Industry

Is There a Bubble Brewing in Bourbon?

“A bubble might be brewing in bourbon,” headlined the Business Insider story a few days back, reporting on an analysis by RBC Capital Markets. (The last time Business Insider predicted an impending ‘bourbon bubble’ was in February of 2014.)

The picture below shows good bourbon bubbles, not the kind Business Insider means. Economists define a ‘bubble’ as “a market phenomenon characterized by surges in asset prices to levels significantly above the fundamental value of that asset. Bubbles are often hard to detect in real time because there is disagreement over the fundamental value of the asset.”