly authen- tic culture. So we said let's figure out if we can work together to tell our story, too. About 25 of us went to Disney to see wheth- er we had one, and they said you absolutely have." Before exploring how Horse Country has