Woodford County bourbon industry at risk
New must-listen-to podcast available from chamber and library
The Woodford County Tourism Commission, under the leadership of Chair Emily Riddle and Executive Director Emily Downey, announced last week that its trademark application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, designating Woodford County as the “birthplace of bourbon” was approved. No surprise — Woodford County can document its central role in developing bourbon both as a whiskey and as an industry. This solidifies the county’s identity and highlights our appeal as a tourist destination, boosting local businesses and the economy.
With Woodford Reserve, Castle & Key, Glenn’s Creek, Midway Distilling and the soon-to-come TKC Distillery on the former Edgewood Farm property, many of our fellow Woodford Countians have good, long-standing and well-paying jobs at those distilleries as tour guides, master and apprentice distillers and rick house workers.
Of course, the economic impact here is far greater than just being large employers. Their tax dollars help keep our county and city governments fiscally healthy. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail and Woodford County distilleries generate revenue and jobs in a wide range of economic sectors like tourism, hospitality and even agriculture.
As a long-time, multi-generation Woodford County farmer Hoppy Henton is fond of reminding me, distilleries buy a significant amount of the grains needed to make bourbon from Woodford County farms.
The economic stats compiled by the Kentucky Distilleries’ Association for 2024 tell the story best.
In 2024, Woodford County distilleries employ 1,193 workers who were paid $59,787,922 while producing bourbon valued at $417,534,924; they pay local property tax of $77,545; they pay local intangible tax of $55,786; local inventory tax of $1,785,696; and, Woodford’s portion of their state taxes are $2,773,181 in income tax and $2,426,424 in sales tax. You just cannot overstate the fundamental importance of the bourbon industry to our local economies.
Bourbon is a big deal for Woodford County. And, it is under threat with the trade war President Donald Trump seems intent on igniting with Canada, Mexico, and soon Europe and even Japan. This is not hyperbole . . . we saw this same thing in the first Trump administration when citing “national security concerns.” At that time Trump imposed substantial steel and aluminum tariffs on imports, which led to retaliatory tariffs from the European Union (EU), which included American spirits.
According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the U.S. saw whiskey exports to the EU plunge from $552 million in 2018 to about $440 million in 2021. After the U.S. and EU agreed to suspend the EU’s tariff, exports rebounded to $705 million in 2023. But, it has been reported the EU is set to reimpose its tariff at 50 percent if the EU and U.S. fail to reach an agreement in the steel and aluminum dispute by the end of March.
And, of course, Canada just announced a retaliatory tariff, which includes Kentucky bourbon, of 25 percent on $155 billion of U.S. goods, which Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau said will remain in place until the U.S. withdraws its tariffs.
On Monday, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum says she’ll also announce retaliatory tariffs on Monday, which trade experts say will include distilled spirits.
In a press release issued last December when the tariff issue began to gather steam, Eric Gregory, the president of the Kentucky Distillers Association and a Midway resident, said, “Bourbon continues to drive Kentucky’s economy as our homegrown industry is generating more jobs, more payroll, more tax revenue, more tourists and more distilleries in more counties than ever before.”
He added, “We are up against a triple threat of back-breaking tariffs, snowballing taxes, and shifts in consumer trends that have slowed sales. If tariffs targeting American Whiskey are levied, distillery workers, farmers, truckers, coopers, hospitality staff, and entire industries that depend on Bourbon will suffer,”
Those looming risks have now come home to roost.
I spoke this week to U.S. Congressman Morgan McGarvey (KY-D), whose district is Jefferson County, which also stands to be hurt by these tariffs. He shared a letter he sent to Trump explaining the impact of these tariffs on Kentucky. It said, in part: “These tariffs threaten to destroy a heritage that is uniquely American and vital to Kentucky’s economy . . . . This won’t just hit a few companies’ bottom lines. The tariffs will hurt farmers who grow corn, wheat, and rye. They will hurt coopers who char and fit our white oak barrels. They will hurt the men and women who work the line in distilleries and truckers who deliver the finished product. Kentuckians know this is true because we lived through the collateral damage of the trade wars of your first term when American whiskey exports dropped by 20 percent.”
Let me be clear, this is not an anti-Trump column. Like any president, there are issues I agree with him on (reforming an out-of-control federal bureaucracy, strengthening the border) and issues I do not. Tariffs that do more harm than good and which pose an existential crisis to my home state and county are just plain wrong, and need to be rethought and rescinded.
If the tariffs continue over a long period, then Woodford County’s distilleries may end up becoming museums and the Bourbon Trail could wind into oblivion.
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Speaking of the recent success of the Woodford Chamber in trademarking “Birthplace of Bourbon”, it has recently teamed with the Woodford County Public Library on a new podcast. Hosted by Talor Bennet, the new Woodford County Library director of communications and marketing, these episodes are being integrated into the already popular “What’s Up Woodford” hosted by Cory Cooley and Emily Downey.
The newest episode’s guest is William Saunders who pastors at Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington and is the chair of the Woodford County chapter of the NAACP. The interview is both informative and entertaining, and a must-listen for any Woodford Countian. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whats-up-woodford/id1586875921