Jack Daniels. Don Julio. Johnnie Walker. These have become household names because they represent brands that sit on the shelves of most bars in...well, most households in America.

We thought it would be fun to delve into the histories of some of these iconic eponymous spirits and to learn more about their origin stories. We decided to start with the namesake of the world's most popular whisky, Jim Beam.

Jim Beam, the company, sold 17 million cases (204 million bottles) in 2023, which is more than any other whisky brand on the planet, beating out Jack Daniels and Jameson respectively. The origins of this powerhouse label go back more than 280 years, to a small corn farm in Kentucky.

In 1740, the Boehm family came to the colonies from Germany and eventually found their way to Kentucky in 1788, where they changed their name to Beam. Jacob Beam became a corn farmer and began distilling in 1795, using his father's whisky recipe to distill corn and make a sweeter style called bourbon. Many Scottish, Irish, and German settlers were already making rye in Western Pennsylvania, and government incentives to move west and grow corn meant that there was growing whisky industry in Kentucky by the turn of 19th century.

In 1795, Jacob opened the Early Times Distillery with his son, John H. Beam and began selling his bourbon whisky. The first barrel he sold was called Old Jake Beam Sour Mash and it quickly became a favorite among locals.

In 1864, James Beauregard Beam was born into his family's Kentucky distilling dynasty. At the age of 30, in 1894, "Jim" took over operations from his father David at the family distillery, which was by then called Old Tub Distillery. Soon after, the operation was renamed the Jim Beam Distillery.

Thanks in large part to Jim's business acumen, the Beam family had become a bourbon-producing powerhouse in Kentucky by the early 1900s. When Prohibition hit in 1920, the Beams found themselves without a business, along with thousands of other Kentucky bourbon producers. Jim was forced to sell his liquor holdings and to try other means of supporting his family. He worked as a coal miner, a citrus farmer, and briefly ran a limestone quarry.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Jim Beam was ready to get back to what he loved most. Beam and his son, T. Jeremiah, relocated to Clermont, Kentucky, and rebuilt the distillery by hand in just 120 days. From that point onward, the business grew with amazing speed and reach. The Jim Beam brand is now the world's best-selling whisky and is considered to be one of the most iconic names in the spirits industry. 

Jim Beam died on December 27, 1947, at the age of 83.