This week on the Business Side Alan Lytle talks with Kentucky Distillers Association President Eric Gregory about another record-setting year of production for one of the Commonwealth's signature industries. Eric also provides a preview of next month's Kentucky Bourbon Affair in Louisville.
From the KDA:
Kentucky’s iconic Bourbon distilleries filled a whopping 1,886,821 barrels
of amber nectar last year, breaking production records all the way back to 1967, the Kentucky
Distillers’ Association announced today.
The previous all-time high was 1,922,009 barrels filled in 1967, the KDA reported. Since the
turn of the century, Kentucky Bourbon production has skyrocketed more than 315 percent
(455,078 barrels were filled in 1999).
That gives the Commonwealth a total inventory of 6,657,063 barrels of Bourbon, the most since
1974 when 6,683,654 new charred oak casks were gently aging in Bluegrass warehouses. There
are now 1.5 barrels for every person living in Kentucky (census population 4,425,092).
And a non-member of the KDA made news last week as well:
From the Associated Press:
Buffalo Trace Distillery says a more than $200 million expansion is planned to help keep up with demand for its bourbon.
The Frankfort distillery said Thursday that distilling operations will be expanded during the next seven years. The new investments will go into cooking, fermenting and bottling operations, land and additional warehouses to store aging whiskey.
The distillery says it will begin building new barrel warehouses in 2017 on the extra 200 acres of farmland it purchased a few years ago.
The distillery also gave an update on its current inventory of bourbon mature enough to bottle. It says the situation is marginally better than three years ago.
Distillery spokesperson Kris Comstock says across-the-board shortages remain for all brands, but volumes are increasing and allocations will continue.
