Bourbon Names

Posted on 01. Feb, 2012 by admin in Featured, News blog

It’s America’s native spirit, made solely in the US, and pretty much exclusively in Kentucky – apparently 97% of all bourbon is distilled near Bardstown.

A little look into the process of making bourbon offers a little insight into Kentucky’s history, from the name bourbon itself, to why and how it evolved. Even the names are intriguing.

Bourbon
It’s named after Old Bourbon county, Kentucky, the first settled area west of the Allegheny mountains of Virginia. Early settlers found that the limestone provided good filtered water, in turn good for growing tasty corn. So abundant was the crop that early settlers took to distilling whiskey from the leftover crop. Soon the whiskey became a sort of currency.

The county was named Bourbon after the French royal dynasty, a thankyou for its help in defeating the British in the war of independence. Louisville and La Fayette county both owe their names this way. When the first whiskey blends made their way down the Ohio, barrels were stamped Old Bourbon. Consumers liked it – few had ever tried corn-based whiskey, with its distinctive sweet, caramelised flavour, gleaned from being aged in charred oak barrels – and soon asked for bourbon by name. It stuck.

Wild turkey
Kentucky was fabled for its wild turkey flocks in pioneer days (it still boasts the largest US wild turkey population), though they were near-extinct when the Ripys distillery brothers started a distillery in 1869. According to Wikipedia, in 1940, distillery executive Thomas McCarthy took some warehouse samples with him for, ah hem, “lubrication”, on a wild turkey hunting trip in 1940. The next year his friends asked him for “some of that wild turkey whiskey”. A brand was born.

Elijah Craig (Heaven Hill Distilleries)
A Baptist preacher who settled in Kentucky along with a 500-strong congregation trampling over the mountains from South Carolina, Craig was reportedly the first to age the whiskey in charred oak casks, which eventually gave bourbon its distinctive rich colour and unique taste. The 12- and 18-year Elijah Craig bourbons are reportedly among the best.

Basil Hayden
One of the lighter bodied bourbons, part of the Beam Inc distillery, and universally thought to be named after the University of Kentucky basketball player. Not so. It honours the Maryland Catholic who settled Kentucky with a 25-strong group in 1785. Hayden was a distinguished distiller, as it seems was virtually everyone who arrived in early Kentucky.

Jim Beam
So named after Johannes Boehm, part of a German emigrant family who arrived in 1780s Kentucky. The clan anglicised their name to Beam; their first batch in 1785 was named Old Jake Beam, after Jacob Beam. Jim Beam was his son. The rest is history.

Buffalo Trace
Named after the “road” or “path” trampled through the wilderness by the millions of migrating buffalo, and which stretches through Kentucky. Buffalo Trace is the oldest distiller in the US, started in 1773, albeit not actually continuously distilling through this time – Prohibition saw to that. Did you know? The Buffalo Trace Distillery is reportedly home to the world’s smallest bonded storage warehouse, Warehouse V – storing only a single barrel of whiskey at a time.

Knob Creek
Don’t laugh! Especially as Abraham Lincoln was born there. Knobs are small rounded isolated hills that pre-dominate in northern parts of Kentucky. According to the Knob Creek website: “Sticking to history as a muse, when it came time to name Knob Creek®, the answer was nearby. Approximately 20 miles south of the family distillery runs a little creek, the same creek that ran by Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home. It’s as simple as that.”

Follow Our Road Tripper Around Kentucky

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by admin in News blog

Kentucky Tried?

Hi yall, I’m off to Kentucky: home of the thoroughbred racehorses and American racing, the bourbon capital of the world, the home of Muhammad Ali, the Louisville Slugger baseball bat, bluegrass music, the gateway to the South, Mammoth Caves, the biggest cave system in the US, and Cumberland Falls, the only place save for Victoria Falls where you get “moonbows”. Of vast state parks, sprawling lakes and good old southern hospitality. And yes, the home of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Colonel Sanders!

“How you doing”

The first thing that hits you about Kentucky, is the people. Friendly isn’t the word. Everyone says “hello”, or “morning”, or “hi”, or “how you doing”. They make eye contact. And when they say “have a good day”, it’s as if they mean it – none of this “have a nice day” supermarket checkout faux pleasantry, which can often translate as “Look I have to say this, otherwise I get sacked – I couldn’t really give two cents if you get mugged on the way out and your car gets totalled by a bus”.

“Yep, they’re friendly, very friendly” says Craig, a diver from Wisconsin checking out supports on one of the new river bridges. “And they mean it, it’s not like Detroit.”

I sat next to Craig on the plane from Detroit, perhaps the smallest airplane I have encountered. It figures, Lexington is one of the smallest airports I have encountered, save for the early days of Ryanair flying into one-man flying school aerodromes in suburban Oslo, Norway. On the other side of the coin, baggage pick-up, rental cars and the 10 yard walk from the plane to arrivals is a plus.

Lexington

East Main in Lexington, Kentucky

Now cute or quaint aint the word for this town, the capital of horses. Compared to much of urban America, it’s positively regal. Surrounded by undulating bluegrass fields, horse ranches and stud farms, pockmarked by old wooden barns, lined by pretty green, black or traditionally white plank fences or stone walls, all topped off by the palatial mansions of the “colonels”, the thoroughbred horse trainers and ranch owners.

The city of nearly 250,000 is brimming with Victorian townhouses, wooden arched gables, stone window ledges, clapperboard faciers, with neo-classical collonades on the leading up the covered porches; townhouses all, it’s an America I haven’t seen before. Most of the town seems to be lined with these old homes, save for a part of downtown, where the high-rise banks have sprouted, albeit for only a block or two. Banks such as the oddly named skyrise tower of the Fifth Third Ban”, which makes you wonder what happened to the first four.

Front Porches of Houses in Lexington, Kentucky

Its clear Lexington has history, as befits horse country. Pioneers came here after the Revolutionary War (the War of Independence in this Brit’s book), settling for the vast pastures and naming the town after the battle which sealed victory. The horse farms and breeders came soon afterwards.

It claims to be the Horse Capital of the World – and why not? Nearly everyone here has links to the trade, be they the marketing manager of a horse-feed firm, jockey or a trainee vet. Well, nearly everyone: in downtown Lexington, law practices abound, and it’s clear quite a few people are majoring in criminal justice or work at the nearby law firms. Perhaps there are major disputes between ranch owners (“hey, that’s my horse” … “no it’s not, it mine!” “Prove it!”)

Basketball

Don’t mention the word basketball; it’s Kentucky’s major sport and the team, UK (University of Kentucky, based in Lexington) has just lost in the quarter finals to Oklahoma). Still, they don’t seem too upset at the Sidebar grill, a funky indie-style bar serving value for money burgers and steaks on 147 North Limestone (www.sidebargrill.com). It’s $5.99 for a ground sirloin patty burger with cheddar, onion, pickle and lettuce, with fries. The bottled Kentucky Ale, a lively brew, and tasty, rocks in at 5.4%. “Yeh, don’t mention the game,” says Anna, the waitress. “It sucks.” If you want a more fancy meal, try La Deauville bistro or La La Lucy’s on East Main.

You won’t mention the game at Mia’s, either, a lively bar this Monday night. Everyone is too busy getting drunk. It’ the only bar buzzing this night on the edge of the downtown area; McCarthy’s is dead, as is Molly’s, and Cheapside, next to the being-renovated old market is quiet too. Well, it is Monday, and 10pm. so why is Mia’s throbbing? Karaoke. or, to be precise, gay and lesbian karaoke.

You do know it’s a gay and lesbian bar, ask Brian? I kinda figured, a casual glance of the student clientele and the karaoke playlist gave it away (Neil Diamond, for your future reference). And who else, on a Monday night, before the start of the annual spring race meet at nearby Keeneland racetrack, would be whooping it up on a Monday night.

Oh, my God, I just love your accent….

Kentucky doesn’t get many visitors from across the pond (well, not just across the pond – across the Appalachians, and West Virginia, then Virgina, and then the pond). You can tell, ‘cos when you speak, many people look, well, if not exactly awestruck, at least phazed or non-plussed. “Oh-my-God, I just love your accent!” You can never tire of that phrase. I might even get a t-shirt saying it. I was gonna get a T-shirt with the design I Heart Kentucky, in the same design as HK or NY, but with KY being the abbreviation, well, perhaps not.

Gratz Park Inn in Kentucky

The Gratz Park Inn

I’m staying at the Gratz Park Inn (http://www.gratzparkinn.com/photoGallery.html), a converted old Victorian mansion home in deep downtown, a refurbished grand Victorian property with a classical piano taking pride of place in the lounge/reception. The bedroom is vast, dominated by perhaps the comfiest double-poster bed I have slept in. After the missed connection at Detroit, I need some shuteye. A lush four-poster bed kinda helps.

DAY TWO

Come on, when in America, it’s best to track down some little corner of Americana, which is kinda hard to find in refined, Victorian Lexington. Take one step forward, the Parkette, a fabled old 50s drive-in diner just off the junction to Winchester. Hidden in a sea of drive-in shops, motor malls, fast-food joints and other assembled anomalies, sits the Parkette. The huge towering sign shouts Shrimp boxes and fried chicken.

Sign outside Parkette

You simply pull in, drive up to a bay with a speaker and menu and order, the waitress will then come deliver. Sounds simple, but it aint – for starter, you have to make sure you park driver-side next to the meNu and ordering machine. Secondly, you have to make sure that particular bay machine works. On the third attempt, my face as red as burger ketchup, I succeed.

Gloria rolls out with my “poorboy”, a $2.99 Big Mac double beef ground sirloin, with red onion, tomato, special Parkette sauce and mustard and pickle. It’s not bad for $2.99, redolent of a Big Mac, but less processed, which kinda figures, cos apparently, the Parkette used to be an original McDonald’s. Hee they offer shrimpbozes, tender shrimp, deep fried, or chicken, deep fried, apparently it’s famous, it’s deep fried in lard.

Parkette Owners

Nowadays, the Parkette host 50s retro nights, where, I guess, people in long ra-ra skirts bobby socks, ponytails and pluco-quiffed guys in baseball jackets re-enact the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies in their old cadillacs.

Photo of Yellow Plymouth Duster

Next up, the drive to Louisville, through Georgetown, Frankfort and Shelbyville …
(“Oooh, there’s a cow!)