In 1991, in anticipation of 200 years of Kentucky statehood, which occurred in 1992, the Kentucky legislature appropriated money for the state's public television network, KET, to award grants to independent producers to create original programs about Kentucky subjects.
Although I had lived in Louisville for nine years, by 1991 I was living in Chicago but still spending a lot of time in Kentucky. As the French say, cherchez la femme. She was a photographer, and after visiting some picturesque distillery ruins, we thought about doing a coffee table book. She would take pictures, and I would write about Kentucky's unique whiskey culture.
It wasn't like now. Bourbon sales were way down and nobody was writing about it.
The relationship broke up, ending the book idea, but I heard about the bicentennial grants and decided to submit a proposal for a documentary about Kentucky bourbon. My career to that point had mostly been writing and occasionally producing TV commercials and industrial films, so writing, producing and directing a TV documentary was not a stretch.
KET loved the idea, but their grant wasn't enough, so I submitted a proposal to the Kentucky Distillers Association (KDA). They had just received a grant from the Federal government for export promotion and gave some of it to me. I hired StudioLink, a video production company in Lexington. I was familiar with Jack Petrey, one of the owners, as a voice talent. He had a great voice with just enough of a Kentucky accent. Mike White was the shooter and editor, and Roger BonDurant did audio and lighting. The three of us were the entire crew and we crisscrossed Kentucky visiting every active distillery and most of the derelict ones. Roger is also a musician. He teamed up with Tim Lake, another Lexington musician, to create original music for the program.
I appear only briefly (look for a green jacket) but I conducted all the interviews. Although not involved in this project, I often worked for Donna Lawrence Productions in Louisville and Donna's style was to do real interviews and build a script around that, let the experts tell the story. Today, lots of documentaries are fake, in that the interview subjects aren't answering questions, they're reading a script. Donna's style was not to start with pre-conceived notions as to what the story is. Let the authorities tell the story in their own words, then build a script around that, ideally with no narration. I couldn't do without narration altogether, but you'll notice that many of the interview segments are unusually long, compared to most modern documentaries.
It was all shot and edited on 1" Betamax, which was state-of-the-art at the time, although it looks pretty crappy now.
And look who I got to talk to! Booker Noe, Jim Beam's grandson, in the living room of the house Jim Beam built. (Booker's son, Fred, lives there now.) I talked to Elmer T. Lee, Jimmy Russell, Jerry Dalton, Max Shapira, Bill Samuels, Ed Foote, Ova Haney, and many others. Bill, because he often appeared in ads for Maker's Mark, was the only one known to the public.
The U.S. economy was in recession in 1991-92 and the rest of my freelance writing business was suffering. Happily, this project was all-consuming, a lot of fun, and also paid some bills.
Everything I've done since then having to do with American whiskey sprang from that experience.
"Made and Bottled in Kentucky" premiered on KET in June of 1992. It was subsequently syndicated and appeared on most public TV stations in the U.S. I'm told KET still plays it occasionally. I sold it on VHS for many years, then DVD, which ended in 2017. Since then, I've been meaning to make it available digitally and last week I finally did.
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