Presented by Cooks’ World and Pinnacle Wine & Liquor

One of my favorite bourbon cocktails of all time

This Friday (June 14) is National Bourbon Day—a perfect occasion to spotlight one of the best bourbon cocktails I’ve come across in the past year or so. Prospector No. 2 is a full-bodied, bourbon-forward cocktail with contributions of herbs and spice from Averna amaro and nutty-raisiny notes from Pedro Ximénez Sherry (a sweet dessert sherry). Some cocktail pundits would call this a cold-weather cocktail because of the flavor profile, and it would pair well with a turkey dinner and some pie—but I enjoy it in warmer weather, too. 

The amaro and sherry also lend noticeable sweetness to Prospector No. 2, so I suggest a hearty high-rye bourbon such as Knob Creek to balance the sweetness.

PROSPECTOR NO. 2
2 oz Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon (their 12-year is my favorite)
¾ oz Averna (or similar amaro, such as CioCiaro)
¼-½ oz Pedro Ximénez Sherry 
1 dash Angostura bitters 

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing glass with plenty of ice and stir for 15-20 seconds until it’s well chilled. Strain the drink into a chilled cocktail coupe and garnish with a twist of lemon peel after expressing the oils from the peel over the drink.

And now, more about National Bourbon Day … 

Why do we celebrate National Bourbon Day, and why on June 14? 

No one knows for sure, but why not? Lots of us love bourbon, and that’s sufficient, but let’s chat about it anyway.

These three things are objectively true: 

1. June 14 is Flag Day in the United States, commemorating the adoption of our first stars-and-stripes flag on June 14, 1777. After 172 years of local and less formal observations, President Harry Truman signed a law passed by Congress in 1949 to make Flag Day a permanent national celebration.  
2. Congress declared bourbon whiskey “a distinctive product of the United States” in 1964, and President Lyndon Johnson signed that into law on May 4 of that year—not June 14. There goes that idea. (Here’s a great read about why Congress did that.) 
3. June 14 is also National Bourbon Day, by an act of … Okay, we don’t know whose act this was. There was never an act of Congress to establish it, but it’s a thing anyway, according to the usually-all-knowing interwebs. 

A typical National Bourbon Day origin myth is that it’s June 14 because that’s the date that a preacher named Elijah Craig made the first bourbon whiskey in 1789. However, that story holds neither water nor whiskey—it makes no historical or agricultural sense. 

By 1789, hundreds of farmers throughout the territories now known as Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana were distilling whiskey from a mash of their surplus corn every season. They called that whiskey “bourbon” (a bow to the Kentucky county best known for it) to distinguish it from the rye whiskey northeastern colonies had been making for a century or more before then. 

And maybe it takes a farm kid to know this, but corn isn’t usually ready to harvest for human consumption until early July at the soonest, even in the Ohio River valley. Then, before it can be milled for use in whiskey mash, it has to dry—ideally still in the field on the stalk, to avoid the expense of applying heat. That certainly wouldn’t happen by June 14, and for quality reasons (can you say “rodents?”), it’s not likely that the Rev. Craig would have left the prior year’s surplus corn sitting around until June before using it to make a batch of whiskey. 

Marrying Flag Day and a non-statutory National Bourbon Day smacks of a marketing gambit to this retired marketing guy. While admitting I may be wrong, I’ll guess that the Heaven Hill Distillery, which owns the Elijah Craig whiskey brand, birthed National Bourbon Day in a long-ago ad campaign: two great symbols of the American spirit celebrated on the same day. There’s a lively barroom debate to be had about this topic, and it should involve many sips of bourbon—and bar bets that will never be settled due to a lack of facts.

Speaking of bar bets, here are two bits of June 14 trivia that could win you some drinks or cash. June 14 is also World Blood Donor Day, and I’m not talking about the secondary market prices one could pay for an allocated bourbon if one had more money than sense. June 14 is also the date that the first American patent for a method of producing sandpaper was issued in 1834 to one Issac Fischer of Springfield, Vermont. I write to make my brain a trough of useless trivia such as this.

You’re welcome for the winning bar bets. Please send me 10 percent of your winnings or donate them to your closest animal rescue organization. And who cares how it started? Cheers to National Bourbon Day!

About our Cocktail of the Week partners—shop local and independent!
Cooks’ World and Pinnacle Wine & Liquor are less than a mile from each other, on Monroe Avenue near Twelve Corners in Brighton.

Cooks’ World, in business since 1978, is Rochester’s premier retailer of dining, kitchen, and cooking products, including a complete selection of glassware, mixology tools, and accessories for wine and spirits lovers. Follow Cooks’ World on Facebook and Instagram. Sign up here to receive Cooks’ World’s daily email specials and other news. 

Pinnacle Wine & Liquor, in business since 1997, offers a thoughtfully curated selection of spirits and wine from around the world, with a savvy staff to assist in your selection and encourage you along your cocktail and wine journey. Follow Pinnacle on Facebook and Instagram. For the inside track on Pinnacle’s spirits sales, send two text messages to (585)765-7546:
— Text the word “bourbon,” to receive weekly text messages offering the chance to buy rare or allocated whiskies or special prices on popular products.
—Text the word “spirits,” to receive roughly monthly offers on fine spirits other than whiskies.