You’ve heard of Kentucky’s bourbon boom, but you might not have considered the corresponding building boom.
While new visitor centers and main distillery facilities may attract all the press, construction companies are also hard at work building the structures that will house all that bourbon for the six to ten years it often takes to properly age the beverage.
Buzick Construction out of Bardstown is the company responsible for building most all of the seven-story warehouses, also called rick houses, in the state. They say demand is so high orders are through the roof.
"We're in the largest expansion phase since Prohibition," Kentucky Distillers Association president Eric Gregory told WAVE-3 TV. "Just in the past three or four years, we've had about $450M invested in the state of Kentucky to keep up with the growing global thirst for bourbon. Probably another $500 to $600M in the next five years."
With analysts predicting those kind of numbers, Buzick expects to hire 40 new employees in the coming year.
New warehouses planned for Makers Mark, Jim Beam, and others will each hold more than 50,000 barrels of bourbon.
