Books and Bourbon

In honor of National Bourbon Day, June 14, we're exploring the history of bourbon and some writers who enjoyed drinking it.

Our Faulkner bust with a couple of books from our collection.

The history of alcohol, and more specifically bourbon, is an interesting one. While not America’s first distilled beverage--that would be rum--it is perhaps the most distinguished. It is often called bourbon whiskey, but please note that not all whiskey is bourbon but all bourbon is whiskey.

The rise of bourbon began in Bourbon County, Kentucky, during the Revolutionary War. Several accounts suggest that farmers distilled the liquor when they could not transport or sell all of their corn crops. This distilled liquor, stored in casks, could easily be transported and just got better with age. According to sources, 95% of all bourbon is still made in Kentucky.

The criteria for a liquor to be called bourbon are as follows:

• Made in America
• Must be 51 percent corn        
• Stored in new, not aged casks
• Distilled no more than 160 proof/barreled at 125 proof

In 1964, a Congressional resolution was passed that made bourbon a “distinctive product” of the United States that can only be made in America. Since then it has been called the “Native Spirit of America”.

This got me thinking about writers who were known to imbibe. Visit your local library to check them out and enjoy!

"I've been drinking beer most of the day, but don't worry, kid - I'm not gonna stick my fist through the window or bust up any furniture. I'm a pretty benign beer drinker...most of the time. It's the whiskey that gets me in trouble. When I'm drinking it around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems. So when I drink it these days, I try to drink it alone. That's the sign of a good whiskey drinker anyway - drinking it by yourself shows a proper reverence for it. The stuff even makes the lampshades look different." Charles Bukowski

“You see, I usually write at night. I always keep my whiskey within reach; so many ideas that I can’t remember in the morning pop into my head.” William Faulkner, to his French translator Maurice Edgar Coindreau, Conversations with William Faulkner

“The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it.” Lewis Grizzard 

“Enjoyed it? One more drink and I’d have been under the host.” Dorothy Parker in Try and Stop Me by Bennett Cerf

"All you have to do is drink a little whiskey, smoke a joint, eat some acid, and you too can write like this."  Hunter S. Thompson, Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson

“I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.” Raymond Chandler, "The King in Yellow" Collected Stories

Kristina Kelly
Administrative Services Administrative Assistant

William Faulkner's Family

Remember our post back in June of 2012 when we shared some photos of Eudora Welty and her family? Well, we happened across some family photos of another famous Mississippi author that we'd like to share with you--William Faulkner!

"Faulkner's great-grandfather, Colonel William Clark Falkner, the model for the fictional Colonel John Sartoris. (Faulkner added the u to his surname in 1918.)" (128).

"Faulkner's grandfather, John Wesley Thompson Falkner, the model for Bayard Sartoris in the Yoknapatawpha novels" (128).

"Faulkner (back row, center) with his three younger brothers, Murry (left), John, and Dean (in front), ca. 1911-1912" (129).

"Faulkner with his daughter, Jill, born 24 June 1933" (155).

"The Faulkners [William's wife, Estelle, on the right] at Jill's wedding to Paul D. Summers, 21 August 1954" (186).

Looking for a book or two to read during the holidays? Stop by the Mississippi Library Commission and check out some of his books! For more things Faulkner related, check out our special "813.42-Faulkner" Pinterest board.

Antwerp, Margaret A., ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol 2. . Ann Arbor, MI: Gale Research Company, 1982. Print. Documentary Series: An Illustrated Chronicle.

You're Named Where?

People name their children all sorts of things. Some choose a more traditional route with age-old standbys like Mary and George or John and Sue. Other people opt for a more unique name by changing an older name's spelling or adding punctuation marks or creating a new name entirely. The brilliant few, in my humble opinion, have chosen to name their offspring after actual things: plants, bodies of water, and, of all things, the United States. It appears this trend has been going on for some time. Check out this chart enumerating state names appearing in the US Federal Census over the years:

Name	Most Popular Census Year for State Name	Number with State Name That Year
Alabama	1880	1,682
Alaska	1930	177
Arizona	1930	2,158
Arkansas	1880	363
California	1880	518
Carolina (North and South)	1910	26,030
Colorado	1900	61
Connecticut	1930	8
Dakota (North and South)	1930	205
Delaware	1900	324
Florida	1930	5,576
Georgia	1930	108,629
Hawaii	1900	10
Idaho	1920	87
Illinois	1920	334
Indiana	1870	2,772
Iowa	1920	1,541
Kansas	1920	873
Kentucky	1900	69
Louisiana	1900	1,833
Maine	1920	3,152
Maryland	1940	3,314
Massachusetts	1900	2
Michigan	1910	33
Minnesota	1880	138
Mississippi	1870	105
Missouri	1900	9,035
Montana	1930	615
Nebraska	1930	358
Nevada	1930	2938
Hampshire (New)	1880	18
Jersey (New)	1900	343
Mexico (New)	1910	89
York (New)	1880	1,415
Ohio	1940	286
Oklahoma	1910	145
Oregon	1900	282
Pennsylvania	1900	53
Rhode Island	1920	4
Tennessee	1880	4,476
Texas	1900	1,445
Utah	1940	419
Vermont	1920	609
Virginia (Virginia and West)	1940	473,973
Washington	1870	21,977
Wisconsin	1920	14
Wyoming	1930	70

Have you ever met anyone actually named, for instance, Pennsylvanian Bullard? Real lady--she appears in the 1920 US Federal Census with her husband Jeff. Here are a few other real people we've come up with who are named after US States:

• Dakota Fanning is a child acting star from Georgia.
• William Faulkner named his first daughter Alabama after his aunt Alabama (Minter 127).
• Nevada Barr is an author whose father named her after a character in a book he liked (MWP).
• Montana McGlynn was a member of the reality TV show The Real World season six.

And because fiction can be more satisfying than real life, here are some fictional characters with US State names:

• Alaska Young in John Green's Looking for Alaska
• Nevada Smith in Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers
• Montana Wildhack in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
• Wyoming Knott in Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
• Arizona Ames in Zane Grey's Arizona Ames.
• The daughter named KIM in Edna Ferber's Showboat:
  

  And as Kim Ravenal you doubtless are familiar with her. It is no secret that the absurd monosyllable which comprises her given name is made up of the first letters of three states - Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri - in all of which she was, incredibly enough, born - if she can be said to have been born in any state at all (Ferber 1).

My favorite "stumble upon" in this search is by far this family:

Were they just patriotic? Or were the parents so pleased to find a like-named soul that they chose to continue the tradition? I suppose we'll never know.

Ferber, Edna. Showboat. G. K. Hall & Co., 1981.
Minter, David. William Faulkner: His Life and Work. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1980.
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/barr_nevada/index.html