Charred Barrels

There's a lot of history and 'lore' behind bourbon so discuss both here.

Moderator: Squire

Charred Barrels

Unread postby bourbonv » Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:51 pm

One of the bits of lore in the bourbon industry is the origin of charred barrels. The legends tell us that Elijah Craig somehow had a fire in the cooperage that only burned the inside of the barrels and that is how the charred barrel came to be used to make bourbon.

I have been looking into this matter and I have found this to be truely legend. It is my belief that bourbon is aged in charred barrels so Kentucky whiskey could be sold to the people in New Orleans in the 1820's by making it taste more like cognac, which was aged in charred barrels. To back this up, the earliest newspaper advertisement for "bourbon" in Kentucky papers dates to the early 1820's. The earliest written record that mentions charring barrels comes from a Lexington, Ky. (Fayette County) grocer writing to John Corlis (Bourbon County distiller) in which he writes that if Corlis "will burn or char the inside of the barrels it will greatly improve the flavor".

The challenge is to look into New Orleans newspapers and see when the earliest advertisements for bourbon are found there. Even better, find out who is doing the early advertisement and you may have the true "first bourbon" producer. I say producer because I believe that it was not a distiller, but instead someone who would by Kentucky whiskey from multiple distillers and put it into charred barrels to age for sale down the river.

Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby bunghole » Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:58 am

Sounds like a road trip to 'The Big Easy' is in order! What a fun place to do some research.

:arrow: ima :cabbage:
User avatar
bunghole
Registered User
 
Posts: 2157
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:42 am
Location: Stuart's Draft, Virginia

Unread postby cowdery » Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:10 pm

What's the date of the Corlis letter, Mike?
- Chuck Cowdery

Author of Bourbon, Straight
User avatar
cowdery
Registered User
 
Posts: 1586
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:07 pm
Location: Chicago

Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:01 am

Chuck,
The letter is dated 15 February 1826. This show that a distiller who has lived in Bourbon County for 10 years was not familiar with the process of charring barrels and had to be told by a Fayette county grocer. If Bourbon Whiskey was invented in Bourbon County in the late 1700's surely a distiller in that county would have heard about it 30 years later.

Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby gillmang » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:50 am

Isn't James Crow also associated with the methodical aging of bourbon in charred wood? When did he do his work in Kentucky, was it not around this time?

Bourbon County then was not a small place and communications were poor; how would a grocer, receiving some whiskey at least in bulk directly from suppliers (as evidenced by the letter), know about charring otherwise than by sourcing some whiskey from distillers in Bourbon County who were familiar with that method?

Gary
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:07 am

Gary,
Crow is later. I don't recall off the top of my head exactly when he came to America but I want to say about 1838.

People in Kentucky were communicating quite well at that time. News from the east coast and the west made it way through Kentucky quite well. There was a regular post and people were writing letters (even William Clark sent mail back to his brother Jonathan during his expedition to the west coast).

I think Corlis did not know about this because it had more to do with merchants and grocers than distillers. Distillers made whiskey. Merchants bought that whiskey, turned it into bourbon by aging it in charred barrels for several years and sent it down the river to New Orleans. I also believe that the "birthplace" of bourbon was Shippingport in Jefferson County because it was located on the Falls of the Ohio. Every boat coming down the river was unloaded at the falls and stored in a warehouse in Shippingport. If the boat survived the trip over the falls, it would be reloaded to continue the trip. If it did not the goods had to either 1) wait until there owners purchased a new boat, or 2) be sold to a merchant willing to buy the goods from the warehouse, or 3) abandoned. And who owned the warehouse at Shippingport? Two brothers who were French with ties to New Orleans.

Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby bunghole » Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:17 am

This whole ordeal deserves some serious intellectual 'unpacking'. While I understand the parlay, others may not. Please speak plainly so that we all might understand.

:arrow: ima :smilebox:
User avatar
bunghole
Registered User
 
Posts: 2157
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:42 am
Location: Stuart's Draft, Virginia

Unread postby 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.
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:57 pm

Gary,
I thought Linn was talking to me! I know I can get a little technical at times.

Gary, you have summed up what I was saying quite well, but left out one point - the name Bourbon would also appeal to the people of New Orleans at that time because many of them came to New World to escape the revolution in France... the revolution that deposed of the French Bourbon family.

Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby gillmang » Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:06 pm

Well put (as always) Professor Veach. Those new arrivals from France would have been royalists, conservatives who despised the new republican France. So those smart traders along the river may have thought, hey, we'll call their kind of liquor Bourbon, they'll like that those new Frenchmen in town with powdery wigs who have money to burn. We'll take it off them, and give'em good American whiskey aged to be like that sissy brandy they like. :)

Gary
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:11 pm

Gary,
I could not have said it better myself.
Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby TNbourbon » Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:12 pm

I'm just an interested bystander in all this -- I have no unique knowledge to add -- but it strikes me from my study of general history that it might not be an either/or thing. In other words, it may be some combination of all these things, each cementing or adding to a practice or practices already begun.
Last edited by TNbourbon on Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
TNbourbon
Registered User
 
Posts: 430
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 10:11 pm

Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:32 pm

Tim,
You are probably right. The thing about history is you start with a thesis and look for evidence related to your thoughts. Then you toss out your original thesis as evidence is found taking you down a completely different track. When I first started looking for charred barrels several years ago, I thought the likely source was going to be water barrels on sailing ships as the source of charred barrels for whiskey. Over the years my thoughts have changed as I gathered data. I may be proved wrong again if I find additional evidence pointing me in another direction, but at this point I don't think so. Then again John is working on aged in charred barrels as a practice founded in Pennsylvania by German and Swiss immigrants. Interesting theory, I just don't see the evidence yet. (Keep trying John.) He may prove his theory yet or it may be a totally different angle neither one of us has found yet.

Mike Veach
User avatar
bourbonv
Registered User
 
Posts: 4086
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Louisville, Ky.

Unread postby cowdery » Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:45 am

Although Mike and I disagree on a few details, we generally agree on this subject. What you have to keep in mind is that we are talking about two different and completely unrelated things.

1. When did Kentucky whiskey begin to be called bourbon?

2. When did that whiskey come to have the characteristics we know as bourbon today, probably the key one of which is the use of new, charred oak barrels.

Exactly when and where the name originated is where Mike and I disagree slightly. I believe the name came to be used when Limestone, now Maysville, was the primary Ohio River port for northeastern Kentucky, all of which was Bourbon County when that county was first established. I think we can all agree it never referred to modern Bourbon County. Exactly when the name and whiskey hooked up is hard to pinpoint but as Mike mentioned, it appears in advertising as early as 1820. My guess would be that it started a decade or more before that.

But you have to remember that at that time, the name "bourbon whiskey" referred to any corn whiskey made in that region. It wasn't necessarily what we call bourbon today. There wasn't a distinction. That Fayette grocer wasn't telling the distiller how to make "bourbon," as distinguished from generic "whiskey," he was telling him how to make good whiskey in the local manner.

There seems to be a misconception in some of the comments in this thread that the earliest references to bourbon referred to a whiskey aged in charred cooperage. That isn't necessarily the case. The name probably was adopted before the practice, and the impetus for both may have been to appeal to Cognac-lovers, but the two things happened independently.

Crow's contribution, toward the middle of the century, was to sell aged whiskey exclusively. Until Crow, most distillers sold both.
- Chuck Cowdery

Author of Bourbon, Straight
User avatar
cowdery
Registered User
 
Posts: 1586
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:07 pm
Location: Chicago

Unread postby cowdery » Sat Feb 19, 2005 1:01 am

A few other points:

The fact that Corlis, the distiller, was in Bourbon County mainly shows that the use of that name had little connection to the much diminished Bourbon County of Corlis's day, and ours. The fact that Corlis was in Bourbon was most likely just a happy coincidence.

That letter does supports the theory that middlemen, not distillers, started the practice of aging in charred barrels. So does what we know of the general practice of the day, which is that distillers could and did sell their whiskey as fast as they could make it.

Forget Elijah Craig. It is unlikely that he had anything to do with either the naming of the product or the adoption of the aging practice.

In addition to New Orleans, there were no small number of French Royalists running around Kentucky at the time and at many points along the river between KY and NO. You might say the area was filthy with them, depending on how you feel about the French.
- Chuck Cowdery

Author of Bourbon, Straight
User avatar
cowdery
Registered User
 
Posts: 1586
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:07 pm
Location: Chicago

Next

Return to Bourbon Lore

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 39 guests