Purchase a copy of Mother of Bourbon on Amazon.
By Richard Thomas
Rating: B+
Although I would not describe Mary Dowling as the literal mother of bourbon, the subtitle of this new book from Rabbit Hole founder Kaveh Zamanian and author Eric Goodman is certainly true enough. The story of Mary Dowling has been quite neglected, so much so that when I began work on my latest book Whiskey Stories, published earlier this year, I decided not to include Dowling’s tale. That was despite the focus I decided to put on modern women in the distilling industry; I was so recently acquainted with Dowling’s biography that I did not feel I could really separate the fact from the folklore yet, let alone the dreaded “marketing truth.” The work needed to get me up to speed was more than a mere biographical sidebar essay merited.
An Irish-American woman and Kentuckian, Mary was born Mary Murphy and married John Dowling in 1875. Dowling was an Irish immigrant, twice her age and (eventually) sole owner of the Anderson County distillery making Waterfill & Frazier Whiskey. Around the time of the turn of the 20th Century, Dowling brought his wife Mary into the whiskey company’s offices. He died shortly thereafter, leaving the distillery in his wife’s hands. They proved very able; the distillery was burned down in 1904, but quickly rebuilt under her management.
During Prohibition, Dowling and some of her sons were tried and convicted of bootlegging, with that conviction being overturned on appeal due to a technicality. This run in with the law prompted Dowling to dismantle the Anderson County distillery, ship the equipment to Mexico, and resume production in Juarez. That was where Dowling would pass in 1930.
When even briefly describing Dowling’s story, it must be recalled she faced more hurdles than being a woman industrialist in the early 20th Century. That hurdle alone was high indeed, as Dowling inherited the company some 15 years before the 19th Amendment passed and gave women the vote. That the industry was the whiskey business raised the bar even higher. Most of the women who could be described at that time as feminists part of the Prohibition movement, and the whiskey industry was considered tarnished and something women needed to be protected from. I discovered this attitude was still very much alive in the 1950s, factoring into the decision of the Motlow brothers to sell their company to Brown-Forman, as their only heirs were daughters and they thought Brown-Forman stock was probably a better legacy than hands-on ownership and management of a whiskey business.
Her name (the whiskey Dowling herself made continued to be called Waterfill & Frazier) now adorn Zamanian’s latest project, Mary Dowling Whiskey Company. I reviewed their winter wheat bourbon late last year. This new book, a work of historical fiction and not biography, is a product of the interest that led Zamanian to found the company. Sure, it’s also marketing the whiskey, but not just that. I can tell you from firsthand experience: there are easier and even cheaper ways to sell bourbon than penning a novel.
As historical fiction, I enjoyed Mother of Bourbon enormously. Ably written, it delves into the lives of ordinary, rural people in Central Kentucky in the mid-to-late 19th Century, because that is exactly who all of the major characters were. Although lacking the, say, royal glamor that drives a Hilary Mantel book or the swashbuckling of a Bernard Cornwell novel, it’s the kind of thing I appreciate very much. Almost half of Dowling’s life was lived before she formally stepped into the whiskey business, and only the last decade was spent in bootlegging and Mexico. It takes a while to get to the so-called “good stuff,” the extraordinary part which is why a whiskey brand is named after her. To me, the entire package is worthwhile.
That said, knowing what I do about bourbon enthusiasts, I need to ask how many of them have the patience to get to the good part or will even sympathize with Dowling as the main character. For them I say this: give this book as a gift to your girlfriend/spouse/mom. If it isn’t your cup of whiskey, it may very well be theirs.
