National Bourbon Day: Holiday or WTF

Today, June 14th, is National Bourbon Day. I read it on the internet, it must be true. Right?


Wait, isn't September National Bourbon Heritage Month?
Yup. In 2007, the US Senate made September National Bourbon Heritage Month. It's a real thing, there's a Wikipedia page and everything. They've been celebrating bourbon in September in Kentucky with a festival since 1991.

So why is National Bourbon Day in June?
Well, most of the early history of bourbon is pretty sketchy (and much of it is probably bullsh-t), but according to the National Bourbon Day Facebook page it's because Elijah Craig invented bourbon today.

Today is also National Flag Day, which is an official holiday, "National Pop Goes the Weasel Day," which is unofficial but apparently a thing, and National Strawberry Shortcake day.

Why does the National Bourbon Day logo list last year's date?

Who came up with the holiday?
The National Bourbon Day website is run by PartyExcuses.com, which... is basically a bunch of (mostly bullsh-t) holidays that are, as described, excuses to party.

Sponsored, non-governmental holidays aren't necessarily that weird. We celebrated World Whisky Day, which is also pretty much "made up." The difference is really that the National Bourbon Day website doesn't really explain where it comes from. Also, "national" has a much more official sound to it rather than "world" - "national" feels like it's sponsored by a government, while everyone knows the whole world could never agree on a holiday together. (That came out way more depressing than intended, but it's true.)

The Party Excuses site: every friggin' day has a "Day." Saturday was "Kitchen Klutz Day."

Does it matter if it's an excuse?
When it comes down to it, probably not. Humans make up holidays, so why does it matter who does it or why if the holiday itself is fun? We like bourbon. Why is it so bad to have an excuse to drink bourbon?

But doesn't bourbon deserve a holiday more respectable than "Kitchen Klutz Day"? Bourbon has a legitimate month of recognition. Maybe we can fix the problem for those who want just one day because they don't want to drink bourbon daily for a month (lame) by picking the last day of National Bourbon Month as National Bourbon Day.

Get on it, Congress!


Editor's note: we reached out to the National Bourbon Day folks (aka we tweeted at them one time, because there is no contact information on the website), but have not yet received a response.