Bourbon Prices Not High Enough?

[Gman]

Shoot. Meant to put a question mark at the end of the thread title. Whoops. [MOD: FIFY] ETA: THANKS!

Was reading about a Jim Beam warehouse fire yesterday. I remember a number of events in the bourbon business last year. Is the bourbon business just a mess, or is there more to this?

From 'bourbonado' to Jim Beam's fire: Kentucky's historic bourbon disasters

As anyone paying attention to the Jim Beam warehouse fire can tell you, the bourbon industry is rough.Cut-throat competition, batches that fail after years in the warehouse and even tornadoes of fire are hazards of the job.

After part of a bourbon warehouse at a Bardstown distillery collapsed last year and another bourbon distillery fell down in Owensboro, it got us thinking about other massive bourbon spills and natural disasters in recent memory.

Heaven Hill

Heaven quickly turned into hell in 1996 when an estimated 90,000 barrels of whiskey caught fire at Bardstown's Heaven Hill distillery.
More: Hundreds of fish killed in leak from distillery warehouse collapse

Rivers of burning whiskey slid down the road and barrels exploded through the air, bringing more than 100 firefighters to the scene. According to whiskeyreviewer.com, the cause was never revealed.

Luckily, no one was killed. But Heaven Hill?s stock did not escape without a burn, losing around 14 percent.

Wild Turkey


Greg Snyder, director of operations for the Wild Turkey Distillery, talks to the company officials as fire consumes a bourbon warehouse in 2000. (Photo: Rob Carr/AP)


After a massive fire in May 2000 destroyed a Wild Turkey warehouse in Lawrenceburg, the resulting spill was so bad that workers pumped oxygen into the nearby Kentucky River to try to save its fish.

An estimated 17,000 gallons of bourbon cascaded into the river near Frankfort, killing about 228,000 fish ? one of the worst fish kills in the state's history.

Jim Beam's 2003 'bourbonado'

An actual bourbon tornado, or ?bourbonado,? occurred in 2003 in the Bardstown countryside after a series of severe thunderstorms in the area.

One lightning strike later, and a Jim Beam warehouse went up in flames, taking 800,000 gallons of bourbon with it. The bourbon that didn?t ignite in the warehouse flowed to a nearby creek and also started a massive fire tornado, according to Maxim.com.

This disaster is truly notorious.

Buffalo Trace

The brilliant minds at Buffalo Trace turned a natural disaster into a marketing moment.

After a tornado ripped through the distillery's storied 1881 warehouse in 2006, the bourbon barrels inside were exposed to the elements for quite a while, creating a different flavor profile.

How better to deal with that dilemma than to offer up E.H. Taylor Jr. Warehouse C Tornado Surviving bourbon?

O.Z. Tyler

Part of an O.Z. Tyler Distillery rickhouse collapsed on June 17, 2019. No one was hurt, and the damage wasn't as widespread as some other disasters, but about 4,000 barrels were affected, officials said at the time.

Jim Beam collapse in 2019

A Jim Beam warehouse in Woodford County went up in flames late Tuesday night on July 2, 2019.

Officials said one warehouse initially caught fire, and those flames spread to a second structure nearby. Crews were able to put out the flames in the second warehouse but continued to fight the blaze in the first structure through the morning.

Around 40,000 bourbon barrels were in the first warehouse, officials said.

The cause of the blaze had not yet been identified at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

[theGinsue]

What a Beamer, er...bummer.

[ray1970]

Insurance claims.

[Zundfolge]

The liquor store at Red Rocks (31st and Colorado) has excellent prices on whiskeys ... they have Maker's for $19.99/750ml.

The guy that runs the place has made some connections and moves a lot of whiskey and if you're interested in higher end stuff he apparently has or can get just about anything at the best price in town.

[Irving]

I hear Molly's near I-70 and Harlan has excellent prices as well. My buddy had a specific example where some brand/size is at Total Beverage for $45.99 and is $36.99 at Molly's. That's significant.

[Skip]

Wonder if the boycott was working?

https://www.dailywire.com/news/23183...-prestigiacomo

[Gman]

Wonder if the boycott was working?

I doubt it. The Japanese and Chinese have been buying whiskey like crazy.

[brutal]

That tornado bourbon goes for $3-4K a bottle.

Yowsers.

[BladesNBarrels]

Jim Beam announced

"We operate 126 barrel warehouses in Kentucky that hold approximately 3.3 million barrels for our brands, and the warehouse that was destroyed contained 45,000 barrels of relatively young whiskey from the Jim Beam mash bill. Given the age of the lost whiskey, this fire will not impact the availability of Jim Beam for consumers."

[Gman]

It may be "available", but there's 1.4% of their future volume up in flames. Depending on the market when that whiskey was supposed to be ready for bottling, it may become financially significant. Higher demand+lower volume=higher prices.