Is it true that most American whiskey is distilled in Kentucky?

Jim Beam is massive in scope in ways that are fairly incomprehensible. Add mpg and micros & I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not true.

Beam's biggest distillery (Booker Noe) is in Boston, KY.

Ok? Not what I asked. Suntory has lots of distilleries. Honestly don’t know what their production mix is.

Also doesn’t account for the trick question which is jack daniels. With that one is their any chance your statement is true?

PS: this is the worst form of internet board pedantry. Thomas was talking about a mis representation of the whiskey industry & instead of reputing his point, which I agree with, I nerd sniped.

Jack Daniels operates the largest still (by capacity) in the states, but then the next like 15 big stills are all in Kentucky. Suntory has stills all over the place, but if it's not Beam, it's probably not not American Beam-Suntory whiskey.

(Weird fact: MGPI distillate is all over the market, but they're not even close to the "biggest" still).

So this is a legitimate nerd snipe I’m willing to concede. I think it is closer than Thomas is saying here. Between Jack, Beam (and their international owners) & adding MGP & the tiny crafts I’d bet more American whiskey is distilled outside of Kentucky than in.

Here is the bet. Given a methodology chosen by ‘harryh I’m in on $500 to Blackstone Bicycle works against $500 to tptacek’s charity of choice.

If you count all Suntory whiskey as "American whiskey", I am not there for this bet. But otherwise, yeah, I'm in for "the majority of all American whiskey is distilled in Kentucky".

To answer the question I do not consider any jspanese whisky brand american whisky. Suntory, hibiki, Nikka, Yamazaki, etc.

american whiskeys like 4 roses, weird wild turkeys & japan only beams count as Americans.

I defer to harryh’ on the bet if you do.

Agree.

I don't know what y'all are asking me to do here exactly?

It seems like someone needs to do some research to find a list of whiskey distilleries and their annual output?

It turns out that this was fairly hard data to compile. The easiest set of data came from the Brown-Forman annual report. They list their distilleries and their sales volume in clear terms. The rest of the distilleries were not nearly as clear. Further Heaven Hill, a giant, is not public so don't need disclose an annual report.

In any case it became really clear really early that this bet devolved into 'does Jack Daniels outsell the rest of the American Whiskey industry by itself?'

Surprisingly, the answer is 'its actually close'. Here is an article that summarizes similar results to what I found: https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2018/06/world-whiskey-bra....

Dickel is the next biggest non-KY distillery that doesn't show up on this list. They are effectively .1 additional 9l cases combined. The crafts are .007.

In any case, I'll concede the bet. Let me know the charity.

Also if its not obvious that seagrams entry is from Indiana. So this top 7 list actually shows outside of KY on top, but the next N major distilleries are all in KY.

If anyone is watching this thread I paid the bet off to the Chicago Legal Clinic

I have no idea, I was just going along with whatever Kasey said.