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. 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. “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. – For decades, the whiskey and bourbon makers of Tennessee and Kentucky have been beloved in their communities.

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