Bourbon Empire

March 30, 2015
In this savory history of bourbon whiskey, journalist Mitenbuler recounts the journey of this archetypal American libation: distilled from a mix of primarily corn and with grains, and aged in charred-oak barrels. The narrative follows from bourbon’s backwoods origins, through its patriotic ascension in the late 18th century over British-associated rum, to its modern maturity (after a flirtation with gangsterism during Prohibition) as the creature of multinational corporations. Mitenbuler engagingly explores the science and lore of whiskey-making and the resulting subtleties of taste, both lampooning the new wine-style whiskey connoisseurship and wallowing in it (let the “concentrated bursts of honey, spice and vanilla flavors unwind on your tongue,” he murmurs). But bourbon’s convoluted cultural associations fascinate him just as much: its protean links to cowboys, blue-collar joes, and Wall Street bankers, and the fake advertising backstories about rugged individualist founders sprouted from Kentucky hollers. Mitenbuler’s prose is relaxed and mellow with a shot of wry; his entertaining, loose-limbed narrative revels in the colorful characters and droll hypocrisies of capitalism at its booziest.

April 1, 2015
"America was astonishingly drunk." So concluded just about every visitor to these shores in the early days of the republic. Who would have thought that taking a plug from the jug could be a resonant political act? Mitenbuler, a journalist who specializes in "drinking culture," combs the archives to turn up stories both entertaining and revealing about how bourbon came to be identified as a national drink-a process as artificial and as eagerly swallowed up as the invention of Paul Bunyan. And not just national: by Mitenbuler's reckoning, Rebel Yell, later beloved of Keith Richard and other rockers, was a coded rejection of the nascent civil rights movement in the South. Meanwhile, other brands became popular in part thanks to deals cut with the military to place it in commissaries around the world-deals in keeping, it seems, with some of the charges of wartime profiteering that industry executives faced in the 1940s. The author can occasionally be smart-alecky ("Jack Daniel's today is often seen as a bit downmarket, the quaff of biker bars and a prop of Guns N' Roses band photos"), but mostly he takes his work seriously, offering up intriguing tidbits-on, for example, the makeup of George Washington's own blend, revolutionary inasmuch as it drew on homegrown rather than imported ingredients, part of a process that "increasingly turned into a popular symbol of national unity and self-sufficiency that helped clear away rum's whiff of colonial rule." Mitenbuler closes with a brief account of the hipster-fueled revival of bourbon by means of Maker's Mark, "a celebrity alongside a few other star brands," and the rise of bespoke microdistilleries that traded in millennial notions of authenticity and locality over the values favored by boomers, "who held the quaint notion that 'taste' was most important." An illuminating, well-paced narrative that will interest students and imbibers of the wee drap, American-style.

May 15, 2015

Despite whiskey's origins in European cultures, the story of bourbon is especially American; Congress affirmed its national character decades ago. The book opens at that point, then jumps back to the early days of colonization when abundant corn was used to produce New World variations on Old World spirits. The author successfully intertwines the changing nature of bourbon production and consumption with major historical events, including the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and Cold War, touching on issues such as taxation and patriotism. Abundant and even surprising detail is bundled with sharp writing that doesn't hesitate to criticize (a modern bourbon's aroma is likened to a garbage bag of sugar melted in a microwave). Centuries of U.S. history are filtered through a whiskey bottle for the enlightenment and entertainment of readers. VERDICT This terrific account of the rich heritage behind a classic American beverage is recommended for those who enjoy reading histories of foodstuffs of all sorts.--Peter Hepburn, Coll. of the Canyons Lib., Santa Clarita, CA

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