Congress would kill the bourbon industry in Kentucky if they enact a bill currently being considered.

The bill as writte would no longer recognize national “standards of identity,” and instead let states decide what formula, labelling and bottling standards qualify for the “Bourbon” label, Kentucky Distillers Association President Eric Gregory said in a letter.

“As a result, any state could then create its own competing definition of Bourbon that would wipe out centuries of Kentucky craftsmanship, quality and heritage,”

he wrote to members of the Congressional Bourbon Caucus.

He further ranted:

“Allowing individual states to concoct a whiskey and call it ‘Bourbon,’ based on their own definition, would destroy the industry as we know it today.”

Kentucky produces an estimated 95 per cent of the world’s Bourbon, and provides an estimated 10,000 jobs and accounts for 750 million dollars in US exports.

“On behalf of Kentucky’s signature Bourbon and distilled spirits industry, I strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 5034 and ask that you make your colleagues aware of its potentially disastrous repercussions.”

Mr Gregory’s group represents Bourbon brands Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Wild Turkey and Woodford Reserve.

The US Congress designated Bourbon a “distinctive product of the United States” in 1964.

And US law lays out a series of distilling and bottling rules – such as a requirement that the grain mixture be at least 51 corn, that no coloring or flavoring may be added and that it must be aged at least two years in new, charred, white oak barrels.