As many new distillers are quick to point out, the presently sparse U.S. spirits-making landscape--with a relative handful of largewhiskey distilleries plus a few big rectifiers making neutral spirits for white liquor--is a post-Prohibition phenomenon, a historical fluke.
His newly restored distillery at Mount Vernon (you can watch the History Channel video George Washington's Liquid Gold) is now touted as "The Gateway to the American Whiskey Trail, " a trip that winds mostly through the historic, large distilleries of Kentucky and Tennessee.