bourbon
Pluralbourbons (some meanings)
- 1An American whiskey distilled mostly from corn (at least 51%) and aged in charred new oak barrels.
Good bourbon develops its color and flavor over years in the barrel.
Distillers must use new charred oak barrels to label their product bourbon.
Note
A place name turned into a drink: the phrase was first Bourbon whiskey, with a capital, before the noun stood alone in lowercase. Kentucky's Bourbon County is the usual explanation, though Bourbon Street in New Orleans has a claim too, and the origin remains disputed. Either way, the name runs back to the French Bourbon dynasty, itself named for the lordship of Bourbon l'Archambault.
- 2A single glass or measure of bourbon whiskey, poured as a drink.
After the meeting, he treated himself to a bourbon on the rocks.
Two bourbons later, the conversation had grown a good deal louder.
Note
Here the spirit becomes countable, the way bar talk turns any liquor into units: a bourbon, two bourbons. George Johnston's Skyscrapers in the Mist (1946) has staid businessmen transformed "by a few ryes or bourbons", and rye follows the same pattern. The article and the plural are what set this apart from the spirit itself: you drink bourbon, but you order a bourbon.
- 3A rectangular chocolate-flavored sandwich cookie with a chocolate cream filling, popular in Britain.
He grabbed a bourbon from the tin during the afternoon break.
The children fought over the last two bourbons on the plate.
Note
The cookie's full name is Bourbon biscuit, where the name keeps its capital letter. Clipped to bourbon, it usually drops the capital, just as the whiskey did. Because the two share a spelling, a bourbon taken from the tin at teatime is a cookie and a bourbon at the bar is a glass of whiskey. The setting does the work of telling them apart.
Practice
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Origin
The word comes from "bourbon whiskey" (originally "Bourbon whiskey"), whose origin is disputed. It is generally traced to Bourbon County, Kentucky, but possibly also to Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana; both take their name from the French Bourbon dynasty. That name comes from the French town Bourbon-l'Archambault, whose name derives from Borvo, a local Celtic deity of hot springs, from Proto-Celtic *borvo ("froth, foam"), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- ("to be hot, boil").