The whiskey produced in this northern Kentucky county was stored in barrels labeled “Bourbon County” and had the longest distance to travel before arriving at port in New Orleans. Bourbon county was named such after an aristocratic French family, aka the “House of Bourbon”. However, historians believe the more likely story is due to its county of origin - Bourbon Kentucky. And many people think that American Bourbon was somehow named after this street. Of course, Rue Bourbon, or Bourbon Street, in the French Quarter, is the most famous street in New Orleans. It quickly became the rage up and down the river route, and in New Orleans. It was still high proof of course, so it packed a punch, but with a little water or ice added, or mixed in a ‘ daisy’ cocktail for ladies, it was quite delicious. When those aged barrels were finally opened and tasted, the clear whiskey that went into the barrel had been transformed into a beautiful, sweet-smelling, smooth and mellow, caramel-colored, toasted marshmallow flavored whiskey. The longer that whiskey sat in its barrel, the more it gained in both color and flavor. When those barrels finally made it to New Orleans or ports beyond, they would often sit unopened for many more months, or even years while the whiskey continued to age. The sugars, which had been caramelized by the charring process, as well as the tannins and lipids in the oak, were infused into the whiskey as well. The charcoal-lined interior served to mellow the whiskey, smoothing out its harshness and ‘heat’. That crystal clear corn-based whiskey, also known as ‘white dog’, sloshing around the interior of those barrels, gradually gained an increasingly amber-brown hue and developed some very favorable flavor traits along the way. So they charred the interior of these barrels to sanitize them.ĭuring this journey, which would take many months, an interesting transformation occurred within those charred oak barrels as they lazily made their way south. Farmers would acquire these used oak barrels for the storage of their whiskey, but they understood the barrels needed to be purified due to the wide range of former contents that occupied those barrels, as well as the need to eliminate any bacteria or contaminants that would foul the whiskey. First, in the early 1800s, oak barrels were used to store and transport many, many types of commodities (flour, grains, salted meats and fish, water, nails, beer, spirits, whale oil – the list was endless). So, while it wasn’t necessarily the law at the time that whiskey must be stored in oak barrels, it was common knowledge that oak was the best vessel for storing wine and other spirits and it was a readily available resource.Īt this point in our story, two additional coincidental conditions occurred that helped to shape Bourbon further into the wonderful modern spirit we know today. White American Oak was very similar to French Oak (some would argue even better) and it was quite plentiful throughout the eastern United States. Wine had been stored in French Oak barrels as far back as the Romans in the first century AD. The barrels were most commonly made with White American Oak, which is what is required by law today for aging bourbon. Now, once their corn had been distilled, it would be stored in wooden barrels, ready to ship to market. This practice of farmers ‘moonshining’ was not driven by a desire to avoid taxes or high price liquor, it was done as a necessity to save and preserve the value of their crop. ![]() ![]() Any farmer that had corn at risk of spoilage knew they could simply distill that corn into whiskey, store it in barrels, and sell it at market sometime later without the risk of loss. However, the infrastructure of our country at that time was understandably not well developed, and so there were real challenges for farmers to grow, harvest and transport their crops to market in time before it would spoil. These farmers grew their corn with the intention of bringing it to market as a cash crop. 60 acres of corn yields much more corn than any farmer’s family would consume on their own. This western portion of Virginia later petitioned, in 1792, to become the great state of Kentucky. ![]() ![]() In the late 18th century, while Jefferson was governor of Virginia, he would offer sixty acres plots of land to farmers willing to grow corn. We have Thomas Jefferson to thank for the importance of corn in bourbon, although it was not intentional.
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