Show any interest in bourbon whiskey and pretty soon someone will point out that bourbon is America's unique, indigenous national spirit; what scotch whisky is to Scotland or akvavit is to Denmark. The necessity of having a national spirit goes without saying, though we probably would trade it for a consumer electronics industry. Recently, bourbon whiskey has become a thriving export, and like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Levi's, and Madonna, bourbon sells well overseas because it represents American culture, especially the myth of the American West.
Here at home it's different. Americans drink half as much bourbon today as they did 20 years ago, even though per capita alcohol consumption is down only slightly. The slogan "Buy American" has been no more successful for bourbon than it was for American cars.
It wasn't always that way. In the early 1800s, when the U.S.A. was still becoming a nation, many commentators considered it a patriotic act to drink domestic spirits, a category that included corn whiskey (bourbon), rye whiskey, and applejack (distilled hard cider). Today, virtually every kind of beverage alcohol is made in the U.S.A., yet bourbon is considered uniquely American. Why?
Three ingredients make bourbon unique, and uniquely American, but each entered the bourbon recipe at a different time over a 200 year period.
It is February, 1621. The Mayflower colonists are in a panic because they are running out of beer. To prevent them from depleting the ship's stores and leaving its crew beerless for the voyage home, the settlers are "hasted ashore and made to drink water," according to the diary of the colony's future governor. They survive and soon are making their own liquors, experimenting with local ingredients when imported barley and hops are unavailable.
Today, people are surprised to learn that those sanctimonious Pilgrims (my nine-times great-grandfather, William Cowdery, among them), who burned witches and branded adulterers, also downed several brewskis a day, like most Europeans of their time. Alcohol was considered essential for life, much safer than water and good to prevent chills, aid digestion, and strengthen the constitution. As Pilgrim partymeister Increase Mather wrote in 1673, "Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness."
The foundation for bourbon was laid by at least 1662 , when John Winthrop, Jr., governor of Connecticut, was honored for successfully brewing beer from native corn, a grain unknown in Europe but cultivated here by Native Americans for about 6,500 years. There is at least one report that a distillery in New York City (then New Amsterdam) used corn in 1640. Corn was known, grown, and probably distilled, but most eastern distilleries preferred rye, a familiar Old World grain. Corn would not come into its own for another hundred years, until Daniel Boone began leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky.
It is probable that Kentucky's first settlers, who established Fort Harrod in 1774, were also her first distillers. What they distilled was corn. As they learned from the Indians, corn grows fast and produces a lot of grain from minimal acreage. Soon settlers were pouring in, planting corn, and making whiskey from it. Some carried small copper stills with them over the mountains, while others rigged up simple contraptions from logs, barrels and whatever pipe they could find. These early settlers included Jacob Beam (great-grandfather of Jim Beam), Robert Samuels (ancestor of Marker's Mark president Bill Samuels), Basil Hayden (grandfather of Old Grand-Dad founder R.B. Hayden), and thousands of other experienced farmer/distillers from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
By coming to Kentucky, they added bourbon's second unique ingredient, pure limestone water; blue limestone of the Lower Silurian of the Trenton period, to be exact. In addition to making good whiskey, water filtered through layers of limestone has been credited with putting the blue in bluegrass and the spunk in Kentucky racehorses. More scientifically, limestone is supposed to add calcium to the water and remove iron salts, creating a good environment for the propagation of yeast.
After 1791, one of the forces encouraging distillers to move to Kentucky was the U.S. government, though not deliberately. In 1791, the federal government imposed an excise tax on spirits production. It was the young government's first attempt at an internal revenue tax and promptly led to the government's first use of federal armies against its own citizens, in the suppression of the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
After it was over, many unbowed rebels moved west to the Kentucky frontier because it was still sparsely populated and, so the migrants believed, the governement would find it more difficult to enforce the hated tax there. They were right, but not for long. Between 1794 and 1800, 177 Kentucky distillers were convicted and fined for violations of the tax law, which pretty much settled the issue.
For one thing, even in remote Kentucky, whiskey dealing was no longer just between the maker and his neighbors. In 1800, whiskey and tobacco surpassed flour as the principal export crops from the region. It was this export trade that also gave bourbon its name.
Bourbon whiskey was named after Bourbon County, which was itself named after the French royal family in gratitude for France's help during the Revolution. When Bourbon County was created in 1786, it covered about one quarter of the state. Eventually, 34 counties were made from Bourbon. Though new counties were created, the whole region continued to be known as "Old Bourbon" for many years thereafter.
The principal Ohio River port for the "Old Bourbon" region was at Limestone (now Maysville) and anything shipped from there was considered to be a product of "Old Bourbon." Apparently, the whiskey from "Old Bourbon" was greatly appreciated by its customers down river, who began to ask for it by name. This prompted shippers from other ports to adopt the name as well, until it was generally used to distinguish the corn-based whiskey of the West from the rye-based whiskey of the East.
But it was still not bourbon as we know it today. One more ingredient had to be added, the new, charred oak barrel that gives bourbon all of its color and much of its flavor. Exactly when the practice of aging bourbon in new, charred oak barrels originated is unknown, but Dr. James C. Crow was one of the first to routinely age his whiskey that way before selling it. Robert Letcher, a prominent Kentucky politician, mentions Old Crow's red color in an 1849 letter to a friend, then residing in Washington, informing him that some of Dr. Crow's red elixir is on its way. "That's all you need to make you well," writes Letcher. "You have been deprived of your 'native victuals,' and that creates a Rebellion in your abdominal regions -- Old Crow will put down the insurrection."
After the American Civil War, new railroads carried bourbon west to the new frontier and the era of large, commercial distilleries began. This period also brought with it a large, permanent federal excise tax, the original one having been repealed during the Jefferson administration. Passed in 1862 to pay for the Civil War, the excise tax on liquor produced a quarter of the government's total revenue. With subsequent increases fueled by rising temperance sentiments, it rose so high that by 1876, liquor taxes generated fully one-half of the federal government's income. This continued until the eve of Prohibition, more than 30 years later.
If there is anything good to say about the excise tax, at least it was a way to get cowboys to pay taxes. The tax was built into every shot of whiskey poured at the Long Branch and dozens of other cowtown saloons strung along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; Kansas Pacific; and Union Pacific railroad tracks. The typical cowboy was paid about $30 a month and whiskey at the time cost two to four dollars a gallon.
Of course, the cowboy had few other financial outlets (mutual funds being scarce on the prairie back then) and his needs were modest. An 1871 Kansas newspaper describes the typical cowboy as "unlearned and illiterate, with few wants and meager ambition," who lives on a "diet of Navy plug and whisky." An 1884 visitor to Dodge City notes that, "The cowboy spends his money recklessly. He is a jovial, careless fellow bent on having a big time regardless of expense. He will make away with the wages of a half year in a few weeks, and then go back to his herds for another six months."
Essentially, the cowboy had three entertainment choices in town: the
saloon which featured whiskey, women, and gambling; the dance hall which
featured whiskey, women, and music; and the brothel which concentrated
strictly on whiskey and women.
The first commercial structure erected at the site of Dodge City was
a tent saloon for buffalo hunters, put up years before the arrival of thirsty
Texans and their scraggly longhorns. By 1876, Dodge was a town of 1,200
souls, with 19 licensed whiskey-selling establishments. The population
swelled during the summer, of course, from all those tourists on the Western
Trail. People know about the Long Branch Saloon from the "Gunsmoke" TV
series. Other saloons on Dodge's Front Street included the Alhambra, the
Alamo, the Old House Saloon, the Opera House Saloon, the Junction Saloon,
and the Green Front.
Whiskey was the principal drink. Beer didn't appear in Dodge until
about 1879. In one probably typical year, Dodge City's residents and guests
consumed 300 barrels of whiskey. If there were 3,000 drinkers in town that
year, a reasonable estimate, that is 5.5 gallons each.
The saloons also sold food. Here is a typical scene: A cowboy calls out his order for a sandwich and some Limburger cheese as he drops into a chair and swings his feet onto the table. The bartender brings the order and places it next to the cowboy's feet. Soon the cowboy is complaining, "This cheese is no good; I can't smell it." The bartender replies, "Put your feet down and give the cheese a chance." (An example of cowboy humor.)
One familiar character of the Old West, in fact and fiction, is the whiskey broker or "drummer." He was a traveling salesman who carried small bottles of different whiskies in a sample case. Calling on saloons and liquor wholesalers, he took orders for later delivery by train or wagon.
Until the end of the century, whiskey was almost always delivered in 55 gallon barrels. The saloonkeeper transferred some of the whiskey to bottles for ease of serving and the bottles were always reused. For carry out, customers usually brought their own bottle or jug. In 1870, Old Forester became the first bourbon to be shipped and sold in bottles exclusively, but it didn't catch on in the West until the 1890s. The real changes occurred in 1897, with passage of the Bottled-In-Bond Act, and in 1903 when the first economical automatic bottle-making machine was invented.
John Ford's classic western "Stagecoach" (1939)--the movie that made John Wayne a star--features a meek character (played by an actor named Donald Meek) who is a whiskey salesman, Mr. Peacock. Before the stagecoach reaches its final destination, the lovable but overindulgent Doc Boone (played by Thomas Mitchell) has worked his way through Mr. Peacock's entire stock of whiskey samples.
Westerns are often criticized for historical inaccuracy, but to the extent that they show ubiquitous jugs and saloons, they are realistic. In "Stagecoach," every stop along the trail has a bar, even the smallest inn. In the fancy saloon at the end of the line, where the bad guys learn that Ringo (Wayne) is on his way, hot for revenge, the bartenders sense trouble and quickly remove a gilded mirror from behind the bar, to protect it from destruction in the ensuing melee.
In the Alan Ladd epic "Shane" (1953), about half of the movie (and all of the action) takes place in Grafton's General Mercantile Co. Sundries and Saloon, where cowboys loll around all day drinking whiskey and taunting sod busters until Shane gives them what for.
The typical bar call in most westerns is "whiskey," not "bourbon." Sometimes the character just says, "Bring me a bottle." In "The Plainsman" (1937), Gary Cooper's Wild Bill Hickock orders "rye" as he joins a riverboat card game. Two of his fellow players order the same and the third asks for applejack. Later, when the town dandy asks for a "sherry and egg" he gets whiskey and egg. The joke is that the whiskey costs two bits (25 cents) but the egg costs a dollar. When Brynner buys McQueen a drink at the beginning of "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) he orders whiskey. In "High Noon" (1952), no one has to say a word. They just walk up to the bar and the bartender sets down the shot glass and a bottle of whiskey.
Is it, in fact, bourbon whiskey in that bottle? Not in the movies, but what about the saloons in the real Old West? Maybe. The big producers for the western markets were the Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois distilleries. What they sent West may have started out as bourbon, or as new whiskey that would become bourbon with proper age, but often something bad happened to it along the way. Many unscrupulous dealers and merchants added rectified whiskey (grain neutral spirits) or unaged whiskey to the bourbon to "extend" it, along with tobacco, red pepper, soap, prune juice and other ingredients to add flavor and color. (Think of it as "Bourbon Helper.") Some of this so-called whiskey contained no actual aged spirit, but was entirely concocted from neutral spirits, flavorings and colorings.
Of course, this was not the kind of thing bourbon makers could take lying down. Kentucky distiller Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. (creator of Old Taylor Bourbon) campaigned tirelessly for the Bottled-In-Bond Act, which finally passed the U.S. Congress in 1897. The Act, which guaranteed the authenticity of bourbon whiskey, was the first piece of federal consumer protection legislation of any kind.
Taylor was the industry's leading champion of bourbon quality and truth in labeling. As Taylor said, "it is an admitted axiom that quality recedes as cheapness advances ... the ancient bourbon flavor has departed and the stomach groans under the dominion of the new ruler."
The fight for real bourbon was waged again when congress attempted to regulate whiskey labels under the Pure Food and Drug Act. The "Whiskey War" between distillers and rectifiers ran from 1906 to 1909. It was not a shooting war, but was fought instead in the U.S. Congress, where whiskey quality was by no means an abstract concept. National Prohibition made it all moot. After Repeal, the industry was tightly regulated. From then on, a label could not say "bourbon" unless it was straight whiskey, made mostly from corn, and aged in new, charred oak barrels for at least two years.
United States representatives and senators have long been known to have an intense personal interest in this particular object of their legislation. Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and William Henry Harrison all swore by Dr. Crow's bourbon. Lawmakers whose districts include multiple bourbon makers have to be more circumspect. There was one U.S. senator from Kentucky who took his lunch each afternoon in the bar at the venerable Pendennis Club in Louisville. The senator, being an accomplished politician, had an arrangement with the bartender. When the senator entered the room he would hail the man loudly and request "the usual." The bartender would then surreptitiously scan the room, determine which local distiller was present, and pour the senator a few fingers of that man's brand. One day the senator performed his trick and was surprised to receive a gin and tonic. Before he could voice his outrage, the bartender whispered in his ear, "Sorry, Senator, but they're all here."
The rest of the country may not think it is their patriotic duty to drink bourbon, but people in Kentucky do. One Louisville bar still has a sign that reads "Gentlemen imbibing foreign and alien spirits other than Bourbon whiskey may be requested to pay in cash." James E. Pepper used to brag that his brand was "Born With The Republic" in 1776. Old Charter was named after the Charter Oak, a white oak tree in Hartford, Connecticut, where settlers hid the colony charter after the governor tried to revoke it. Knob Creek was named for a stream near Abe Lincoln's boyhood home, where Abe's father worked in a distillery.
One effect of Prohibition was to introduce vast numbers of Americans to scotch and Canadian whisky. Two World Wars introduced millions of American soldiers to other sources of alcohol, which further broadened the beverage portfolios of Americans. With imports, regulation and modern advertising, distinguishing bourbon from other spirits--and various bourbons from each other--became more important that ever. This is even reflected in movies. Where movie cowboys seldom ordered more than "whiskey," today's tough guys often specify brands. This comes in part from the practice of movie placement, in which a marketer pays a producer for using a particular brand in a film. When Kevin Kostner gets drunk on Jim Beam in "Bull Durham" (1988), it isn't so much about character development as brand development. In "French Connection II" (1975), Gene Hackman struggles with the language barrier as he first orders "Four Roses straight up, water on the side," then switches to Jack Daniel's, and finally settles for "whisky" which, outside the U.S., almost always means scotch. In "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946), Frank Capra has George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) order a "double bourbon" to signify his despair. On the TV show "Dallas," J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) always orders "bourbon and branch."
Robert Rossen was one producer/director who had a good handle on what his characters should drink. One quick exchange in "All The King's Men" (1949) has politician Willy Stark (Broderick Crawford) order "double bourbon," followed by a rapid fire "same for me" from his aide, Mercedes McCambridge (who won an Oscar for her role but, presumably, not for that line). Rossen was heavy-handed with symbolism and the drinking in "All The King's Men" signifies the growing corruption of Stark's political movement. Whiskey was a metaphor for weakness and lack of self control in Rossen's "The Hustler" (1961). Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) drinks only J.T.S. Brown Bourbon, straight from the bottle. His opponent, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), requests "White Tavern Whiskey, a glass and some ice." We are left to consider the possibility that Fats' brand is actually a placebo, a way to keep his advantage over Eddie by staying sober.
Today, bourbon sales have stabilized in the U.S. and exports are growing. One positive side effect of this strong export business has been the introduction of several super premium brands, priced like cognacs or single malt scotches. Few if any of these brands would have been created without the export business, which thrives on high-priced luxury spirits. The new brands include Blanton's, Rock Hill Farms, Wild Turkey Rare Breed, Gentleman Jack, Booker's, Baker's, Basil Hayden's, and Knob Creek. Although the prices are high ($30 to $50 for a 750 ml bottle) the packaging is lush, with historical touches like cork tops, and the whiskey is of uniform high quality, providing some rare tasting experiences. For example, it is nice to be able to taste a single-barrel bottling like Blanton's. I am not convinced that single barrel bourbon is necessarily better or even much different, but I like the idea of tasting something as specific as whiskey from a single barrel, rather than several barrels all blended together. Blanton's started it and now others (Wild Turkey, Evan Williams) are following.
The taste of Blanton's is determined more by the style of whiskey they chose to make than by it's single barrel character. The whiskey itself is mild for its relatively high proof (46.5 percent alcohol). There is a soft, perfumy woodiness in the nose but it's not astringent. The hot taste characteristic of rye is apparent but not overpowering. It is unusually dry for bourbon, which probably appeals to scotch fans. Some call it subtle, others call it bland.
Booker's Bourbon (and others, like Wild Turkey Rare Breed) offer another unique experience, the chance to taste undiluted bourbon. Most bourbons come out of the barrel at about 60 percent alcohol, but are bottled at 40 percent. The difference is water, but not in Booker's. If most bourbons to you look brown rather than red, look at Booker's. There is clear vanilla in the nose and the intensity of the taste is moderated by its sweetness. One thing to consider. At any given time, Jim Beam Brands Co. (maker of Booker's) has 1.2 million barrels of bourbon in its warehouses, about a third of the industry's total supply. If they want to bottle what they consider to be their best whiskey, they have a lot from which to choose.
In their effort to compete with super premium imports, one approach the Americans have not borrowed from the Scots is long aging. Good thing too, because long aging in new charred barrels can be a bad idea. I tasted some 25 year-old Heaven Hill once and the experience was not edifying. It tasted the way a campfire smells. Bourbon peaks young. Heaven Hill whiskey peaks at about age 12 (their 12 year-old Elijah Craig is excellent), while Beam is just right at about 8. I like to know how old a whiskey is, but I can understand why some brands (Maker's Mark, Jack Daniel's) don't want to tell us. Too many people automatically assume that older means better, but bourbon is best when it's ready, whenever that may be, like a ripe peach.
Americans will probably never give their native spirit the respect it deserves. As a people, we have watched too many crafts die out to worry about this one, especially when it is far from dead. Still, I cannot understand what people think they are paying for when they buy expensive imported vodka. In what way do they think it is different from any other grain neutral spirit? Do they know what "neutral" means? Oh well, it's a free country, after all. You are free to take your liquor white, while I insist that mine must always be red.
Copyright © 2000, Charles Kendrick Cowdery, All Rights Reserved.
An earlier, edited version of this article appeared in Private Clubs Magazine, March-April 1994 issue.