Family History

My great-great-great grandmother was Elizabeth Bryant Craig of Kentucky. She was decended from a frontier Baptist clergyman by the name of Elijah Craig. Craig ran a grain mill near Georgetown, Kentucky. (Actually he began in Virginia, but that part of Virginia later became Kentucky.) Elijah Craig, a fire and brimstone preacher, is best known as the man who first distilled whiskey largely made from corn, with smaller amounts of rye and barley.

In frontier life, whiskey was a necessity - universally taken for body and souls alike. So the Reverend created what he called Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey for medicinal purposes! The name came from Bourbon County Kentucky (later renamed).