Modern corn whiskey

Straight corn whiskey, the predecessor to Bourbon, was made exclusively from corn, an early marketing ploy to use up surplus cone at a profit rather than letting to rot in the field or storage barn.

It is a generic term for a rural, unsophisticated form of US whisky, which has strong associations with ‘moonshine’ and is considered to improve very little with any aging. Corn whiskey is similar to bourbon except that it must be made of a mash consisting of at least 80 percent corn.

Modern corn whiskey doesn’t have to be aged in wood, but if it is the barrels must ne either uncharred wood (usually oak) or used Bourbon barrels.

The growth in production of corn whiskey dates back to the years following the imposition of the first tax on spirits in North America in 1791 and the subsequent “Whiskey Rebellion’ of 1794 by distillers and their supports, who refused to pay the tax, assaulted officers and marched on Pittsburgh in protect.
Modern corn whiskey