Supports the project’s evidence-ladder method. Individual cases should still be checked against the records and specialist works Cowdery names.
The chapter is a comparative exercise in source criticism rather than a single brand history.
Cowdery challenges first-invention and unchanged-recipe stories by comparing brand narratives with dated people, places and production accounts. These cases offer research leads, but his own confident conclusions require the same scrutiny: lack of evidence is not disproof, a merchant can commission a recipe, and a real ancestor can acquire an invented distilling biography.
PDF sheet 140
PDF sheet 124
Chapter 9 — Fact and Fiction in Bourbon History
September 29 fresh review: all 283 supplied sheets read and surveyed visually, 13 enlarged details. This paraphrase and locator were reconciled. Verified means source fidelity, not independent confirmation of every historical claim. Removed invented-ancestors shorthand and unsupported attribution of consistent uncertainty to the author.
Evidence
Cowdery challenges first-invention and unchanged-recipe stories by comparing brand narratives with dated people, places and production accounts. These cases offer research leads, but his own confident conclusions require the same scrutiny: lack of evidence is not disproof, a merchant can commission a recipe, and a real ancestor can acquire an invented distilling biography.
Location and context
PDF sheet 124 through PDF sheet 140; Chapter 9 — Fact and Fiction in Bourbon History.
The chapter is a comparative exercise in source criticism rather than a single brand history.
Assessment
Supports the project’s evidence-ladder method. Individual cases should still be checked against the records and specialist works Cowdery names.
September 29 verification
September 29 fresh review: all 283 supplied sheets read and surveyed visually, 13 enlarged details. This paraphrase and locator were reconciled. Verified means source fidelity, not independent confirmation of every historical claim. Removed invented-ancestors shorthand and unsupported attribution of consistent uncertainty to the author.