Tragedy in Versailles
45,000 barrels. That's a lot of bourbon. And it's all gone, thanks to a lightning strike and resulting fire at a Jim Beam storage warehouse in Versailles, Kentucky last week.
For the curious among you, one bourbon barrel can hold up to 200 bottles of whiskey. So that's--theoretically--9 million fewer bottles of Jim Beam available to future consumers.
Thankfully for bourbon fans, the loss only represents roughly 1 percent of Beam's overall stock--a blip on the radar. Jim Beam is the world's leading supplier of bourbon, including such brands as Knob Creek, Booker's, Baker's, and Basil Hayden's.
The large number of bourbon brands tends to cause confusion among spirits aficionados, given the relatively small number of major distillers. The chart below is illustrative for anyone wanting to know who's making their favorite whiskey.
Cheers!
