Bourbon’s long road to an American tradition

National Bourbon Heritage Month traces a uniquely shaped U.S. whiskey – with a modern chapter unfolding in Lynchburg

3:00 p.m. Sept. 15, 2026

DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor

September is when football settles back into the weekends and the first cool mornings start sneaking in. Supper gets a little heavier about then, too.

It also belongs to bourbon.

National Bourbon Heritage Month has been observed each September for nearly two decades, a nod to a whiskey born on this side of the Atlantic and shaped over generations by farmers, distillers, coopers, and whatever could happen inside an oak barrel if nobody got in too much of a hurry.

The observance dates to 2007, when Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning – a baseball Hall of Famer – took the mound with Senate Resolution 294. The Senate approved it by unanimous consent on Aug. 2, recognizing September as National Bourbon Heritage Month and bourbon as “America’s Native Spirit.”

The resolution covered September 2007, but the whiskey world kept right on celebrating. Distilleries, bars, restaurants, and bourbon drinkers have marked the month ever since.

Around Lynchburg, the idea does not need much explaining. Whiskey already runs deep here. Jack Daniel’s made this small town known around the world, and Company Distilling has added another chapter on the Square, including bourbon made under the direction of former Jack Daniel’s master distiller Jeff Arnett.

Bourbon may be Kentucky’s most famous whiskey. It does not belong to Kentucky alone.

Nobody wrote down the first batch

Trying to find the fellow who invented bourbon is a good way to lose an afternoon, mostly because there probably wasn’t one.

Colonists were distilling grain in America long before Kentucky became a state. One of the earliest written accounts dates to Virginia in 1620, when English settler George Thorpe made a spirit from corn. It was not bourbon as we know it. That took time.

As settlers crossed the Appalachians during the 1700s, they carried their stills and whiskey-making habits with them. Rye had been common farther east. Out on the frontier, corn grew well, and there was plenty of it.

A farmer with more grain than he could sell had another option. Turn it into whiskey, and the crop lasted longer, traveled more easily, and was worth more.

From there, the story gets muddy. Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister and Kentucky distiller, is often credited with discovering what happened when corn whiskey went into a charred oak barrel. It is a fine story and has been repeated enough to sound settled.

History is not quite that cooperative. Distillers were scattered across the region, borrowing methods and working with whatever was handy. Charring barrels was not some unheard-of trick, either. Somewhere along the way, whiskey made mostly from corn began coming out of new oak darker, smoother, and different from what went in.

The result became bourbon.

Even the name carries some uncertainty. Bourbon County, Ky., usually gets the credit, though historians have kicked around other explanations tied to the old whiskey trade and New Orleans.

Nobody left a neat little note saying, “Here is where bourbon started.” They left us the whiskey.

Then the barrel went to work

Early whiskey was useful because grain could spoil and whiskey did not. Then somebody gave it time.

Whiskey traveled in barrels because barrels were practical. They could be rolled, stacked, loaded onto wagons, and sent downriver. Along the way, the clear spirit worked its way into the wood. Heat pushed it deeper. Cooler weather pulled it back.

Something different came out. The whiskey picked up color. The oak softened the rough edges and brought flavors leaning toward vanilla, caramel, spice, smoke, or toasted sugar.

That barrel became part of bourbon’s identity, and eventually the government wrote down the rules. To legally be called bourbon today, the whiskey has to be made in the United States. Its grain recipe must contain at least 51% corn. It can be distilled no higher than 160 proof and must enter a new charred oak container at no more than 125 proof.

That word new matters because a bourbon barrel gets one turn at bourbon. Once emptied, it can hold Scotch, rum, beer, maple syrup, or another spirit, but its bourbon days are over.

Another old bit of barroom wisdom says bourbon has to sit in a barrel for at least two years. Not quite. Plain bourbon carries no federal minimum aging requirement. Straight bourbon does. It has to spend at least two years in the barrel, and younger straight bourbons face additional age-statement rules on the label.

Kentucky makes most of the bourbon in America, and nobody disputes its place at the head of that table. Still, there is no Kentucky requirement. Bourbon made in Tennessee is bourbon just the same.

Washington put a fence around the name

Bourbon’s claim to being uniquely American is more than a slogan cooked up by a tourism office. Congress recognized bourbon in 1964 as a “distinctive product of the United States,” putting it in much the same national-category territory that Scotch whisky occupies in Scotland or Cognac does in France.

That matters because a distiller in Scotland can make a corn whiskey, and a distiller in Japan can age whiskey in new, charred oak, but neither can ship it here and properly label it as bourbon. Bourbon starts in America because, by law, it has to.

The phrase “America’s Native Spirit” was coined later and used in the 2007 Bourbon Heritage Month resolution. It fit because bourbon had already spent a couple of centuries growing up with the country.

Whiskey was there on the frontier. It was there when the new federal government imposed a whiskey tax, and farmers in western Pennsylvania rebelled over it in the 1790s.

It survived temperance movements and Prohibition. Then tastes shifted, vodka got fashionable, and plenty of old American whiskey started gathering dust. Bourbon kept hanging around until America eventually came back for another pour.

Lynchburg adds another name to the shelf

Around here, it is easy to hear “American whiskey” and immediately think Jack Daniel’s. Fair enough – but Lynchburg’s whiskey story has widened.

Company Distilling opened its Lynchburg operation with Arnett among its founders. He spent nearly two decades at Jack Daniel Distillery and rose to master distiller before leaving in 2020.

That makes the Company connection a little more interesting than simply having spirit in town. Arnett learned his trade inside the distillery that made Lynchburg famous, then helped build a new whiskey company that came back here with bourbon on the shelf. In a town where Tennessee whiskey has long dominated the conversation, Company offers visitors another way to see how close the two traditions really are – and where they part company.

Its Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished with Maple Wood begins with bourbon, with maple wood entering the picture during finishing. That extra step also shows just how particular whiskey language can get. Once another wood is involved in the process, the label has to tell the drinker what happened.

The rules are tight, but there is still plenty of room for a distiller to wander around inside them. That is part of what has fueled bourbon’s latest run. Whiskey makers can change the grain recipe, adjust the proof, move barrels around the warehouse, or finish the whiskey another way once aging is done.

Some ideas make the next batch. Others probably never get mentioned again, which is part of making whiskey, too.

The bottom shelf grew up

Bourbon has traveled a long way from a farmer trying to get some extra value out of corn. Prohibition nearly wiped out the American distilling industry. Most distilleries closed, though a small number survived by selling whiskey for medicinal use. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the business had to build itself again.

Then came another long slide. Clear spirits gained favor, American whiskey lost some shine, and plenty of bourbon sat around longer than anybody originally planned.

Time helped again. Drinkers came back looking for older bottles, small batches, single barrels, barrel-proof releases, and whiskey with a story behind it. Bourbon moved off the bottom shelf and into display cases. Bottles once treated as everyday liquor became collectibles.

Today, American whiskey is a multibillion-dollar business. Industry figures show Americans bought just under 30 million 9-liter cases of American whiskey in 2025, generating about $5.1 billion in supplier sales. That works out to roughly 71 million gallons.

There is not a clean national figure for bourbon alone in the broad industry sales tables. Bourbon is grouped with Tennessee whiskey and other American whiskeys, so claims about exactly how much bourbon Americans drink each year deserve a little caution.

Even with that caveat, Americans are drinking an awful lot of whiskey.

September gives the old whiskey its due

The Senate resolution behind National Bourbon Heritage Month was never just about finding another reason for a pour. It recognized the farmers growing the grain, the families and workers behind distilleries, and a whiskey tradition that had become part of the American story.

You can see some of it without leaving Lynchburg. One distillery here has spent generations making the Tennessee whiskey that put the town on maps all over the world. Another now pours bourbon on the Square, led in part by a distiller whose career was shaped right here.

Bourbon has picked up plenty of polish along the way. There are bottles that cost more than a decent used truck, tasting notes that can wander halfway through the pantry, and limited releases people line up to buy.

Take all that off the shelf, and bourbon is still pretty simple at heart. Corn goes into the mash, whiskey goes into fresh charred oak, and then somebody has to leave it alone long enough to see what happens.

That has worked out pretty well so far.