Cocktail Recipe: Lightning, Wind, Water and 800,000 gallons of Kentucky Bourbon

The Weather Channel has just released a video of an event captured on camera in 2003. Twelve years ago, a lake in Kentucky produced a spectacular phenomenon as nature’s rapid response to an accident caused a lightning strike at the nearby Jim Beam manufacturing facility. The chain reaction started shortly after the strike when runoff from the from the blaze accumulated in nearby lakes. The fiery bourbon, attributing a key ingredient to this cocktail, alongside a small EF0 tornado, spawned an extremely rare event known as a Firenado.



Firefighters were able to dam-up a creek and contain the blaze. The ecological impact of the Jim Beam accident affecting local fish & wildlife has cost environmental cleanup efforts approximately $70,000 since the 2003 event. The distillery only lost about 2% of its reserves in the blast and according to the Kentucky Distillers Association, remains the largest Bourbon producer in the state.