Meet The Bourbon Spider

This dude has something in common with you… it likes to hangout in rick houses at distilleries

Ah, the smell of the rick house on a distillery tour. There isn’t really anything like it. It’s always a highlight on any bourbon tour and it rivals the tasting at the end for one of the coolest stops on a bourbon tour… which is amazing because on one you are drinking bourbon and the other is a plain, rickety building that is probably either too hot, or too cold, but there is something special mesmerizing about the smells, those straight rows of barrels lined up and those blowing veils of spider webs you see.

Wait, spider webs are cool?

Well, it is October so everything creepy is cool this month, but yes, the spider webs are so awesome because they are a part of almost every single rick house you enter. There is a familiarity to them, even though the spider that makes them ensures no too are alike because they really aren’t into the geometric patterns you see other spiders creating. Instead, it’s more like dusty blanket that they use to capture their prey.

The spiders, known as “Bourbon Spiders” in the industry, but most commonly “Cellar Spiders” outside of rick houses for their love for being in dark, damp places. The species is officially called Pholcus phalangiodes which puts them a close relative of the Daddy Longlegs you might find on your porch and a more distant relative of the Tarantula, which are creepy whether or not it’s October, and I hope you never have to see anywhere near your home. If I ever ever saw one at my residence, I would step on it, burn the remains of the Tarantula and the shoe that did the dirty work, and then sell the house.

The Bourbon Spider doesn’t bother humans, and would be listed as “non-venomous” to us even though, like any good spider, they have venom that kills their prey, which is mostly other bugs that love rick house like crickets or other spiders. That’s one of the reasons why Bourbon Spiders dominate rick houses. They flat our go after other types of spiders, even mimicking the vibrating of being captured in another spiders web to draw them out of hiding where they can attack and kill them at their own house.

This is why Kentucky is currently supporting legislation allowing spiders to carry tiny guns that are harmless to humans which would allow them to protect their houses (webs) from intruders. Of course, I’m just kidding… Kentucky would never do anything to stop the Bourbon Spider from doing what it does. It’s a cool little something extra to be on the lookout for the next time you visit a rick house.

I mean it’s a spider that loves bourbon. That is pretty darn great. Cheers to you Pholcus phalangiodes… aka Bourbon Spider.