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How Bourbon Whiskey Really Got Its Famous Name appeared in The Bourbon Country Reader,
Admittedly, 'bourbon' is a strange name for a type of whiskey, especially when you consider that most of the world's whiskey styles have admirably straightforward appellations. The whisky made in Scotland by Scots is called scotch, the whiskeys made in Ireland and Canada are called Irish and Canadian respectively. Even bourbon's closest relations, Tennessee Whiskey and rye, frankly describe either their state of origin or principal ingredient, both completely logical approaches. So why is America's best known and most popular whiskey style called bourbon, a name borrowed from French royalty? The French, after all, don't even make whiskey or any other significant grain-based spirit, preferring to mess around with grapes instead. Most writers who mention bourbon try to unravel this puzzle and they almost always get it wrong. Here is a typical example, from Alexis Lichine's New Encyclopedia of Wines & Spirits:
That is a nice, succinct explanation and you have probably read it many times in different places, with only minor variations. So as not to pick only on Lichine, whose book is still one of the best reference works ever produced for beverage alcohol lovers, here is another example, from A Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy, by Andre L. Simon:
Even Robert A. Powell, author of a history text used in Kentucky's public schools, repeats this standard but inaccurate explanation. Under 'Bourbon County' in his book 120 Kentucky Counties Powell asserts:
There is one small problem with all of these explanations. They are quite wrong, or at least not quite right. Because they have been repeated so many times over the years, it never even occurs to anyone to doubt them. Few people in Kentucky, even in the distilling industry, know the true explanation, although it is neither obscure nor difficult to understand. It is, however, slightly more complicated than the standard, but mistaken, tale. Here it is. First, let's get the whole Elijah Craig business out of the way. The durable claim that Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, made the first bourbon whiskey can be traced to Richard Collins, whose History of Kentucky was published in 1874. 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, on a densely-packed page of short statements under the heading 'Kentucky firsts.' Collins does not attempt to substantiate the claim nor has any evidence ever been produced to support it. Craig was a real person -- a major character in early Kentucky history -- and he was a distiller. He also operated a fulling mill at the Royal spring in 1789, so there is little doubt that Collins intended to attribute this milestone to Craig. What is lacking is any evidence that Craig's whiskey was unique in its day, that it alone had somehow been elevated from the raw, green distillate made throughout the frontier to the status of 'bourbon whiskey' as we know it today. In addition to a lack of any evidence to support the Collins claim, which was made almost 100 years after the fact, there is another, more significant problem. Craig's distilling operation was never in Bourbon County, even with the shifting of county boundaries that took place during Kentucky's early history. Craig didn't move, but the boundaries did as new, smaller counties were created from older and larger ones. Craig's site was first in Fayette County (1780), then Woodford (1788), then Scott (1792), but never in Bourbon County. In Elijah Craig's day, making whiskey wa |