The river is whiskey but I'm not a duck
So I can't swim to the bottom and never come up
Tell me how long..............
Wednesday May 10 2:11 PM ET
Fire Sweeps Whiskey Warehouse
LAWRENCEBURG, Ky. (Reuters) - A distillery fire fueled by thousands of gallons of Wild Turkey whiskey destroyed a warehouse
and contaminated this central Kentucky city's water supply, authorities said on Tuesday.
Three hours after it caught fire, the collapsed warehouse was still spouting flames that were fed by a sea of year-old bourbon
contained in between 15,000 and 20,000 55-gallon casks, still operator Keith Phillips told Reuters.
``It was amazing how quickly it burned,'' Phillips said. ''You could hear barrels exploding like gunshots.''
``The warehouse is gone,'' an Anderson County Sheriff's dispatcher said, who said no one was seriously injured.
Phillips said he saw a couple of firefighters helped from the scene after they were overcome by the intense heat.
The fire, spread by the blazing alcohol, torched trees and grasslands along the adjacent Kentucky River and
damaged a section of Lawrenceburg's water plant, Phillips said.
Lawrenceburg officials ordered unnecessary water usage in restaurants and car washes halted temporarily after
whiskey run-off poured into the river and forced authorities to stop drawing water through an intake pipe.
The cause of the fire was not yet known, but work was being done on the warehouse's electrical system as the distillery prepared to
shore up the sagging building.
Phillips said there were numerous other warehouses at the facility where the sweet-tasting whiskey was being aged, some as long as
12 years. He said the whiskey that burned up was distilled only last year.
In any case, the distillery, the only one where Wild Turkey is made, was still operating and Phillips predicted no shortage of the product.
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