Bourbon's history blends smoothly with that of the United States itself
Recently, I caught up with a friend at one of Delhi’s better watering holes. While my friend stuck to his favourite pint of beer, I decided to test the cocktail skills of the chap behind the bar, and ordered an Old Fashioned. I cherish my Old Fashioned. In fact, this is the one drink I’d be happy to replace my morning coffee with. It is one of the simplest recipes known to any bartender worth his ilk; yet it is incredibly complex, and difficult to perfect.
Mixed for the first time in the 1880s at the Pendennis Club in Louisville (looh-a-voul), Kentucky, this cocktail calls for a combination of ice, sugar, bitters and rye whiskey. Rye? Yes, the original grain that went into the first examples of whiskey that were distilled in America. And, Jack Daniels was not the first one.
The story of bourbon is probably the story of the United States of America. It begins with the arrival of the first colonists—Spanish, French, German, Irish, British and Scottish—in the early part of the 17th century. With them came the art of distilling. These early settlers put their knowledge to judicious use, as the new land challenged them with a change in raw material. From brewing with barley and fermenting with grapes in Europe, they turned to rye, corn and apples.
Craig might have been happy to know that today bourbon whiskey is required, by law, to be matured in charred new oak casks for a minimum of two years, and has to be made with at least 51 percent corn. Corn is preferred for being one of the most widely grown crops in the US.
(This story appears in the 26 October, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)