Strengthens the archival-silence claim without estimating prevalence or assigning undocumented inventions. The quoted sale record at PDF44 is attributed in the bibliography (PDF289) to British House of Commons papers on slavery in the colonies (1826–1827). Its precise geography and original context remain unverified: do not silently relabel it Kentucky or United States bourbon labor, or infer prevalence. Source-fidelity verification is not independent archival authentication.
The surviving record names distilling as labor value while leaving most enslaved workers' identities and technical contributions unrecorded.
Minnick points to a slave-sale catalogue and plantation records that identify distilling as skilled enslaved labor, then keeps the scale and individual contribution to bourbon's development unresolved.
PDF sheet 44
PDF sheet 43
Enslaved distilling labor
Verified against the rendered user-supplied PDF on 2026-08-27 after complete textual and visual review. September 29 fresh complete-source audit: The quoted sale record at PDF44 is attributed in the bibliography (PDF289) to British House of Commons papers on slavery in the colonies (1826–1827). Its precise geography and original context remain unverified: do not silently relabel it Kentucky or United States bourbon labor, or infer prevalence. Source-fidelity verification is not independent archival authentication.
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