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> Kentucky—a state with twice as many barrels of aging whiskey as residents That completely blows my mind. I went to the Woodford Reserve distillery recently b
by gw 7y ago
> Kentucky—a state with twice as many barrels of aging whiskey as residents
That completely blows my mind. I went to the Woodford Reserve distillery recently but i didn't realize the state made that much.
- jcims 7y agoThey taxed on those barrels every year.
- cortesoft 7y agoI don't know if it is that crazy.. California produces around 86 million bottles of wine every year, which is over twice the population of California. If you consider how long whiskey ages, it really isn't surprising that there is that many barrels.
- breischl 7y agoTrue... although a barrel is significantly larger than a bottle. Rough napkin math, around 250 bottles per barrel.
- padraic7a 7y agoYou need to factor in evaporation. The longer the whiskey is in the barrel the more that evaporates (the "angel's share").
- tptacek 7y agoAs I understand it: if you buy a barrel, you're going to get 180-200 bottles. But remember also that whiskey is almost always diluted when it's bottled; the cask strength will be 50-60, and the bottle will be 40-50.
- selectodude 7y agoKentucky has 4.5 million people. A barrel is 53 gallons (100L) which means they have ~477.7 million gallons of whiskey. 2.4 billion bottles. The numbers seem staggering, after doing the napkin math I'm curious how accurate they are.
- bagacrap 7y agoIf 10% are harvested per year then 250M bottles must be sold each year, which seems credible, assuming much is exported.
- twic 7y agoScotland has 5.44 million people [1] and 20 million casks laid down [2], for a ratio of 3.67:1. If these Kentuckians want to get serious about booze, they need to raise their game. [1] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2019/scotlands-population-2018 https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2019/scotlands-population... [2] https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/insights/facts-figures/ https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/insights/facts-figures/
- wil421 7y agoWhat’s the average age of whiskeys in Scotland vs Kentucky? If my hunch is correct the Scotch whisky’s are aged for a longer period of time. It could explain why they have more.
- tptacek 7y agoYes, scotch is aged much longer than bourbon. A 12-year scotch is a supermarket product, and liquor stores are full of 21+ year olds; bourbons average closer to 7-9, but can get bottled much younger, and supposedly don't benefit from super-long aging periods the way scotch (supposedly) does.
- chrisdhoover 7y agoIf they did the prices would fall back to the levels me my old man were used to. You know before every other doofus was drinking Manhattans, buying good bottles and either cellaring them or trying to flip them. I was forced to collect a bourbon bunker because it became endless September oh about 12 years ago.
- DonHopkins 7y agoShouldn't that be spelled "Kentuckey"?