Distilling’s Backstory

Facilitating the change from craft to industrial distilling required distillers to engage with the physical environment, agriculture, technology and innovation, transportation improvements, workforce development, federal and state laws, and social constraints. Corn became a prerequisite as a starch source. Farm livestock provided milk, meat, fiber, and motive power, but they also consumed grain and were therefore both supportive of and in competition with farming-distilling operations. Distillers disposed of their spent grains by feeding it to cattle and hogs.

Kentucky’s Distilling Heritage

American spirits distilling was based on European and colonial traditions and the age-old knowledge that by milling grain into a fine meal and mixing it with malted barley, yeast, and water, one could convert starches into sugars, which could be fermented and distilled into alcohol spirits. Migrants from Europe and the coastal colonies established distilleries in Kentucky before statehood in 1792, and an estimated 2,200 distilleries were in operation by 1810. The vocation evolved from subsistence-scale farmers and millers who made corn whiskey into twenty-first-century commercial businesses that produce bourbon on an industrial scale. The change from craft to industrial distilling was accompanied by distinctive changes in the landscape as distillers adopted steam engines and abandoned water-power sites; farmers expanded grain production; timber was harvested to make barrel staves; and manufactures built steam engines, boats, and railroads. Whiskey production increasingly focused on the Bluegrass and Pennyroyal regions and Ohio Valley cities. The changeover was enabled by transportation improvements such as turnpikes, railroads, and steamboats. Production was increasingly controlled by internal revenue personnel, and distillers were harried by temperance advocates. By the eve of Prohibition in 1919, only 182 distilleries remained in operation.

Understanding the Effects of Improving Transportation on Pilgrim Travel Behavior: Evidence from the Lhasa, Tibet, China

Effective travel demand management measures provide the opportunity to fully utilize limited transportation resources, especially in underdeveloped areas. It is increasingly recognized that the improvement in existing transportation infrastructure and the optimization of traffic demand management method would result in a complicated urban transportation system with multiple travel modes. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between transportation improvements (e.g., pedestrian flow, free bus for the elderly, and parking space planning) and the mode choice behavior of pilgrimages in the Lhasa of Tibet, China. This study employed a distinctive survey conducted among pilgrims in Lhasa, including both individual questionnaires and interviews from 2010 to 2016. The analysis was undertaken using a multinomial logit model to identify the extent to which transportation improvements could affect the pilgrim’s travel mode choice behavior. The results show that transportation improvements, as an operational method in underdeveloped areas, play an important role in motivating the pilgrimage to travel that can increase the attractiveness of private car use, and make pedestrian traffic more prominent. However, improvements in the public transport need to be conducted to attract more travelers. These results confirm that increasing the attractiveness of low-carbon transportation (e.g., buses, walking, and cycling) to the public can reduce the usage on private vehicles and maintain the development of sustainable transportation in underdeveloped areas with limited transportation resources.