by gillmang » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:51 pm
Mike, thanks, and I read what Lynn said so I'll talk as plainly as I can.
We are trying to figure out if people who distilled whiskey in Bourbon County used charred barrels from the get-go, or who was the first person that did, and where, and why.
Some say Kentucky distillers like Elijah Craig and later, James Crow, started or developed the idea to age whiskey in new charred oak barrels. These men were distillers, not middlemen who bought whiskey to sell it on to other people.
Other people though, like you, Mike, believe it is the middlemen who put new whiskey in new burned barrels, or ensured that was done. They may have noticed the whiskey getting browner as it came downriver, and more brown if it happened to be in a barrel blackened on the inside. And they may have seen they could sell this reddish- brown liquor to people downriver in New Orleans. New Orleans used to be French. People there like brandy (cognac). Cognac was and to this day is aged in France at least in part in new charred barrels which gives it that typical brownsih color.
So maybe these middlemen saw that they could sell something different from new (or almost new) white whiskey in this French-type market and charge more for it too. And maybe they called the whiskey Bourbon for that reason, since Bourbon means a line of French kings and probably at the time just meant France to most people in the States, so it suggested a brandy-like drink to people.
Other persons say, no, the brown or red whiskey had to take its name from Bourbon County where it was invented and made or at least shipped from. Bourbon County got its name from that same French royal family, but that would (on this view of it) have nothing to do with brandy.
I think there is a lot in what you say. It may be that Bourbon Whiskey was really intended to be a clone of French cognac brandy. And it was so good, people even for local sale (like that grocer you mentioned) started to require Bourbon County makers to make that French-type brown whiskey.
If, as you are thinking may be the case, early New Orleans newspapers contain ads for bourbon whiskey, this might telll us more about who was behind it and may show that the idea about bourbon being developed As a clone for cognac brandy is right on.
Gary
Last edited by
gillmang on Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.