I was just doing some digging on local distilleries and came across this crazy map from 1875 (see image below). One of many things I found amazing was that there were 21 (!) distilleries in Albemarle county (red stars) when the population was only 27,544 people. If the distillery to population ratio had remained the same through the years, we would have over 100 distilleries today!
Looking at a century later in 1975, there was only one (green star), and in 2015 that has increased to about 4 (yellow and green stars). Undoubtedly technology and the world has changed since 1875, so 100 distilleries surely doesn’t make sense today, but I love to dream of a world with a smattering of neighborhood distilleries churning out their tasty spirits for their neighbors and friends. Cheers to the dream!
