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Bourbon shortage: should drinkers be worried?

Getty

Getty

Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf is a 2007 song by Las Vegas rock-band The Killers, and it seems the ode to abstinence has taken on fresh significance  as the world supposedly runs out of the liquor.

We could be headed for a bourbon shortage, with distillers blindsided by a recent resurgence in the drink’s popularity, science magazine Nautilus warns.

Jim Beam Bourbon and Cola is the highest selling pre-mixed alcoholic beverage in the nation, so there will be plenty of Aussies hoping the shortage is not too dire.

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Bigger distilleries like good ol’ Jim could be here to save us. Photo: Getty

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States has revealed that supplies are running out because Bourbon, exports of which topped $1 billion in 2013, takes years to age.

American law dictates that the spirit — a whiskey made predominantly from corn — must be distilled in the US and aged in charred oak barrels.

To be considered ‘straight’ bourbon, the product must age for at least two years and if it matures for less than four years manufacturers must say so on labelling.

The situation became so dire last November that a distillery in Buffalo sent customers an alarmingly written email pre-empting the shortage. This company ages its bourbon for at least eight to 10 years, with some sitting for over two decades.

Some are sceptical of the shortage, saying that sensationalisation is trumping sense.

“The Internet-wide scare appears to be the product of the sensationalisation of a few unrelated stories cobbled together to scare an American public that recently has become crazed for bourbon,” wrote a journalist in The Washington Examiner.

So is the bourbon shortage a thing and could we see bare bourbon shelves in bottle shops?

Probably not. While there may be a shortage in bourbons aged for longer in smaller breweries, there will be enough of the more commercial bourbon, which takes less time to age, to keep us jolly.

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