A fire believed to have been caused by lightning destroyed a Jim Beam Distilling Co. warehouse filled with 45,000 barrels of aging bourbon. The bourbon was described as “relatively young whiskey” and represented about 1% of the bourbon aging at the facility.
Beam hired an emergency cleanup crew and state environmental officials sought to control bourbon runoff.
Despite their best efforts, whiskey seeped into nearby waterways including the Kentucky River. On Saturday the alcohol plume was about 23 miles long. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet warned that “people using the Kentucky River in the area of the plume will see dead fish and may smell them.”
The plume was expected to hit the Ohio River sometime today (Monday, 7/8). It was expected to dissipate quickly “as it enters the much, much larger body of water but there could be some impact to aquatic life immediately where the rivers meet,” Kentucky environmental officials said.
Some people on the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet wrote snarky comments, but others, such as Will Vaughan, noted that So a few fish died because a company that has done way more than their fair share to improve the environment had an accident….at this point it’s very low impact.