Massive Jim Beam fire reportedly smells delicious

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

published 3 July 2019

There is only one upside to a massive fire that started in a Jim Beam warehouse Tuesday night.

Instead of dousing the flames and flushing the bourbon into a nearby creek, officials simply let the fire burn through 45,000 barrels so the liquor didn't contaminate a nearby waterway. But at least, as Woodford County emergency worker told The New York Times, "it's about the best-smelling fire I've ever been at."

One warehouse in Woodford County, Kentucky caught fire around 11:30 Tuesday night, and while flames spread to a second, firefighters were able to douse that fire quickly, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. The original fire was also put out by 12:50 p.m. on Wednesday, though it appears the bourbon-burning strategy didn't completely work. While any liqour at 80 proof or higher should've completely burned, and that counted for most of the bourbon in the facility, "thousands of gallons" still leaked into the nearby Woodford Creek, which flows into the Kentucky River, per the Courier-Journal.

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According to the Courier-Journal's math, the 45,000-barrel supply would've amounted to "at least 6.75 million bottles." Still, Jim Beam drinkers can rest assured knowing the fire won't affect the company's supply. The lost barrels were full of "relatively young whiskey," Jim Beam's parent company told the Times. Officials are still looking into what caused the fire, though lightning was reported in the area Tuesday night. And if anything, the smell of "old natural wood and a distilled spirit," as the emergency official described it, will probably hang around for a while.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.