Bourbon distillers who invested time and money cultivating markets in Europe and Canada are now worried about becoming “collateral damage” in escalating tit-for-tat disputes.
Bourbon is made in states that voted for this. It’s not collateral damage, it’s face-eating leopards eating their faces.
When it comes to whisky/whiskey they vary a lot in flavor, but have many similarities based on the region due to all kinds of factors. Bourbons in particular tend to have noticeable vanilla notes, which may or may not be lacking in other types. You can use bourbon or rye, or really any other whisky in an old fashioned, but you probably wouldn’t want to use an Islay single malt (well I wouldn’t, but maybe you do, I don’t know) but I think that’s specific to Islay, and I mostly would be fine having one made with any type of whisky.
Anyway, my point is that unless you’re looking for something specific about bourbon that you can’t find elsewhere, alternatives are at least as good regardless of where they come from. I like a good bourbon, but at least for the time being, I wouldn’t buy any.
There are great options everywhere, including American whiskey. But with so many options, losing one is not a big deal.
I’d be curious how many people go looking specifically for American whiskey purposely looking past all other alternatives because that’s exactly what they want.
Things have changed a lot since then. The US has over 1 million active personnel to Canada’s <100k. If it comes to a real invasion, things would not go well.
The real question is how many Americans would be willing to participate in that invasion.