Jim Beam kentucky straight bourbon whiskEy?

Question

Hi every one!

I have one question Jim Beam is bourbon whiskey not Irish, so why it says whiskEy with E not just whisky? Or maybe all bourbon should be with E and type such as whiskey not whisky?

Thank you every one for your time.Cheers

Answer 1

The spelling of whisky is traditionally Whiskey for Ireland and Whisky for Scotland. The big Irish and Scotch-Irish influence in early Kentucky and Tennessee is probably part of the reason the US adpoted the "EY" spelling. The rest of the reason is that we tend to spell other words with "EY".

There's no hard rule on how to spell it, I stick with "whisky" because I drink more Scotch than bourbon.

Answer 2

Sour Mash WhiskEy

Answer 3

The people who started making distilled alcoholic beverages from grain and aged in oak in North America are known as the "Scots Irish," and who, it happened, were just plain irish, so the beverage they produced was called, in the Irish style, "whiskey".  At first this wasn't a big deal, since English spelling hadn't been standardized yet in any country, and rum was the preferred tipple for most people anyway.  But what ultimately happened is that when Britain and its territories did standardize, they standardized on the Scots English spelling.

America, outside of Britain's sphere of influence, ignored the standardization and by collective popular decision, continued to spell the word "whiskey".

As an footnote to this story, after prohibition ended and laws regulating the production of alcohol were re-instated, the official spelling became 'whisky', although 'whiskey' is still allowed as a nod to tradition.  However, some American whisky distilleries--most notably Maker's Mark Bourbon in Kentucky and George Dickel in Tennessee--use the proper spelling of 'whisky' on their bottles.