Bourbon
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50 free Bourbon trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bourbon is America's best-known whiskey, and almost everything about it comes with a story. The rules that define it are written into federal law, the big names on the shelf trace back to frontier distillers and stubborn families, and a surprising amount of what people repeat about it at the bar turns out to be legend. This quiz covers the whole subject: what the law requires, how the whiskey is made and aged, the words printed on a label and what they promise, the brands and the people behind them, the classic cocktails, and the history from the first Kentucky stills through Prohibition to the modern boom. It is written for bourbon fans, bartenders, and anyone hosting a tasting or a trivia night. The questions are multiple choice, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it in one sitting or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US city is home to a Bourbon Street that was laid out in 1721, before bourbon whiskey existed?
New Orleans
New Orleans got its street plan from engineer Adrien de Pauger in 1721, generations before Kentucky distillers began selling whiskey under the same name.
Q 02Which grain must make up at least 51% of the recipe for a whiskey to be labeled bourbon?
Corn
Corn is the one grain the law insists on, and the remainder of the recipe can be any cereal the distiller chooses.
Q 03Bourbon County, Kentucky, a likely source of the whiskey's name, was itself named to honor whom?
A French royal family
A French royal family, the House of Bourbon, was being thanked: King Louis XVI had backed the colonies during the American Revolutionary War.
Q 04Which bourbon cocktail, traditionally served in a silver cup, is the Kentucky Derby's signature drink?
Mint julep
Mint julep has been promoted at Churchill Downs since 1938. Drinkers traditionally hold the cup only by its top and bottom edges, so their hands do not warm it.
Q 05What do distillers call the portion of aging bourbon that evaporates through the barrel each year?
Angel's share
Angel's share losses can actually make a bourbon stronger: when more water than alcohol escapes, what stays in the barrel gains potency.
Q 06Bourbon barrels can be filled only once, so which spirit's makers buy many of them second-hand?
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky has no new-barrel rule, so its makers gladly take the barrels that American law stops bourbon distillers from refilling.
Q 07Which Kentucky bourbon is sold in squarish bottles sealed with a trademarked coating of red wax?
Maker's Mark
Maker's Mark owes the look to Margie Samuels, the founder's wife, who also gave the whiskey its name and drew its label.
Q 08During Prohibition, six companies could still legally bottle bourbon and other whiskey for which purpose?
Medicinal use
Medicinal use meant a doctor's prescription was required to buy a bottle, while the ban devastated the rest of the bourbon industry.
Q 09Bourbon barrels are built by craftspeople with which traditional job title, the origin of a common surname?
Cooper
Cooper is the old trade name for barrel makers, who heat or steam each wooden plank until it is pliable enough to bend into shape.
Q 10Which Hollywood actor was hired in 2016 as creative director of a major Kentucky bourbon brand?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey was brought in as both creative director and spokesman, with a brief to win over more women and more drinkers overseas.
Q 11Federal rules say bourbon must be aged in new, charred containers made from which type of wood?
Oak
Oak is the only wood the rules allow, and charring it is what gives bourbon its brown color and much of its distinctive taste.
Q 12Which classic cocktail muddles sugar with bitters before adding bourbon and an orange garnish?
Old fashioned
Old fashioned was what drinkers called the original recipe of spirits, bitters, water and sugar when it came back into vogue, and its short glass now shares the name.
Q 13Which living ingredient, added last to the cooked grains, ferments a bourbon's sugars into alcohol?
Yeast
Yeast strains are treated as heirlooms: one famous Kentucky bourbon family kept the same strain going from the end of Prohibition onward.
Q 21Which famous Lynchburg whiskey do its makers insist is not a bourbon, citing an extra charcoal-filtering step?
Jack Daniel's
Jack Daniel's is sold as Tennessee whiskey, yet trade law defines that style as a bourbon made in Tennessee, and the distillery's home county is dry.
Q 22On an American bourbon label, which stated figure is always exactly twice the alcohol percentage by volume?
Proof
Proof is defined differently from country to country, but in the United States it is simply double the ABV, so a bourbon at 100 is half alcohol.
Q 23Which Kentucky city's Main Street earned the nickname Whiskey Row as the home of the bourbon trade?
Louisville
Q 14Kentucky bourbon distillers credit their iron-free water to natural filtering through which type of rock?
Limestone
Limestone is so plentiful beneath central Kentucky that distillers tout the filtering it gives their water as a signature step in making bourbon.
Q 15The Kentucky version of which vodka, ginger and lime cocktail simply swaps in bourbon as the spirit?
Moscow mule
Moscow mule is an American invention despite its name: a 1942 Hollywood column placed its origin in Los Angeles, where the drink was then most popular.
Q 16Which bourbon is named for the family distiller who rebuilt the business in 1933 after Prohibition ended?
Jim Beam
Jim Beam was James Beauregard Beam, and at least seven generations of his family have made whiskey for the company since 1795.
Q 17Which bourbon is said to be named after samples an executive took on a 1940 hunting trip?
Wild Turkey
Wild Turkey, the story goes, began when Austin Nichols executive Thomas McCarthy brought warehouse samples along on a shoot for that very bird.
Q 18A drinker who orders a bourbon served "neat" should expect the whiskey to arrive in which way?
No ice or mixer
No ice or mixer is the rule for a neat pour, which also arrives at room temperature rather than chilled.
Q 19Which cocktail stirs bourbon or another whiskey with sweet vermouth and bitters, then adds a maraschino cherry?
Manhattan
Manhattan drinkers usually get two parts whiskey to one part vermouth, stirred rather than shaken and strained into a chilled glass.
Q 20Which famously hard-to-find wheated bourbon shows its namesake lighting a cigar on the bottle's label?
Pappy Van Winkle
Pappy Van Winkle is made in such small quantities, and aged for as long as 23 years, that bottles are extremely difficult to find.
Louisville's Whiskey Row stands close to the Ohio River, and its cast-iron-fronted buildings once stored barrels from the distilleries nearby.
Q 24Bourbon stills are traditionally built from which metal, valued because it strips sulfur compounds from the spirit?
Copper
Copper reacts with the sulfur in the rising vapor and holds on to it; left in, those compounds would make the whiskey unpleasant to drink.
Q 25In the American South, bourbon mixed with plain water is traditionally ordered as "bourbon and" what?
Branch
Branch is a Southern term for water from a natural stream, though at a bar it now simply means plain water rather than soda.
Q 26Which word on a bourbon label promises at least two years of aging and no added coloring or flavoring?
Straight
Straight is a legal term rather than marketing: a bourbon sold without the word has no minimum aging period at all.
Q 27Which label term, created by an 1897 law, guarantees a four-year-old bourbon from one distillery and one season?
Bottled-in-bond
Bottled-in-bond rules answered widespread adulteration of American whiskey by making the federal government the guarantor of what was in the bottle.
Q 28Which bourbon-making method starts each new fermentation with spent grain from the previous batch for consistency?
Sour mash
Sour mash is named for the acid the old batch brings with it, which keeps unwanted bacteria in check while the new one ferments.
Q 29Which term do bourbon distillers share with brewers for the recipe of grains that goes into each batch?
Mash bill
Mash bill details are a selling point for bourbon fans: swap the usual rye for wheat, and the result is sold as a wheated bourbon.
Q 30What do bourbon makers call the unaged spirit that comes fresh off the still, before any barrel time?
White dog
White dog goes into the barrel as clear as water; every bit of a bourbon's color comes later, from the charred wood.