Why We Call it Bourbon:
In my last article, I proposed that no individual invented bourbon whiskey but rather that a confluence of factors led to its natural development. Even though I advocated that bourbon whiskey evolved across the Western half of the Ohio River Valley–not just within Kentucky–I believe the name likely originated from Bourbon County, Kentucky.
I found an excellent article by historian Robert Moss on how bourbon got its name. I defer to his blog post, but I have some observations and theoretical injections to add.
Writers and historians have proposed several potential theories for where bourbon whiskey got its name. One leading theory is that bourbon was both invented and named by Jacob Spears to honor the county in which he lived. Spears was an early Kentucky pioneer who established a distillery around 1790. The problem with Spears’ account is that all we really know is that he was distilling whiskey in Bourbon County. We can assume this was a corn whiskey, but that’s an assumption. As mentioned in my other article, we don’t have a record of charred casks being used in aging Kentucky whiskey until 1827. All we can say for sure about Jacob Spears is that he was an early Bourbon County distiller. We can’t even say he was making bourbon whiskey, which had yet to be standardized in Spears’ lifetime.
Now consider the following account: In May 1789, John Tracy published a letter in Essex Journal describing his “tour” of the Western Territory via a trip down the Ohio River. He described several farms where fine supplies could be obtained “cheap.” Of interest is a farmer on the Ohio River just south of the Yellow Creek who makes a “very good two-year-old whisky.” This farm could have been in Ohio or West Virginia, depending on the side of the river that it was on. But the point here is that it’s a detailed account of whiskey being made and aged on the frontier in 1789. If that whiskey was predominantly corn and aged in charred oak casks–it was bourbon! According to a History of Jefferson County, the county produced almost 400 times more corn than rye in 1887, which would lead one to believe corn was probably the distiller’s choice a hundred years earlier because it was obviously the better-adapted grain for the area.
Tracy described the whiskey as very good, but we don’t get a feeling from this account that the farmer was an innovator. Instead, the farmer was making good whiskey according to established conventions.
Now, to return to the claim that Jacob Spears gave bourbon its name, there is an issue. Spears died in 1825, and we didn’t start seeing advertisements for “Bourbon Whiskey” until the late 1830s. Robert Moss illustrates a few newspaper clippings from the middle 1820s advertising “Bourbon County whiskey” in his article. So, in essence, in the 1820s, we find whiskey advertised as being from Bourbon County, but it’s not for another decade that we really start seeing “county” dropped from the description.
Moss mentions that Monongahela whiskey and Susquehanna whiskey were both “place names” for whiskies that were popular in the nineteenth century. His argument at this point is that these whiskies were typically advertised as “old Monongahela whiskey, etc.” and this fact counters the argument that “old Bourbon” was a reference to Old Bourbon County, Virginia, which constituted much of current Kentucky. Bourbon County, Virginia, was divided into 34 counties when incorporated into Kentucky in 1792. I, too, agree that “old” refers to barrel-aged whiskey rather than the greater area of old Bourbon County, Virginia, and I’ll return to this. What Moss doesn’t explicitly argue is that of the three types of American whiskey commonly advertised in the mid-nineteenth century, Monongahela and Susquehanna were clearly place names of origin, so why wouldn’t it be the same for bourbon? The convention of whiskey being named by its place of origin is another piece of circumstantial evidence giving weight to the Bourbon County origins.
As to the “old whiskey,” which was commonly advertised in the eighteenth century, we find numerous references to “Rye Whiskey” being sold alongside “Old Rye,” and sometimes we find a qualifier such as “2 Year Old Rye.” So Old Bourbon was clearly a reference to the fact that the whiskey was aged rather than that it originated from the old Bourbon County, Virginia, which existed for a mere seven years.
The idea that “old bourbon whiskey” originated from the much larger area of Bourbon County, Virginia, before Kentucky statehood was likely an attempt to rectify the dissonance that bourbon wasn’t strictly made in Bourbon Co., Kentucky. So let’s return to the question of why that is:
I’ve already pointed out that distilling was widespread across the Ohio River Valley in the early nineteenth century. Corn was the primary grain being distilled in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia as it was in Kentucky, and we have records of Indiana corn whiskey being shipped to Louisville and New Orleans. So the question begs: why did charred barrel-aged corn whiskey take on the name of a Kentucky County?
I’ve got a working three-pronged theory about why Bourbon County became the namesake for corn whiskey aged in charred oak barrels, and it’s not because it was invented in Bourbon County:
- The early nineteenth-century Bourbon County agricultural community encouraged whiskey production and developed a reputation for quality.
- The Buffalo Trace Road and the South Fork of the Licking River and its proximity to Lexington allowed the Bourbon County whiskey to be transported to the ports along the Ohio River, where it was widely distributed.
- Due to the popularity of whiskey from Bourbon County, merchants in Louisville and Maysville began shipping much of the corn whiskey from the Western Ohio River Valley as Bourbon.
Breaking it down:
On the first point, We find an announcement in the Kentucky Gazette published in September 1821 by the Bourbon County Agricultural Society announcing an exhibition that is to take place on the farm of Col. Henry Clay, a Revolutionary War veteran, and doctor who had a farm just south-west of the town of Paris in Bourbon County. Of the categories being judged was “best whiskey.” Exhibitors had to submit one quart for judgment and show evidence of distilling at least 1000 gallons of equal-quality whiskey in the last distilling season to be eligible for the prize. So, whiskey was being judged at the predecessor of the Bourbon County fair by at least 1821. The fact that exhibitors were required to produce at least 1000 gallons of whiskey a season demonstrates that it was a burgeoning enterprise in the area. It’s also clear they took pride in their product and were competitive about making quality whiskey.
On the second point, The Buffalo Trace Trail, which later became the Maysville Road, passed from Maysville through Paris (Bourbon County’s most populous pioneering village) to Lexington. At the time, Mayville was a major port on the Ohio River, and Lexington had become one of Kentucky’s most populous, wealthiest towns. In addition to the Maysville Road, the South Fork of the Licking River provided a waterway to Cincinnati. The rural pioneer community thus had sufficient means of exporting Commodities for trade with Cincinnati and Mayville, providing transport and trade with New Orleans.
On the third point: because Bourbon County distilleries made good whiskey and in sufficient quantities, it likely developed a far-ranging reputation. While early pioneering farmers sometimes had family members personally navigate their cargo on the Ohio River on flatboats, by the late eighteenth century, trade merchants took over as middlemen in the port towns of the Ohio River. Farmers could readily find merchants willing to pay for their produce and whiskey in towns like Maysville, Cincinnati, and Louisville, who would then transport it and resell it at a profit. Because casks that were branded Bourbon Co. were marketable and in demand, it was easy for merchants to promote all their corn whiskey as coming from Bourbon Co., whether or not it, in fact, did come out of Bourbon County.
Summary
Kentucky pioneers in Bourbon County established an early industry for distilling. We can’t say that their early whiskey was bourbon as we know it. It wouldn’t have been much different from corn whiskey being made elsewhere in the Ohio River Valley. However, the community boasted many distillers, and competition drove quality. Barrels marked “Bourbon County” had an eager market. Despite being rural, the county had access to some ideal trade routes. Barrels marked “Bourbon County” had an eager market. Merchants and distributors in the Ohio River port towns capitalized on the demand and began distributing the corn whiskey they acquired as bourbon whiskey no matter where it was distilled. Merchants played a pivotal role in promoting a standard for what bourbon was to become based on the feedback they received from customers and grocers. Bourbon thus soon became a style rather than a geographic indicator.