This Bourbon Aged in England Is Returning to the U.S. After Trump Lifted His Whiskey Tariffs – Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore
When Trump announced that he would lift the 10 percent tariff on whisky from the U.K., the spirits industry breathed a sigh of relief. And at least one brand is already talking about how this has helped its business. Never Say Die Bourbon, an interesting brand that we’ve reviewed positively before, is resuming shipments from the U.K. to the U.S. starting this month. And if you’re confused about why a whiskey is shipped from overseas to America and not vice versa and can still be called bourbon, we have some answers.
As most whiskey drinkers know, per TTB regulations bourbon has to be “produced in the U.S.,” but what you might not know is that means it doesn’t have to be aged here, or at least not entirely. When we first covered Never Say Die in 2023, we reached out to cofounder Brian Luftman, who said the TTB approved the brand as “Kentucky straight bourbon” because it was initially aged for the required two years in the U.S. before being shipped to England. This is not the first example of this: Other major brands and distilleries are rumored to send their whiskeys to cooler climates in the U.K., where bourbon can age longer with less chance of becoming overly oaky, but this is usually not something they disclose publicly. And a brand like Jefferson’s sends its bourbon on container ships around the world to age in different climates, and it is still legally bourbon.
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Never Say Die is distilled at an undisclosed distillery outside of Lexington from a mashbill of 75 percent corn, 21 percent rye, and 4 percent malted barley, aged there for a time, and then taken on a six-week journey to the White Peak Distillery in Derbyshire, England, where it spends about a year. Because of that last step, the brand has to import it back to the U.S. and was subject to the 10 percent tariff, so it stopped shipping bottles back to America in early 2025. Now that the levy is being lifted, Luftman says imports will resume.
“With retailers running out of inventory of Never Say Die, we were considering paying the tariff to replenish American inventory,” he said in a statement. “King Charles’s progressive meeting with President Trump could not have come at a better time. We had delayed shipments in hope of a lucky moment, and that moment has now arrived.”
This follows a previous statement from the brand just after the announcement made by cofounder Martha Dalton, who also cofounded the Bourbon Alliance and led its Free the Spirit campaign against whiskey tariffs. “This can’t stop at whisky,” she said at the time. “Other U.K. spirits are still carrying a 10 percent tariff into the U.S., and Irish whiskey from the Republic is facing 15 percent . . .Today’s announcement is a powerful start, and we hope it marks the beginning of a new era for the transatlantic spirits trade.”
If you’re looking for a bottle of Never Say Die Bourbon, Barrel Strength Bourbon, or Rye Whiskey to try, it might be hard to find at the moment—but check your local retailer as bottles should be back in stock soon.
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