The Baker Bird story is a bit like a saga of the first family of spirits in the United States. The story begins in 1748 with the birth of Johannes Becker in Brandenburg, Germany, a third child to parents who’d leave him no real inheritance. Seeking opportunities for the future, Johannes boarded a ship and landed in Philadelphia at the age of 15. He ended up in Virginia where his future step-father-in-law, taught him distilling. Johannes fought in the American Revolution, eventually anglicizing his name to John Baker. Historic tax records show Baker in eventually living in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which is known as Pittsburgh today. Records reveal John listed as distiller. He continued distilling during the Whiskey Rebellion, of 1791 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called whiskey tax was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. The tax applied to all distilled spirits, but American whiskey was by far the country's most popular distilled beverage in the 19th century. After the Whiskey Rebellion, many distillers left Pennsylvania and moved to Kentucky that had just become a State in 1792. Taxes were more difficult to collect in Kentucky and there were natural resources that were idea for distilling like limestone filtered water, abundant forests for making barrels, etc. Baker and several families from Pennsylvania moved to Augusta, Kentucky in 1797. John purchased a parcel of land immediately outside Augusta and set to distilling at the current location of the Baker-Bird Distillery and Winery. Eventually, Baker’s grandson built the historic stricture which is now Baker-Bird Distillery and Winery.
Fast forward to the 21st century, records came to light that for over 200 years, just eight miles away in the Bracken County Court House, John Baker’s inventories of his distilling process were found from 1805 and 1808. The Court House had held the secrets of this successful distiller for a couple of centuries. From these records, two bourbons were created by the current owners of the historic property based on the recipes left behind al those years ago by John Baker.
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