Talk:Bourbon whiskey

History info is a mess

It looks like there is a significant amount of debate about where exactly bourbon was invented, and the only description of its history is a copyrighted quotation. We shouldn't have such a large quotation, and there should be more backing for this article. Or, at least, there needs to be a better indication that any description of the "true history of bourbon" is debateable, and that most of the history is more legendary than factual.

I could rewrite it, but I don't have the time now. I might come back in a few days to fix it. This article seems to have a good beginning: [1]Pageblank 22:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I cleaned it up some and cited the quote, correctly, to my book (although the wording in the book is slightly different than the earlier article originally cited, but those are my words nonetheless). If such a long quote is still stylistically inappropriate, someone can let me know and I'll rewrite it for here and we can cite it but dispense with the quote. Cowdery 22:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I changed the formatting to use a curly quote template that tends to be a little more readable for long quoted blocks of text like that. I personally don't see a problem with that, so long as you are comfortable with and are legally permitted to release that text under the WP:GFDL license. I know that sometimes publishers restrict the rights of authors and what they can do with their texts once it has been published. If that is the case, it would be better to re-write the section. You should also be aware of Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines--not that I see anything wrong with this edit, but since you obviously have a lot of knowledge on the topic, you wouldn't want to run afoul of any rules accidentally. Have a great day! --Willscrlt (Talk|Cntrb) 06:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I control all rights to all of my writing and I don't believe I have run afoul of Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines. I didn't put the quote here, someone else did, I'm just retroactively granting permission for it to stay and making sure it's cited properly. Cowdery 03:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes.., Dant is still around

Does anyone know if the Dant distillery is still in business? If memory serves, it was somewhere near Clermont.

Rlquall 19:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have a J.W. Dant distilled in Bardstown, KY at my liquor store. Not sure if it's the original or not.

Members of the Dant family operated many distilleries, none of which are in operation today. The J.W. Dant brand is owned by Heaven Hill Distillery. The original J. W. Dant Distillery, RD#169, was in Marion County, Kentucky. Cowdery 22:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Please can someone tell me what makes scotch and bourbon different? is it the malting process or something else?

There are many stylistic differences between scotch and bourbon, but the most significant are the grains used and the way they are aged. Single malt scotch is made from 100% malted barley and although grain whiskey (for blended scotch) may use other grains, the distinctive taste of any scotch comes from the malted barley. Bourbon is mostly corn, at least 51% by law and in practice more like 75%, with rye or wheat and a small amount (about 10%) of malted barley. As for aging, bourbon is always aged in new charred oak barrels, whereas scotch usually is aged in used barrels, usually used bourbon barrels, in fact. Cowdery 22:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Rev. Elijah Craig: inventor or not?

OK, so in this article we have this:

Some stories about its origins there are not true, such as its purported invention by Baptist minister and distiller Elijah Craig.

But, in the Bourbon County, Kentucky article, we have this:

Bourbon whiskey, named for the county, was first distilled within its borders by the Rev. Elijah Craig in the early 19th century.

I'm not an expert in such matters. Which one is correct? References in any debate would be helpful, thanks. --NightMonkey 20:25, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Elijah Craig was prominent in the founding of a school that was eventually to become (after Craig's death) Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY, which at that time was within the borders of Bourbon County. Later, Scott County was created as a separate county out of a portion of Bourbon County, and Georgetown became its county seat. This connection of E. Craig to Bourbon County is factual. I am a native of this area (and as such I can hardly claim NPOV), and we were always taught that Craig invented bourbon whiskey. Whether he truly invented the process may be open to speculation; on a recent tour of the Woodford Reserve distillery near Versailles I was told a different history. Dismissing outright Craig's claim as untrue, especially without any supporting evidence, seems non-neutral. Of course it may have been a simultaneous application of techniques by multiple, contemporary distillers. --BAW 01:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The durable but unsubstantiated claim that Elijah Craig "invented" bourbon can be traced to Richard Collins and his 1874 History of Kentucky. Collins does not identify Craig by name, but writes that "the first Bourbon Whiskey was made in 1789, at Georgetown, at the fulling mill at the Royal spring." This claim is included, without elaboration or substantiation, on a densely-packed page of "Kentucky Firsts." Since Craig operated "the fulling mill at the Royal spring" in that year, the "invention" is attributed to him. There are several major problems with the claim. First, what made Craig's whiskey different from the other whiskey made in the region? Second, the Georgetown site was never in Bourbon County, so if the place name and the whiskey have to go together, Craig cannot be the originator. In fact, the name "bourbon whiskey" was applied to all whiskey from the region beginning early in the century but the style of whiskey we now call bourbon didn't really evolve until many years later, in about the middle of the century. The Craig claim has been convenient for various people for various reasons, but historically it is completely unsupported. Cowdery 22:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

this wikipedia story is incorrect

While there is a Bourbon County Kentucky, Bourbon did not originate there. Bourbon is made in the original Bourbon County, which stretched, from Virginia to what now is Kentucky. Remember Bourbon(the drink) significantly predates the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Bourbon County, Kentucky is named after the original Bourbon (now obsolete) County. Though the boundaries are now politically obsolete it still defines the area in which bourbon can be made. This is why Virginia getleman is still a legitimate Bourbon.

Bourbon must be produced in KY

We seem to be on the verge of a revision war over this subject, so I hope people who feel compelled to insert once again some statement to the effect that "Bourbon must be produced in Kentucky" will read at least this section of the discussion page before doing so. I am inserting this preface here, but am otherwise leaving the discussion on this topic alone.Cowdery 03:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the first I have heard that a true bourbon may be produced outside of Kentucky. Everything I have read previously states that to be called bourbon, the whiskey is required by law to be produced in Kentucky, along with other mandated criteria including standards of proof, aging, and that bourbon use charred (never new) oak barrels in the aging process. - DanDan 17:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Statute?

Would you please provide the current statute which states; that to be called bourbon, it is required to be produced in Kentucky. Many have made this claim, but I have yet to ever see any state or federal code validating this assertion.

John Donnchadha 16:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The standards of identity for distilled spirits are contained in Title 27, Section 5 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. If you look at the regulations, you will see that there is no requirement that bourbon be made in Kentucky. Bourbon may be made anywhere in the United States.

No!! Bourbon can be made anywhere; however, for it to have a name such as "Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey," it must be distilled in Kentucky. No other alcoholic beverage has such a law.

There is no "law" to this effect, so the above statement is incorrect. However, all labels for distilled spirits products sold in the United States must be approved in advance by the TTB and they apply, among other things, basic truth in advertising standards, so a bourbon cannot be labeled "Kentucky" bourbon unless it is both distilled in Kentucky and aged there. I believe, however, that after two years it can be shipped out of state to continue aging and still be called "Kentucky" bourbon. This particular false belief, that bourbon can only be made in Kentucky, dies hard. However, even as late as the 1960s there was a large amount of bourbon made in Illinois. In the past, bourbon has been made in Pennsylvania (The A. H. Hirsch bourbon, for example), Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and other states. Cowdery 22:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The federal "Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits" (Title 27, Section 5) addresses "geographical designations" at 5.22(k), but the gist of it is: "Geographical names for distinctive types of distilled spirits shall not be applied to distilled spirits produced in any other place than the particular region indicated by the name." Cowdery 01:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it bourbon if the mash bill contains more than 79% corn?

In order to avoid a reversion war, I'll try to address this here. It has been asserted that a whiskey containing 80% or greater corn in its mash must be labelled 'corn whiskey' and not 'bourbon.' 27 CFR 5.22(b)(1)(i) and (ii) were supplied as evidence.

From 27 CFR 5.22(b)(1): Paragraph (i) concerns itself with the labelling of 'Bourbon whisky', 'rye whisky', 'malt whiskey, and 'rye malt whiskey'. It states that bourbon whisky must be distilled from a mash of more than 50% corn and stored in charred new oak containers.

Paragraph (ii) concerns itself with the labelling of 'corn whisky'. It states that bourbon whisky must be distilled from a mash of more than 80% corn and stored in used or uncharred new oak containers and not subjected in any manner to treatment with charred wood.

It is clear that a product distilled from a mash with 80% or greater corn content and stored in charred new oak containers qualifies as a bourbon under (b)(1)(i) and does not qualify as a corn whisky under (b)(1)(ii).

Please also see [http://home.netcom.com/~cowdery/articles/suites.html Tasting Suites: Bourbon Tasting with a Purpose] by Charles K. Cowdery in which he states "I.W. Harper has a very high percentage of corn in its mash, about 86 percent..."

Aha, you're right of course! I was confused. And frankly I'm still a bit confused. The regulation appears to leave undefined a) whiskeys more than 80% corn stored in charred barrels and b) whiskeys 51%-80% corn stored in untreated barrels. I wonder if such whiskeys are made, and how they would be classified if they were. Perhaps it's just illegal to use these methods? 65.23.171.130

Whiskey of 80% greater corn stored in charred barrels can be labeled bourbon if the barrels are new, it can be labeled corn whiskey if the barrels are used. It isn't illegal to distill a spirit from a mash of 51%-80% corn and store it in untreated barrels. It just cannot be labeled either bourbon or corn whiskey.

"Bourbon can be legally made anywhere in the U.S."

This is flat-out wrong. At least in Tennessee, and in most of the rest of the Southen U.S., distillation is legal only in a few counties (three, I think, in Tennessee as of now). This is not to say that it does not go on in other counties, of course, just that it does not occur there legally. I think what is meant is that, contrary to a widely-held opinion, there is no federal law restricting the production of bourbon to Kentucky only. (No bourbons are made in Tennessee, however, only two "Tennessee whiskeys" and a rum.) Rlquall 15:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the later portion; in Memphis, there is a desert known as the Tennessee Bourbon Pie. (Unfortunately, no Wiki article for it exists yet, but there's several google links.) This raises questions as to where the Bourbon in the original recipe came from. (Was Bourbon once legally made in TN or has all Bourbon made in TN been moon shining?) Jon 16:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

History of bourbon as told to me

I am born and raised in Kentucky. Though this does not make me a historian of bourbon, I wanted to tell the history as it was explained to me.

Bourbon was (at first) a clear liquor, looking a lot like vodka. However, at one point, a distiller who made bourbon had a fire in his barn where he stored his barrels, and they were all chared because of this. It was too late in the season, and he used the barrels anyhow to store the bourbon. When they were ready, he put them in the river, and floated them on down. When they got to new orleans, the people flipped over the new liquor. It had a new flavor, and a distinct color due to the chared barrels.

Can anyone else verify this story with me?

This is one of many popular myths. The main reason whiskey was not aged in the early days was because people were happy to buy it and drink it unaged. The benefits of aging spirits have been known since antiquity and didn't need to be "discovered" in 19th century Kentucky.

But the brown color of burbon. Was this something that came from charred barrels, and accidentally discovered?

Children are told many stories and the above is just that, a story. A nice one, but not true. The benefits of aging spirits in oak were well known, but not generally practiced for economic reasons. Charring barrels was also a familiar practice, to sanitize a barrel so it could be used again. The benefits of aging spirits in charred barrels were also known. In about the middle of the 19th century, Kentucky distillers began to use new charred oak barrels for aging because the combination of a new barrel and charring gave the whiskey the maximum benefit in terms of color and flavor. Yes, all of the color in bourbon comes from the wood. Cowdery 22:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Spelling - whiskey/whisky

I have noticed that most Bourbon makers spell it whiskey, but not all. Maker's Mark is a notable exception. [2] --rogerd 23:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Invalid numbers - Which is it?

"It is distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof, and aged in new charred oak barrels for at least two years" vs. "Bourbon must be put into the barrels at no more than 125 U.S. proof." These statements seem contradictory. MrZaius^talk 16:15, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

if the text is mostly correct, my guess would be that it leaves the barrels at no more than 125 U.S. proof, and then adjusted to 80–100 proof and bottled.--Edgjerp 10:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm drinking a glass of Booker's at the moment which is legally marked at 126.6 proof, and is also (legally) marketed as a bourbon. the 125 proof limitation is un-cited and flat out wrong. I'd change it, but, i don't really exist. --doesn't exist

To clarify, the whiskey can come off the still at up to 160 proof, but since it has to go into the barrel at no more than 125 proof, water is added to reduce it to at least that proof. Then water is added again, after aging is completed and the barrels have been dumped, to reduce it to bottling proof. Since a whiskey's proof may rise during aging, barrel-proof whiskeys such as Booker's and George Stagg can exceed 125 proof. Cowdery 22:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Please add URL to your Link list

As our contribution to Wikipedia's probably unintended, but nevertheless growing, collection of American whiskey folklore and legend, we believe readers would enjoy also visiting our (non-commercial) website dedicated to just that subject, along with documentation of our personal visits to various American whiskey distillery sites, current and defunct. Our URL is...

http://www.ellenjaye.com

Thank you, --Jeffelle 04:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)