RAISE A TOAST TO SOUTHERN LIBATIONS

When the European colonists first arrived in the American South, bringing with them their own special life-affirming drinks, they discovered a new ingredient to add to the mix, corn.

They also found a way to outsmart and sometimes outrun the tax- and lawenforcing government agents, particularly during the Prohibition era, by producing corn-based ‘moonshine' or 'white lightening ' in their own backyards, particularly if those backyards happened to be deep in the Appalachian Mountains.

So, it is fun to learn that you can now sample some potent brew at mountainous Gilbert, West Virginia's Hatfield-McCoy Moonshine Distillery – its name was inspired by those of two famous feuding families.

However, what you will want to focus on now is the array of premier, prize-winning Bourbons which you can sample in numerous Kentucky distilleries as well as in cocktail bars throughout the South and, indeed, around the world. Among the most famous cocktails are the historic Sazarac, created in New Orleans, and the Mint Julep, associated with Kentucky and traditionally served in the South in a frosted silver cup.

If you head along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, ideally accompanied by a designated driver, you have a choice of 18 distilleries in such places as Louisville, Lexington, Clermont and Bardstown, the 'Bourbon Capital of the World'.

And the Tennessee Whiskey Trail, which covers 800 scenic miles, offers among its 30 possible stops the Lynchburg distillery producing Jack Daniel's, the world's largest selling whiskey,