Canadian readers respond: Blame Trump for Kentucky’s bourbon woes, not us
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Canada's whiskey boycott cost Kentucky $19 million in lost bourbon exports.
- Canadian readers blame U.S. policy under Trump for strained trade relations.
- Kentucky's $9B bourbon sector faces export strain amid ongoing trade tensions.
Canada would like Kentucky to know: We might be boycotting bourbon, but don’t blame us for the industry’s issues.
Our beef isn’t with you, they say. It’s with President Donald Trump. And Kentucky’s should be too, according to comments from readers up north.
After a Sept. 3 Herald-Leader story on the Kentucky bourbon industry’s struggles, including the impact of Canada’s monthslong boycott of American whiskey we heard from several Canadian readers. Distillers, including the parent of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey have lost more than $19 million since March, as Canadian sales have dried up.
The problem with Canadian bourbon sales is not tariffs, wrote Brent Lane, from Vancouver, British Columbia, who described himself as “a former bourbon drinker with a particular fondness for Maker’s Mark.”
“How can you simply fail to understand that the orange idiot you elected now presents AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT to the sovereignty of Canada?” Lane wrote.
Another reader, Doug McLean, a reader from Toronto who said he drank Jack Daniel’s in his youth as a baseball player at the University of Florida and now drinks Maker’s, had a similar reaction: “Sales to Canada down ... Don’t blame Canada. It’s all on your piece of (expletive) President. He started the economic war. Now you can eat the inventory.”
The Kentucky.com article also was shared on a Reddit thread in Canada that had more than 350 comments, many along the same lines.
“Blame Trump, not Canada,” was the top up-voted comment on the anonymous message board.
“The article, as per usual, frames it as a ‘trade dispute,’ totally ignoring the bigger issue of attacks on our sovereignty,” another commenter posted.
In January, Trump had threatened to use “economic force” to annex Canada.
The boycott of Kentucky bourbon and other American-made spirits and products began in March when President Trump put a 25% tariff on many goods. While the tariff was almost immediately paused, the damage was done.
The reaction was swift and harsh: All provinces immediately pulled American whiskeys out of liquor stores and bars. Only two have relented and allowed bourbon back on the shelves.
Through June, overall whiskey exports were down 60%, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. And Louisville-based Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel’s, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, has taken a similar hit to its bottom line.
The blocked export market has become one of many drags on Kentucky’s $9 billion bourbon economy that until recently was booming.
When will it end? Hard to say. The spirits industry on both sides would like to see things return to normal, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
But feelings are still running high.
As Lane, the former Maker’s Mark drinker from Vancoucer, put it:
“Once ‘Cheeto Benito’ stops mouthing off about assimilating Canada and making it the ‘51st state,’ and once he stops referring to our Prime Minister as ‘Governor,’ we’ll consider buying more bourbon — not a day before.”
