Versailles: Where James Crow Revolutionized Bourbon

Versailles , locally pronounced ver-SALES , was founded June twenty-third, seventeen ninety-two, the same year Kentucky became a state, on eighty acres owned by the child Hezekiah Briscoe. His guardian, Marquis Calmes, named it for Versailles, France, in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, a family friend. It is the county seat of Woodford County, at the heart of the Inner Bluegrass horse country.

Captain Elijah Pepper built one of Kentucky's early bourbon distilleries along Glenn's Creek just outside town, around eighteen twelve by most accounts. His son Oscar later brought in Dr. James C. Crow as master distiller. Crow is credited with systematizing the sour mash process , using a portion of spent mash from the previous batch to control fermentation and achieve consistency , helping lay the foundation of modern bourbon production. The distillery site is now Woodford Reserve, flagship of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, operating on the same limestone creek where Crow worked almost two centuries ago.