Life is filled with absolutes, like the Talmud, the hangover following a bottle of gas station chardonnay, and the knowledge that if a distiller calls its spirit “bourbon,” they distilled that spirit in Kentucky.
As with so many other absolutes — the world is flat, Apple will head for bankruptcy by 1999, Dennis Miller will always be a funny guy —the rule of bourbon? Not true.
Undeniably, when someone says “bourbon” most people think “Kentucky.” But why? Why does Kentucky get bourbon when states like North Dakota don’t get anything cool?
Depends on whom you ask. One account (the one favored by the distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail) asserts that Bourbon County (founded 1785) invented bourbon. The distillers stamped the barrels of whiskey — because, really, bourbon is a subset of whiskey — with the name of the county, so the barrels read “Bourbon,” and as the bourbon floated down the Mighty Mississippi to New Orleans, the whiskey aged in its oak casks and thus gave it flavor other whiskeys lacked.
Or, if you believe the other side of the argument, the one favored by historians, the name derives from the fact that Bourbon Street in New Orleans sold massive amounts of the oak barrels filled with Kentucky whiskey. (Bourbon Street gets its name from the French dynasty, not the booze, although during Mardi Gras the association with alcohol may seem apt.)
Believe what you want, but either way, the idea of bourbon fermented in Kentucky, where 95 percent of all bourbon is made. However — urban legend alert — no law ever stipulated that bourbon had to be distilled in Kentucky in order to be called bourbon. In 1964, the U.S. Congress declared bourbon “a distinctive product of the United States” but, shockingly, Congress can’t actually make laws for other countries. Canada goes along with us here, but even we don’t follow this rule when we label bourbon for export.
Fake rules or no fake rules — drink up, America.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.