Whiskey & Tariffs Don't Mix

The weaponizing of trade isn’t irritating just bourbon and Scotch drinkers. It’s crashing headlong into the interwoven realities of a global industry

- Shawn Donnan

Ask Aaron Willett what the future of bourbon looks like, and he’ll take you out onto the floor of Speyside Cooperage’s outpost in Shepherdsville, Ky. There, on a recent winter day, what you’d have seen was a phalanx of 450-liter (119-gallon) Armagnac casks stacked two high. The brandy had been drained. But the oak barrels imported from France were now about to embark on a new phase of their life, poised to lend flavor to a generation of Kentucky’s finest.

Bourbon, the most American of spirits, has for decades been governed by a 1964 congressional resolution requiring that corn make up at least 51% of the mash from which it’s distilled, that it be made in the U.S., and that it be aged in virgin American oak barrels with a charred interior. And through history that’s what Kentucky distillers have done, leaving their bourbons to mature through hot summers and damp winters in warehouses filled with tens of thousands of barrels.

Now a whiskey boom and a new generation of artisanal distillers looking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market is changing the business. Tradition and American oak still live strong. But these days a growing number of bourbon makers are following the example set by Scotch distillers and adding an extra step—transferring their whiskeys from those congressionally mandated charred oak barrels to imported brandy, sherry, and port casks that add undertones to the vanilla and caramel notes that bourbon drinkers have traditionally prized.