Tromping in the front door of my house at around 1 a.m., I peeled off my damp shoes, took a shower to cleanse myself of the remnants of a night making drinks at the local bar, and opened my liquor cabinet. Pouring a tumbler of bourbon, I flicked on the TV and sat down to watch detective “Bobby” Goren and the rest of the “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” team pry into the psyches of the show's various psychos.

As I watched, I realized Goren would have made a great bartender — what with his unique insight into people. Then an ad for Jim Beam straight bourbon whiskey came on. I laughed at the cliched antics of guys trying to attract girls, at least until the tagline “Guys never change — neither do we. Jim Beam since 1795” appeared.

I put down my glass of bourbon and sat straight up. Now I like Jim Beam; it is an American classic after all. But I wondered about this “never changed” claim.

In true detective fashion I reflected on the history of Jim Beam and bourbon itself.

The Boehm family immigrated to the United States from Germany and eventually wound up in western Virginia (which became Kentucky in 1792), changing their name to Beam in the process. Johannes “Jacob” Beam moved with his family to this semi-wilderness area and in 1795 (there appears to be no corroborating evidence of this) produced a distillate of corn that was then aged in oak. That product, first called Old Jake Beam,

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and made at the distillery eventually known as Old Tub was sold in barrels and became a regional success. In 1854, Jacob moved his distillery to nearby Nelson County. Production increased and in 1880 “Old Tub” (finally available in bottles) became a national brand.

In 1894, Colonel James B. Beam (Jacobs' great-grandson) took over the distillery and ran it until Prohibition intervened (1919 to 1933). Beam saw no future in an illegal product, and sold the distillery in 1920. After Prohibition ended, Beam reacquired the brand, rebuilt the distillery (reportedly in 120 days) and reintroduced his product, now called eponymously Jim Beam. It eventually became the nation's best-selling bourbon.

Now, legend has it that the Rev. Elijah Craig first put corn whiskey in charred oak barrels around 1780. Fact tells us that Craig opened his first distillery in 1789. Those charred oak barrels became one of bourbon's signatures (as well as corn as a predominant ingredient, a minimum of two years in the barrel and some distilling requirements). Ironically, Craig's distillery was never in Bourbon County itself. Calling corn whiskey “bourbon,” after the French and Spanish royal families (for whom the county of Bourbon is named), doesn't actually happen, verifiably, until 1821 in the Western Citizen newspaper of Paris, Ky.

In 1823, bourbon took another major turn when the distiller Dr. James C. Crow developed a process called “sour mash,” where a bit of the previous distillation is held back to augment the current one (sort of like the process for making sourdough bread). This helps create a more-consistent product and it became the basis for all straight bourbon whiskies produced today (including Jim Beam). Still, it wasn't until 1840 before the term bourbon became the name for America's corn-based whiskies.

During Prohibition, Canada began producing whiskies labeled as bourbon and the final piece of the puzzle didn't happen until May 4, 1964, when the United States Congress got in on the act and proclaimed bourbon whiskey a “distinctive product of the United States” — putting an end to the Canadian products. Congress also established the Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits, including but not limited to bourbon, thereby solidifying the process, ingredients and the name of bourbon whiskey.

All of which lead me to a few thoughts:

— French philosopher Rene Descartes once said, “Never accept a thing as true until you know it as such without a single doubt.”

— In 1964 — one of bourbon's defining moments — television's NBC used a special Jim Beam holiday bottle for a scantily clad genie's home in its upcoming TV show “I Dream of Jeannie.” Half-naked women coming out of whiskey bottles? Sounds like great television.

— Members of the Bourbon family still sit on the thrones of Spain (King Juan Carlos I) and Luxembourg (Henri, Grand Duke).

— Apparently, when it comes to advertising, “unchanged” can mean that you may change the name, the process, the location, the container as well as the legal definition.

— Did Goren and Eames ever catch that guy?

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.