Evan Williams, the name giver for the best-selling bourbon after Jim Beam, comes
from Wales. He came to Virginia and settled around 1780 in what is now Kentucky,
where he founded a small distillery on the Ohio River. According to a newspaper
report in the Louisville Courier-Journal of April 29, 1889, Williams was a
member of the Louisville parish assembly, and according to tradition he never
came to a meeting without a bottle of whiskey.Today the two master distillers,
Parker and Craig Beam, supervise the entire distillation and production process.
As their family has been involved in bourbon making for generations, knowledge
and tools, including a secret family recipe for the yeast strain, have been
passed down through the generations.