Well Patrick, this is pretty horrifying . . . .
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news coming out of Versailles, KY, where one of the Jim Beam warehouses was reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble by a massive inferno. And you know who started it? God. God started it. With a lightning strike. Evidently, the Heavenly Father has a slightly more refined flavor palette.
Cynically speaking, a blaze like this might seem like cause for competitive capitalistic celebration; a major bourbon distiller’s loss of inventory can only serve to help the sales of our forthcoming Big Box Bourbon, right?
No. Not so in this case….
Even the destruction of 45,000 barrels of aging bourbon—the equivalent of nearly 2.4 million gallons and what otherwise would have been over 6 million bottles of bourbon ($150 million in lost revenue!!!)—will barely affect the bourbon market; losing an entire warehouse’s worth of spirit amounts to a rounding error for that company’s overall supply. After all, it operates another 125 warehouses in Kentucky alone.
Yet there’s a more direct reason this incident will have no effect on our sales.
As a craft distiller, New Scotch Spirits doesn’t compete with Beam Suntory, the Chicago-based spirits company that owns Jim Beam. With all due respect for such a historic brand (one that is technically no longer a genuine Kentucky outfit), Jim Beam is the bourbon you cut with cola en route to getting shitty. It’s an industrial grade bourbon, mass produced to make it to market in bulk for the legions of people who rely on it to power their nights out. This isn’t the spirit you’d find the snob sniffing, sipping, or celebrating.
Simply stated, those who seek out our Big Box Bourbon are looking for a more unique product with a regionally-aligned terroir. They’re seeking the taste of standalone craftsmanship, as opposed to an ingredient with which to “activate” whatever carbonated drink they prefer.
Ergo, I don’t see the loss of a million bottles of Beam as having any impact on our sales. We’re practically in a different industry, selling to a different consumer.
But that’s not why I’m writing you. Rather, I want to make sure you’re tracking the staggering environmental damage this catastrophe has caused.
Check this shit out…. That’s a toxic plume of whiskey chilling on the river surface like it don’t give a fuck.
That 24-mile long alcohol plume in the Kentucky River—caused by runoff from massive firefighting efforts—has resulted in low levels of oxygen in the water and thus thousands of dead fish. It doesn’t get more apocalyptic than a giant school of drunken fishes going belly up. The Louisville Water Company even had to mobilize to secure the drinking water supply.
So let this be a lesson, Patrick. I’m not sure what that lesson is… but I feel like there’s something we should be taking away from this sordid ordeal.
Maybe it’s that Jim Beam should reconsider it’s latest brand release? Awkwardddddddd…..
— Jesse