At the same time, you've got communities that have helped build that industry. You had an industry that supports so many jobs and calls Kentucky home. Andy Beshear, who signed the bill after passage by Kentucky's Republican-controlled legislature, said several industry compromises were vital to his support, while the bill will encourage investment. "Where you have an alcohol-based plant that produces a hazardous material, you need emergency management, EMS, a sheriff's department," he said.ĭemocratic Gov. The county will still have to provide them with services, protect them and protect the surrounding community from them if anything goes wrong, Summers said. Once the barrel tax sunsets in 2043, the distillers will pay no taxes at all to Bullitt on some warehouses. "Our industry was always a handshake agreement," Summers said. When the state legislature voted to phase it out earlier this year, after intense lobbying by the Kentucky Distillers' Association, county officials felt betrayed. The counties supported the property tax breaks because they expected to continue collecting the barrel tax. Many of the new barrelhouses are being built with industrial revenue bonds exempting them from property taxes for years or decades. A destructive and unsightly black fungus, seen growing on dead tree limbs in the foreground, feeds on ethanol emitted by whiskey barrels and has been found growing on property near the barrelhouses. The majority goes to schools but the money also is used for services that support the county's Jim Beam and Four Roses plants, including a full-time fire department.Ī newer Jack Daniels barrelhouse, front right, sits next to an older one, which has a roof covered in black substance, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, in Mulberry, Tenn. "We've been their biggest advocates and they threw us under the bus," said Jerry Summers, a former executive with Jim Beam and the judge-executive for Bullitt County, essentially the county mayor.īullitt County has long depended on an annual barrel tax on aging whiskey, which brought in $3.8 million in 2021, Summers said. Complaints include a destructive black "whiskey fungus," the loss of prime farmland and liquor-themed tourist developments that are more Disneyland than distillery tour.
Neighbors in both states have been fighting industry expansion, even suing distillers. Local officials who donated land and spent millions on infrastructure to help bourbon makers now say those investments may never be recouped.
In Kentucky, where 95% of the world's bourbon is manufactured, counties are revolting after the legislature voted to phase out a barrel tax they have depended on to fund schools, roads and utilities. Now, the growing popularity of the industry around the world is fueling conflicts at home. The distilleries where the liquor is manufactured and barrelhouses where it is aged have complemented the rural character of their neighborhoods, while providing jobs and the pride of a successful homegrown industry. (AP) - For decades, the whiskey and bourbon makers of Tennessee and Kentucky have been beloved in their communities. A destructive and unsightly black fungus which feeds on ethanol emitted by whiskey barrels has been found growing on property near the barrelhouses. A tree with branches covered in substance grows at The Manor at ShaeJo, a historic mansion turned event space that borders a Jack Daniels barrelhouse complex, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, in Mulberry, Tenn.
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