The Government Gave Us Bourbon by Jennifer Jenkins
Believe it or not, bourbon was a gift from the American government. In 1964 the U.S. Congress declared the legalities of the liquor: it must be 51% corn, stored in a new charred oak barrel, and produced in America in order to be called “bourbon.” It is the quintessential American whiskey. Maybe that’s why we love it.
It didn’t start there. If you need further proof that George Washington was an astounding founding father, he made bourbon long before that. There is evidence that Washington bought a 50 gallon still in 1761 for use on his farm at Mount Vernon. His mash bill – or recipe – was similar to the one written into law over 200 years later. By 1799, he had the largest distillery in the United States.
Whether Washington was that prescient or whether he just needed another source of income is anybody’s guess. Whiskey was considered currency at the time. Distillers were businessmen. How many wish we were still there with that exchange? “I’d like to pay my electric bill. Here’s a bottle of bourbon that I cooked just for you.”
Taxes soon raised their ugly heads. The American Revolution was expensive, and taxes were slapped on liquor to help pay for the war. The revenue agents often found themselves tarred and feathered as they went to collect.
Thus the Whiskey Rebellion exploded, which Washington himself was forced to quash. This may have shown his strength as a leader in a new country, but he also drew a line in the sand when it came to the legalities of liquor. In essence, Washington forced distillers to cook their product in secret by the light of the moon.
Congress may have given us bourbon, but George Washington gave us moonshine.
About Jennifer Jenkins
Jennifer Jenkins has written for Hippocampus Magazine, NonBinary Review, Up North Lit, Canopy Review, Parentheses Journal, and others. She earned two Glimmer Train Fiction Award honorable mentions and a nomination for a PEN America Short Story Award. She has also worked in the theater, with Manhattan Theatre Club, Sondheim’s Young Playwrights, and the PBS series Great Performances.
Connect with Jennifer on her Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bookbub | Amazon | Goodreads
About the Book
American Bourbon by Jennifer Jenkins
Genre: Fiction, Drama, Suspense
REVIEWS
“Jennifer Jenkins’s AMERICAN BOURBON is a compelling and potent family saga filled with evocative characters as strong and flinty as the Appalachia hills from whence they come, set against a smooth plot that goes down with an easy, supple, clean finish.” –Tony Ray Morris, author of DEEP RIVER BLUES
“Peopled with a cast of characters and a setting out of an early Cormac McCarthy novel, American Bourbon . . . starts out with a burn, working its way through you, then settling into your bones, where memories of the journey linger.” – Jeff Talarigo, Author of THE PEARL DIVER
“A day of reckoning, as thick as the fog in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, looms over the McKinsey clan in this spirited tale of fury, whiskey and grief. And while Jenkins’ rendering of Caleb, the abusive and hard-driving patriarch who parlays an illegal moonshining operation into a multi-million dollar company, is harsh, there is grace to be found among his three grown children as they find their way back to one another. Illuminating, nuanced and heartfelt.” – Laurie Loewenstein, Author of DEATH OF A RAINMAKER
Synopsis
When an illegal moonshine still explodes deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the McKinsey family’s world-famous (and legal) whiskey, Bourbon Sweet Tea, is threatened. Government agents swarm the area, eager to implicate Sweet Tea founder Caleb McKinsey, who was a notorious bootlegger before going legit. Finding out he is dying, McKinsey’s ready to hand on his legacy. But none of his children are on speaking terms.
His daughter Brigit is determined to remake the company against her father’s will, while his sons want nothing to do with their abusive father. When Caleb dangles a lucrative inheritance if all his children return, Brigit and her older brother Mack grudgingly call a truce to find missing brother Kieran.
They journey to New York City, where Kieran fled after his girlfriend disappeared. As crimes from Caleb’s past promise to destroy Bourbon Sweet Tea, the only way to save their company is for Brigit to convince her brothers to embrace the family legends, and live as outlaws once again.
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