Why Some Civil War-Era Bourbon Probably Didn't Taste As Good As The Real Thing

Over the course of the Civil War, bourbon faced a war of its own on multiple fronts. Sourcing the proper mash bill of at least 51% corn, being able to age it properly, and questionable ingredients all contributed to the high risk of lower quality and lesser tasting bourbon for those in the Confederate states. Leading up to the Civil War, Kentucky led the country in bourbon production. While the Bluegrass state initially attempted neutrality, a failed coup by a Confederate battalion led the state to declare for the Union. With Union blockades preventing goods from being imported into the treasonous Confederacy, bourbon lovers and vendors were forced to get creative with the alleged whiskeys sold.

The popular mash bill during the Civil War era contained 77% corn. This grain is what gives bourbon its signature sweetness and smooth finish compared to other whiskeys. As the war raged, the South was cut off from access true bourbon. To make matters worse, a prohibition was enacted to preserve the corn for feeding soldiers and the copper equipment for war efforts. With less access to corn, the use of other cereal grains increased in southern mash bills, making it decidedly not bourbon once the corn content went below 51%. The use of other cereal grains like rye would lead to a much different flavor profile and probably wouldn't have tasted as delicious or refined as the high-rye bourbons we love today. This faux bourbon would have been much spicier in flavor and more aggressive on the palate. 

No bourbon or whiskey was safe from effects of the war, not even General Grant's bourbon of choice, Old Crow. Not only was bourbon hard to come by in the South due to the blockades, the North exorbitantly taxed it in an effort to fund the war. Whiskeys went from being taxed 20 cents a gallon at the start of the war to 70 cents a gallon towards the end. Today, that would be a jump $6.19 to $22.54 over just three years.

There was also the risk of other, unsavory elements added to whiskey during the war like with Sutler's whiskey. This potent potable was part whiskey, part turpentine, part sulfuric acid, and part strychnine — a chemical that interferes with your nerve signals to your muscles. So, not entirely palatable or safe to consume. A happy consequence of the black market and adulterated liquor sold during the Civil War was a group of Kentuckian distillers petitioning for explicit rules on what could and couldn't go into bottles and how it should be made. The first regulatory laws for any whiskey produced in the U.S. didn't appear until 1897, many years before the differences between bourbon and its broader category of whiskey were fully fleshed out in 1964.