Took a nice drive through Kentucky to get some snowy distillery and countryside pictures, as well as to revisit some bourbon history.

While much of bourbon lineage can be tied to the Beam family, much of another branch is tied to the relative of President James Madison and the grand-nephew of President Zachary Taylor, Edmund Haynes Taylor. Here's a brief history on his hand in bourbon.

Just a few hundred feet from this spot, back in 1812, Elijah Pepper first started his distillery. His son Oscar Pepper took it over and enlisted Dr James Crow to bring science to the production process. The Old Crow line from the Pepper distillery would last for decades.

They eventually ran into financial troubles. Edmund Taylor would invest $25k into the company in 1874. He then bought the company outright in 1877 before selling to Labrot and Graham who ran the distillery until prohibition shut it down.

In 1941, Brown-Foreman bought the distillery. They sold to a local farmer in 1959 and for decades it went into disrepair. In 1994, B-F bought it back and founded the distillery which operates in that location to this day. You can see the associated rickhouses in the distance.

In 1996, Brown-Foreman opened Woodford Reserve Distillery. This has become a huge success for the company over the past 25 years. I highly recommend the double oaked!

The Woodford product is distilled in the same salvaged building where bourbon has been created for nearly two decades, on and off.

If you follow Glenn's Creek just a few miles (5 minutes by car), you'll come to another distillery site in which Edmund Haynes Taylor was far more invested.

You will find this glorious distillery which Colonel E.H. Taylor built in 1887 and ran as Old Taylor. But EH Taylor's story goes back further. In 1869, he opened the Old Fire Copper Distillery, or OFC.

Here is a picture of that original OFC distillery. It still stands to this day, but under different ownership and used in a way that may have him rolling over in his grave.

Taylor was an overspender and eventually needed to bring businessman George T Stagg in as an investor in 1878. The two butted heads and in 1887, Taylor left the OFC. Stagg continued using the Taylor name and in 1897, Taylor sued him in what would lead to 13 years of litigation.

EH Taylor eventually won and OFC was no longer allowed to use Taylor's name in their bottles. George T Stagg actually died during litigation. In the process, a young Albert Blanton started at OFC in 1897, quickly becoming president of the company in 1921.

Following strong leadership from Blanton, and surviving as one of only six distilleries the govt allowed to function throughout prohibition, Elmer T Lee would then take over in 1949 for the next several decades. He just recently passed in 2013.

With the decline of bourbon in the 70's and 80's, the company would eventually sell to Louisiana based parent company Sazarac and has since operated on a grand scale under the name of Buffalo Trace. They produce all the lines I've shown, as well as the Weller and Pappy lines.

When EH Taylor left OFC in 1887, he tore down the existing distillery in this location and built this grand castle themed distillery in its place. He and then his sons would produce bourbon here until prohibition when the company was shut down.

After prohibition, a company briefly used the building and sold under Taylor's son's name, but quickly closed. It remained empty for decades and fell into disrepair. Recently, an investor has bought and refurbished it and is now distilling under the name Castle and Key.

EH Taylor was the cause of many food and beverage govt regulations and laws that still exist today. Consumer Protection Act, Bottled in Bond Act, pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and trademark laws all come back to him.

Examples that trace back to Taylor's actions: Maker's has trademarked the falling red wax. No other product can use red wax and the ends must be trimmed. Also, Woodford made Barton 1972 change Ridgewood Reserve to Ridgemont Reserve because it looked too much like "Woodford".

I also headed down to Four Roses for the first time ever. After being introduced into the Mellow Moments Club and hearing what a beautiful property it was, I felt like it might provide some great snowy pictures and be a great visit.