True... although a barrel is significantly larger than a bottle. Rough napkin math, around 250 bottles per barrel.

You need to factor in evaporation. The longer the whiskey is in the barrel the more that evaporates (the "angel's share").

As I understand it: if you buy a barrel, you're going to get 180-200 bottles. But remember also that whiskey is almost always diluted when it's bottled; the cask strength will be 50-60, and the bottle will be 40-50.

Kentucky has 4.5 million people. A barrel is 53 gallons (100L) which means they have ~477.7 million gallons of whiskey. 2.4 billion bottles.

The numbers seem staggering, after doing the napkin math I'm curious how accurate they are.

Scotland has 5.44 million people [1] and 20 million casks laid down [2], for a ratio of 3.67:1. If these Kentuckians want to get serious about booze, they need to raise their game.

[1] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2019/scotlands-population...

[2] https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/insights/facts-figures/

If they did the prices would fall back to the levels me my old man were used to. You know before every other doofus was drinking Manhattans, buying good bottles and either cellaring them or trying to flip them. I was forced to collect a bourbon bunker because it became endless September oh about 12 years ago.

What’s the average age of whiskeys in Scotland vs Kentucky? If my hunch is correct the Scotch whisky’s are aged for a longer period of time. It could explain why they have more.

Yes, scotch is aged much longer than bourbon. A 12-year scotch is a supermarket product, and liquor stores are full of 21+ year olds; bourbons average closer to 7-9, but can get bottled much younger, and supposedly don't benefit from super-long aging periods the way scotch (supposedly) does.

If 10% are harvested per year then 250M bottles must be sold each year, which seems credible, assuming much is exported.