Bourbon’s All-American Roar(3)
Which brings us back to that shake-off: Ms. Ramsey, 28, is a bartender at Baxter’s 942 Bar and Grill here. She will now compete in a national Manhattan-making competition in New York, sponsored by Esquire magazine and by Woodford Reserve, which is also among the brands owned by Brown-Forman, the hometown liquor giant here. And according to data released in the 2011 Liquor Handbook, its flagship brand, Jack Daniel’s, spent nearly $15 million on advertising in 2009-10, double that spent by Jim Beam and Evan Williams.
JACK DANIEL’S, produced in Lynchburg, Tenn., takes pride in calling itself Tennessee whiskey. But, just like bourbon, it is made mostly from corn and aged in new charred-oak barrels. The distinctive flavor comes from the “charcoal mellow” process, which involves dropping the whiskey through 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal. “It imparts a distinctive smoothness,” Jack Daniel’s says. “Charcoal mellowing makes Jack Daniel’s what it is — a Tennessee whiskey, not a bourbon.”
In a 2002 essay for Food & Wine magazine titled, “Brown Is Beautiful: Learning to Love Bourbon,” Benjamin Cheever wrote, “I assumed that if you wanted fine, regional whiskey, you had to cross the pond to Scotland.” But then he tried a sample of Maker’s Mark. “And it was good,” he wrote. “This whiskey looked like clover honey and it went down without burning. Even the finest single-malt Scotch is harsh.”
Dennis Withey of Louisville used to be a big Scotch drinker, but not any more. On Tuesday night, Mr. Withey and a drinking buddy, Bob Engle, were enjoying a $3 shot of Very Old Barton, chased by beer at the Silver Dollar, a new restaurant and bar in Louisville. By 8 p.m., every seat at the 42-foot bar, in a renovated 1890s firehouse, was taken, and Kentucky-made whiskey was flowing freely.
The Barton “was nice and smooth,” said Mr. Withey, whose allegiance has switched to Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. With over 50 choices at the Silver Dollar, he added, “I’ll be back.”
Interest in American whiskey has pervaded popular culture in books like “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,” by Daniel Okrent, as well as in the documentary film “Prohibition,” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, and the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.”
