Exploring the impact of mold-like fungus on buildings near WhistlePig distillery
By Gwendolyn Craig
In the northeastern corner of the Adirondack Park, WhistlePig Whiskey built warehouses to store, age and bottle its libations. A few years after the whiskey aging began, residents in the Mineville area started noticing a black moldy substance growing on their houses, cars and fence posts.
At the end of 2023, the Explorer wrote about the growing problem of whiskey fungus, a naturally occurring fungus that tends to proliferate in the presence of ethanol vapors.
The Adirondack Explorer thanks its advertising partners. Become one of them.
In March 2024, the Explorer found testing conducted by the state Department of Environmental Conservation showed a wider spread of whiskey fungus in the area than previously thought. The department ordered WhistlePig Whiskey and its subsidiary, Moriah Ventures, to create a corrective action plan.
The Explorer also found through Freedom of Information Law requests that the DEC was in contact with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the fungus, and inquiries into possible enforcement cases involving the federal Clean Air Act.
In May, the Explorer reported that the whiskey company deflected responsibility for the fungus. But over the summer, WhistlePig submitted a plan that involved cleaning area houses within a specific radius.
Some residents have had their houses cleaned since. But there is still a neighborhood concern over the impacts the fungus could have to health, despite the state Health Department’s position that the fungus is not a public health threat. Neighbors are also frustrated by the fungus growing on trees, gardens, cars and other items not covered under the house cleaning policy.
The Adirondack Explorer thanks its advertising partners. Become one of them.
The Explorer continues to cover this issue into 2025.
thank you for keeping on this we live down the street and both my houses are covered and it took over a year to get them cleaned and i have people with breathing problems so i am very concerned with this coming back this spring and trying to get a response from dec was a joke they never returned my calls but moriah ventures did and we had people here to clean the houses with dawn dishsoap and bleech something is better than nothing i guess please don’t let this story die thanks again
This fungus is very common. It’s on many of the distillery buildings along the bourbon trail in Kentucky and it is also also around the sugar importing faculties along NY harbor in Brooklyn.
So once again we have to put up with people who No-Matter how you solve a problem will never let it go. WhistlePig Whiskey distillery has been given an order to resolve their responsibilities and is doing it. Yet there are always going to be selfish idiots that will continue to find one more problem until they finally put these people out of business. Much of the issue is if one guy isn’t going to live up to his potential, then he sure as hell isn’t going to let someone else who has found a better way, get away with it. One of the downsides of living in an unproductive lazy community! Simply Disgusting.