The residents of Tennessee have risen against one of the oldest whiskey-making distilleries, Jack Daniel’s, which has put the 150-year-old whiskey maker in hot water.
The people who have stood up against Jack Daniels say they are trying to save themselves from the financial and physical burdens they believe the whiskey maker has caused.
Specifically, these people are trying to stop the company from building more facilities as a whiskey fungus overtakes surrounding towns.
The fungus, Baudoinia compniacensis, grows on liquor that evaporates during the ageing process of whiskey, also known as the ‘angels share,’ and is known to stick to everything, including houses, cars, roads, trees, and furniture. The centuries-old black, sticky substance is nothing new for those who live around bourbon, rum, and whiskey makers.
However, the growth of Baudoinia compniacensis is crucial in whiskey production, making it difficult to object to its production.
Jack Daniel’s, owned by Brown-Forman, now has six warehouses, called barrelhouses, in Tennessee’s Lincoln County and wants to build more than a dozen in the future. The construction of Daniel’s new distilleries was hampered when a woman sued her local zoning office in January, trying to prevent the building of 14 more distilleries.
She said that the distilleries should only be built if proper ventilation systems are installed, as she claimed the hard-to-remove fungus had harmed her nearby property, which includes a party and wedding venue.
On March 1, the court ordered Jack Daniel’s to temporality halt construction. In response to being sued, a spokesperson for Jack Daniel’s issued a lengthy statement to The Post, stating that they worked closely with Lincoln County and adhered to regulatory requirements, strict industry guidelines, and rigorous internal standards they follow in building warehouses.
The spokesperson added that the presence of microflora is essential for producing whiskey and that after a thorough investigation, they have concluded that the microflora present in their warehouses does not hurt individuals or their properties.
The company also responded to the local woman’s suggestion of installing a ventilation system.
They said barrelhouses require ventilation and are designed to do so naturally while allowing the whiskey to move in and out of new charred oak barrels during ageing.
According to the representatives at Jack Daniel’s, existing independent and government research shows that there is no reasonably available control technology to prevent ethanol emissions without significantly adversely affecting the taste and quality of Jack Daniel’s or any other aged whiskey.
The lawsuit highlights the potential harm whiskey production can cause to nearby residents and the challenges of balancing economic development and public health concerns.
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