Mash tub

He's not a bourbon aficionado, but CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman knew it would be impossible to drive through Kentucky as part of Road Trip 2008 without at least one stop on the famed Bourbon Trail. So on Sunday, he stopped in Loretto, Ky., for a tour of the Maker's Mark distillery.

This is the first of two giant mash tubs that boil and cook down a mixture of water and a crushed powder made of 70 percent corn, 16 percent red winter wheat, and 14 percent malted barley for about three and a half hours.

The mixture is then pumped into the distillery's fermentation room.

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