While it’s true that 95 percent of all bourbon is made in Kentucky, and our governor has joked that the other 5 percent is counterfeit, bourbon can be made anywhere in the U.S. as long as it’s at least 51 percent corn, aged at least two years in new charred white oak barrels, distilled to less than 160 proof and has nothing added to it but water, according to a federal law passed in 1964. That said, it does have to be made in Kentucky to be labeled “straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey” — and we like to think that’s the best kind.
