J.R. Ewing, the scoundrel oil baron of the prime time melodrama “Dallas,” was known to often enjoy a neat order of bourbon and branch as his tipple of choice. John Wayne fancied Wild Turkey, another bourbon whiskey. For Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, it was Jack Daniels. Mila Kunis likes Jim Beam. And Anthony Bourdain, traveler extraordinaire, in an interview on the Reserve Channel, called Pappy Van Winkle 20-Year “the most glorious bourbon on the face of the planet.”
In September, the spotlight is on celebrating bourbon. Again, that is. Short history lesson. In 1964, Congress declared bourbon as “America’s Native Spirit,” thus making it the only spirit distinctive to the United States. Then in 2007 when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., introduced a resolution that named September 2007 as “National Bourbon Heritage Month,” it was supposed to be only a one-time thing. But glory hallelujah! For us bourbon aficionados, the tradition lived on and has continued every September since then, including this year.
The genesis of the distinctly American Bourbon, an ambrosially sweet, slightly spicy corn liquor aged in oak barrels to luminous hues of amber and topaz, was in Kentucky and has been around since the 1700s. The creation of bourbon has been attributed to many, among them a Baptist preacher named Elijah Craig, Daniel Boone’s cousin Wattie Boone, Evan Williams and Robert Samuels, whose lineage would produce Maker’s Mark, one of the more widely known bourbons today. And as if George Washington didn’t have enough to do, with being the first president, a soldier, statesman, surveyor, farmer and goodness knows what else, he embarked on a journey with his Scottish-born plantation manager James Anderson to become the nation’s largest distiller of whiskey, including rye whiskey, bourbon’s kissin’ cousin.
