BOURBON TV

FEW THINGS are hotter in the drinks world these days than bourbon. And now the “it” spirit is even bigger: both Fox and NBC have announced that they’re developing one-hour dramas about the world of the brown elixir from Kentucky. Fox’s show, produced by Hell on Wheels’ Bruce Romans, is just going by The Untitled Kentucky Bourbon Project for now, but NBC’s entry, spearheaded by Empire’s David Rambo, has a regal title: The Bourbon Kings. Based off a book by J.R. Ward, NBC’s show would center on the travails and troubles of an aristocratic Kentucky brewing family. Meanwhile, Fox’s project will ironically focus on the problems and pitfalls that beset a family of aristocratic Kentucky brewers. Both shows are still in early development so neither has a lock on getting to the airwaves. But given bourbon’s every-growing popularity it’s unlikely that the trend will have subsided by the time we see it on TV.