The latest Freakonomics episode touches on this too:

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/farms-race/

Nixon and corn innit? The 70s was really a pivotal decade.

Oh that’s slick. I didn’t realize he supported sugar quotas to jack up the sugar price to make HFCS more competitive. Weird the sugar industry likes him.

Indeed!

The story of bourbon is similar in terms of industries that provided inputs (or really wanted to) getting a walk up start in shaping the regulation of what could be called bourbon. The use of corn, and oak barrels, are all a product of various side deals struck as bourbon production became codified. Doubtless a similar set of conditions surrounded the codifying of tequila production. Most of the selling points of bourbon are really regulatory requirements set out after the logs were rolled back in the day.

Rum is still pretty wild west on the whole, and that is part of the reason it is such a fun spirit category to work your way through.

Full disclosure: utter bourbon slut here. Also a big fan of often overlooked institutional impacts on industries. Even bigger fan of marketer's attempts at turning these fetters into product features and how we all nod and judge quality on these points. We love to be fooled.