More than 1000 spirits industry professionals have convened on the University of Kentucky, as the James B Beam Institute holds its annual Bourbon event.

Some of the main topics of conversation this year tariffs, expansion, and what's next.

When this business is like being in the farming business every year, that's a challenge.

You know, one year the bugs eat up the crop the same way.

One year we had a barrel shortage.

And now, you know there's concern about the tariffs.

Obviously tariffs are a dynamic situation.

We had a 36 hour travel with Colombia.

So it's really hard to predict.

Well it is a little concerning about the tariffs.

Don't know where it's all going to land.

But hopefully that and I'll get worked out before it gets really critical.

And those people in the world got a drink and they don't like the tariffs either.

So hopefully these other countries will come around and, settle on, settle on an agreement.

If you look at the overall spirits industry, you know, obviously a challenging year and 2024, but there are still really interesting pockets of growth, I think.

For bourbon in particular, there's just two things we really need to think through.

The first is what are the global opportunities and where can where can bourbon in the bourbon the whiskey industry grow.

And then the second is how do we make sure we're keeping, relevance to consumers.

On a geographic standpoint, there's huge opportunities, for if you look at the profit pools for for whiskey around the world are huge opportunities in Latin America for bourbon.

Huge opportunity in India for bourbon.

The conference is really built on transparent sharing, data.

I love now that we're drawing people from all over, if not only all over the United States, all over the world.

And there's ideas to, reduce, improve the efficiency of supply chain from, from corn.

And we had many of our growers in the audience there.

And that's really exciting for me to see just the connectivity between the place and the product and a lot of discussion around that.

But at the end of the day, a healthy bourbon industry, the healthy spirits industry is is part of what makes, the communities thrive.

You know, that's sustainability is core to that as well, because in our right to operate is dependent on healthy water, healthy wood, healthy grain, and also our rights outbreak depends on staying relevant.

And so making a bigger table for the next generation of distillers and innovators to come in and challenge the industry, pushing the nation that keeps us relevant, keeps the industry relevant.

It keeps bourbon relevant.

The three day conference ends tomorrow.

Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Schell is expected to close the conference by signing a proclamation making March 19th Kentucky Agriculture Trade Day.