The short version
Bourbon chicken is bite-size chicken in a glossy brown sauce — soy, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and something that reads as bourbon even when the steam-table version never saw a cork. It is American Chinese by way of the shopping mall, not a Kentucky tavern special.
Bourbon Street, not Bardstown
The name is the fight. One common telling says it comes from Bourbon Street in New Orleans, where a Chinese-Cajun hybrid stall popularized the glaze. Another says the original recipes actually used bourbon whiskey. Plenty of food-court versions use neither — just brown sugar, soy, and a rumor.
What we can say without a lawyer: the dish took off in American malls in the 1980s and 1990s, especially at Cajun and Chinese counters that cooked to order on a flat top and sold it by the serving-spoon scoop over rice.
Legend vs ledger: There isn’t one inventor with a clean paper trail. Treat “named for Bourbon Street” as the probable origin story and “contains bourbon” as optional, like extra napkins.
Why the mall version works
It’s sweet enough for kids, savory enough for grown-ups, and sticky enough to perfume an entire food court. Thighs beat breasts for this glaze. A little ketchup or hoisin is the American shortcut to color and body. Our kitchen version uses real Maker’s-style bourbon plus the house maple bourbon barbecue sauce, because if you’re going to put bourbon in the name you might as well put it in the pan.
Cook it
Food-court nostalgia, cooked from scratch, MSG-free.