AFP, Louisville :
Just a few months ago, Kentucky bourbon was taking the world by storm. Long a quaint drink for grandfathers, the quintessentially American spirit made with local corn and the bluegrass region’s almost mythical limestone water at last was a hit with bar goers in Madrid, Tokyo, London, Sydney, Paris, Warsaw and Berlin.
Hipster nostalgia revived the thirst for age-old bourbon and rye cocktails from the American South and the Jazz Age, like the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the Sazerac and the Mint Julep.
Distillers poured billions into new production, promotion and hiring. “The biggest problem in the last few years has been that we can’t make it fast enough,” Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers Association, told AFP.
But then, in the middle of last year, came President Donald Trump’s trade wars.
To retaliate for stinging new US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union slapped import duties on American whiskies, causing soaring export growth to crash. Turkey raised tariffs on all US spirits to 140 percent from zero. After soaring 28 percent in the first six months of 2018, whiskey exports fell 11 percent in the second half, a period including Christmas and New Year’s, when demand for liquor typically rises, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
Just a few months ago, Kentucky bourbon was taking the world by storm. Long a quaint drink for grandfathers, the quintessentially American spirit made with local corn and the bluegrass region’s almost mythical limestone water at last was a hit with bar goers in Madrid, Tokyo, London, Sydney, Paris, Warsaw and Berlin.
Hipster nostalgia revived the thirst for age-old bourbon and rye cocktails from the American South and the Jazz Age, like the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the Sazerac and the Mint Julep.
Distillers poured billions into new production, promotion and hiring. “The biggest problem in the last few years has been that we can’t make it fast enough,” Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers Association, told AFP.
But then, in the middle of last year, came President Donald Trump’s trade wars.
To retaliate for stinging new US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union slapped import duties on American whiskies, causing soaring export growth to crash. Turkey raised tariffs on all US spirits to 140 percent from zero. After soaring 28 percent in the first six months of 2018, whiskey exports fell 11 percent in the second half, a period including Christmas and New Year’s, when demand for liquor typically rises, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
