1513
Bordeaux and Picardie, France
This is a useful marker for the shift from medicinal or local distilled alcohol toward documented commercial spirits movement before colonial American distilling.
Use as a documented commercial-transition event, not as an absolute world-first claim.
Bordeaux notarial registers record a shipment of spirits to Picardie in 1513, followed by other small international shipments later in the decade.
The History of Bourbon and Other American Whiskies / The Scholar’s Corner
What happened
Bordeaux notarial registers record a shipment of spirits to Picardie in 1513. Estreicher’s review reports additional shipments to the Netherlands in 1515 and Ireland in 1517.
Why it matters
The sequence provides a documentary bridge from medieval medical and local production to commercial spirits trade before colonial American distilling.
Evidence and its limits
The research record below explains the supporting evidence and its limits. Internal review labels describe our workflow; they do not remove the historical uncertainties noted here.
What this does not establish
Do not describe 1513 as the first commercial spirits transaction in world history. It is the earliest shipment in the Bordeaux sequence summarized by the reviewed source.
Connections
This event follows the medieval transmission and documentation of distillation knowledge and precedes the seventeenth-century expansion of merchant-led spirits production and trade.
Citations and further reading
Return to the story
- Lesson: Before American Whiskey
- Research timeline: The Scholar’s Corner