Bourbon taxes

[Kjbarth]

Interesting. I didn’t realize bourbon is taxed as property every year it sits in a barrel in a KY warehouse.

 

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[BigRich]

That is pretty standard for whiskey in most countries.  It's also taxed on the original barrel volume, not the residual volume.  This is a main reason why older whiskey is more expensive.  The production is sunk cost and the warehousing is minimal incremental expense.  But every year older it gets it has to carry another year of taxes and spread the cumulative expense of those taxes over fewer bottles.   It used to be pretty straightforward math to estimate the cost of a new release.  But now you have to add the frenzy/tater premium which is an ever moving variable.