by cowdery » Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:12 pm
I'm sure Mike has seen some of the original materials, but for me it's Henry G. Crowgey. His book Kentucky Bourbon, The Early Years of Whiskeymaking is a scholarly tome, full of footnotes and citations to original material. Mike disagrees with some of Crowgey's conclusions, but I don't believe he questions Crowgey's scholarship.
You have to like a man who dedicates his book to his mother.
Here is a quote relevant to this discussion: "For the sake of sentiment and romantic tradition, it would be pleasant to record that a full-blown bourbon whiskey industry emerged from the limestone-layered soil of Kentucky at this time. However, the facts do not bear this out. The evidence suggests that, despite the taste of the early settlers for spirits, there was no such institution as a distinctive frontier beverage. The first few years of settlement were conspicuous for the introduction and use of a considerable variety of fruit and grains other than the indigenous Indian corn. Accordingly, the distiller discriminated little in his choice of raw material and there was a corresponding lack of bias on the part of the consumer."
Subsequently in the same chapter, he observes that references to rye whiskey were abundant in the late 1700s, but there was scarcely a word written about corn or "bourbon" whiskey. He also points out that Kentucky was exporting a lot of peach brandy to downriver markets during that period. From January to May of 1801, the Port of Louisville recorded 42,562 gallons of whiskey shipped and 6, 157 gallons of peach brandy. Whiskey at the time was selling for between 62 and 75 cents per gallon, while peach brandy was selling from $1 to $1.15 per gallon.
Arguably, peach brandy would have tasted more like cognac than corn whiskey did.
According to Crowgey, there was little effort to standardize the proportion of grains used in distilling Kentucky whiskey until the 1820s. In 1823, the Lexington Gazette published a recipe that called for 1.5 bushels of corn meal, 0.5 gallons of barley malt and 4 gallons of rye or wheat meal, what we would recognize today as a bourbon mash bill.
Crowgey cites an 1821 ad in the Western Citizen, published in Bourbon County, as the first known advertisement for bourbon whiskey. He adds, "the use of this nomenclature was to remain almost completely local for the next several years, but by 1840 the use of 'bourbon' in identifying this delightful whiskey had become a statewide practice."
As to the characteristics of this whiskey called "bourbon," there is a clue in market quotations in 1848, in which whiskey referred to as "rectified, raw and unclassified" is priced between 14.25 and 19.25 cents a gallon, while "Old Bourbon Whiskey" is priced between 30 cents and $1 per gallon "according to age."
In the next chapter he discusses the origin of the name and the legacy of Limestone (Maysville). He cites many references to "Old Bourbon Whiskey" in records from the 1840s onward in the Maysville area. He contends that Old Bourbon was a place, i.e., the former expanse of the original Bourbon County, Virginia, and not a type of whiskey.
His main point about aging in new charred barrels it that we have many records specifying the characteristics a whiskey should have and while age is often mentioned, charring of the barrels is not, nor is the color that is the result of such aging mentioned ever, despite the "hundreds of advertisements consulted." Nor was color cited in any of the records from agricultural fairs.
He does cite Harrison Hall, who writing in 1818 admonishes would-be distillers to ensure that their barrels are "well burnt or shaved inside," but this seems to be related to hygene concerns. He further says that, in the summer months, it may be necessary to burn the insides with straw. Crowgey suggests that what began as a sterilization process led to a realization that the taste was also enhanced.
The fact that Hall published his guide in 1818 and the Corlis letter was written in 1826 suggests that the practice was becoming known in that period, but the absense of any other reference to it until mid-century suggests that is wasn't widespread.
All of this is tantalizingly inconclusive, but those are the facts as I know them.