June 4. On this day, in 1789, the US national version whiskey, Bourbon, was first distilled by Rev Elijah Craig of Kentucky. He named his product “Bourbon whiskey” as a reference to Bourbon County, where he lived. Rev. Craig’s innovation was to use maize (corn) instead of rye or malted barley. Up until this innovation, most US whiskey was made from rye, with some malted barley added as an enzymatic modifier. George Washington, the first US president, made whiskey from rye using very little malt, becoming the largest distiller in the US in the late 1700s.
Corn is cheaper than rye, and Bourbon whiskey has a milder flavor too. Perhaps because of this, US consumption of Bourbon whiskey has come to far surpass that of rye whiskey. Here, in a famous speech, Senator Mitch McConnell tells congress that Bourbon is the spirit of Kentucky, and the spirit of the US. Here, his speech is set to music with other news of the day, and a comment by President Obama saying he’d enjoy having a drink with Senator McConnell. What would that drink be? Straight Bourbon? or Bourbon and water, or perhaps a mint julep, the classic Kentucky concoction, made with Bourbon, sugar, and spearmint.
Related to this topic, I should mention that President Truman liked Bourbon straight, that the favorite drink of Lyndon B. Johnson, was “Bourbon and branch” (branch is water). And that Theodore Roosevelt served mint juleps at The White house (if you played tennis with him) using his own, White-house grown mint, but made with rye, not Bourbon.
GWKuhn outflow point. During a storm this outflow is filled to the roof.
June 14th is also flag day, though only celebrated as a holiday in Pennsylvania. It’s also the day of the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, and the day of the Marijuana act, 1937. Hawaii joined the union this day, and Paris fell in WWII. This is also the day I first got a tour of the George W. Kuhn sewage retention facility, the main sewage plant in our county. A few days before, I walked into the outflow pipe of the plant, see picture. It was some 60 feet wide by 22 feet tall. I was looking for convenient connection points i could use to separate the storm from the sanitary sewage flow through the facility, assuming I became water commissioner.
Robert Buxbaum, June 14, 2016. Some months ago, I suggested that Michigan might change its state bird to the wild turkey. It’s a common MI bird, and also a type of Bourbon.