History of bourbon (OUR VERSION)
Before you can really get into the history of bourbon you need to understand a little of the history of alcohol. We all know how this liquid gold (a gift seemingly from both angels and demons alike) is created today. The stripped down basics of creating drinking alcohol, is to get some type of fruit, vegetable, sugar, or grain, let it ferment, and voila praise baby Jesus you have C2H5OH.
"Science Bitch!"
The real question is who thought of it first, how did they discover it, and how has it evolved into what has caused the majority of bad decisions and unwanted children since its inception.
The earliest evidence we have of drinking alcohol is from around 8000 BCE. This was after humans settled down and took up agriculture. An archeological dig in Jiahu, China unearthed pottery jars containing chemical residues of fermented rice, honey, and grapes. While this was proof that our ancestors had finally got it together and found meaning of life, we do not have proof of real consumption until about 2500 BCE. In Uruk, the principal city of Sumeria (south of modern day Iraq) is where brewing and drinking is recorded on an epic scale. The Sumerians had over eight different grains they brewed creating multiple styles of beers. Tablets discovered at dig sites depict Sumerians, partying, holding kegs, and offering their drinks to the god’s. The Sumerian’s even wrote about their alcohol in their literature, most notably in the poem Gilgamesh, “He drank the beer, seven jugs! And became expansive and sang with joy!”
The earliest evidence we have of drinking alcohol is from around 8000 BCE. This was after humans settled down and took up agriculture. An archeological dig in Jiahu, China unearthed pottery jars containing chemical residues of fermented rice, honey, and grapes. While this was proof that our ancestors had finally got it together and found meaning of life, we do not have proof of real consumption until about 2500 BCE. In Uruk, the principal city of Sumeria (south of modern day Iraq) is where brewing and drinking is recorded on an epic scale. The Sumerians had over eight different grains they brewed creating multiple styles of beers. Tablets discovered at dig sites depict Sumerians, partying, holding kegs, and offering their drinks to the god’s. The Sumerian’s even wrote about their alcohol in their literature, most notably in the poem Gilgamesh, “He drank the beer, seven jugs! And became expansive and sang with joy!”
"Drunken Sumarian"
From this point the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans made sure that this elixir from the god’s was spread across the world.
This brings us to the United States, a country founded by George Washington and his band of musketeers for the mere purpose of creating one drink to rule them all… whisk(e)y.
This brings us to the United States, a country founded by George Washington and his band of musketeers for the mere purpose of creating one drink to rule them all… whisk(e)y.
"Validity of previous statement and photo not quite 100% accurate."
Whiskey comes from the Gaelic word uisge (also beatha) and is translated as “water of life”. Whiskey has a very rich heritage stemming from the Scottish and the Irish, into America. It is no secret that whiskey (distilling barley and grains then storing in barrels) was created by the Irish and the Scotts (decedents from the Angelo Saxons, and Vikings, the creators of mead and ale), there is debate over who made it first. Since we love both Irish and Scottish whiskey (or whisky), we will let them continue that debate and just thank them for putting us on the path to bourbon. Before we go further remember that George Washington guy we mentioned earlier? Yeah, well he caused the United States first civil war. Oh, you thought the only civil war we had was when Lincoln was president, and it was over slavery. Nope, the first civil war was over whiskey (The Whiskey Rebellion), or the taxation of whiskey to be more accurate. You see, in 1791 whiskey was as good as currency. Everyone liked whiskey, it didn’t spoil, and it became the most traded resource of the era. Ol’ George seeing an opportunity to make some cash decided to enact and excise on whiskey. A group of militia near Pittsburgh rose up, armed themselves, and attacked the local tax collector. They gave themselves the greatest company name known in the military world, the “Whiskey Boys”. The “Whiskey Boys” quickly grew in power and marched to Pittsburgh and took the city without a shot being fired, where they promptly sat down and drank the city dry. Due to lack of support and constant drunkenness (and other factors), the whiskey rebellion did not last long, but it was America’s first civil war and the precedent was set allowing the government to begin taxing it citizens at a rate that continues to rise (another article and another time).
In the hills of Kentucky, where many of the Irish-Scotts settled, it was nearly impossible for the tax collectors to impose the whiskey tax. This was due to the dense forest and hills that only the locals knew how to navigate without getting lost (this is also why Kentucky served as the moonshine state during prohibition). This allowed Kentucky to become the capital of whiskey distilling in the United States during the seventeenth century. As Kentucky became more populated it became a corn and tobacco state. With the high volume of corn available, and multiple distilleries, Kentuckians used what was available to them to create their whiskey. The combination of using corn as the base and Elijah Craig’s idea of storing the alcohol in charred oak barrels is what we now know as bourbon. After thousands of years of alcohol evolution, a history handed down from Romans and Vikings, the start of the first American civil war, and surviving through prohibition, in 1964 the U.S. recognized bourbon as a unique American product. The French and Italians have their wine, the Japanese their sake, the Russians their vodka, the Scottish and Irish, their whiskey, and we, us, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, …. We have our Bourbon.
In the hills of Kentucky, where many of the Irish-Scotts settled, it was nearly impossible for the tax collectors to impose the whiskey tax. This was due to the dense forest and hills that only the locals knew how to navigate without getting lost (this is also why Kentucky served as the moonshine state during prohibition). This allowed Kentucky to become the capital of whiskey distilling in the United States during the seventeenth century. As Kentucky became more populated it became a corn and tobacco state. With the high volume of corn available, and multiple distilleries, Kentuckians used what was available to them to create their whiskey. The combination of using corn as the base and Elijah Craig’s idea of storing the alcohol in charred oak barrels is what we now know as bourbon. After thousands of years of alcohol evolution, a history handed down from Romans and Vikings, the start of the first American civil war, and surviving through prohibition, in 1964 the U.S. recognized bourbon as a unique American product. The French and Italians have their wine, the Japanese their sake, the Russians their vodka, the Scottish and Irish, their whiskey, and we, us, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, …. We have our Bourbon.
"Merica"