In Lincoln County, Tennessee a Last Of Us-like situation is happening as a strong, heat-resistant fungus is spreading across trees, homes, cars, signs, and decks. And you can blame all of it on Jack Daniels and its warehouses full of whiskey, which this particular fungus feeds off of. Residents are so mad that at least one couple is suing the whiskey maker over the disgusting fungus spreading across large portions of the county.
Right now, one of the biggest shows in the world is The Last Of Us. The new HBO Max series is an adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic video game series created by Naughty Dog and released exclusively on PlayStation consoles. While in the game the threat was spores, in the show it’s a nasty, tentacle-like fungus that grows rapidly and can even turn people into hideous zombie-like monsters that will attack humans and animals. And while monsters haven’t shown up (yet..) in Tennessee, people living there are dealing with a rapidly growing and hard-to-control Last of Us-like fungus that survives and grows off ethanol fumes, including the kind released during the whiskey aging process.
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As reported by The New York Times last week, whiskey fungus has become a serious problem for the residents of Lincoln County who happen to live nearby the six different Jack Daniels barrelhouses—warehouses that store and age the whiskey—that dot the rural county of 35,000 people, bringing a lot of money via taxes. In areas near and around these barrelhouses, folks have reported a “sooty, dark crust” over everything outside. One resident even scraped the paint off her outdoor furniture trying to remove the fungus. Another couple is suing Jack Daniels as they maintain an old mansion they use for weddings and events, and now have to pressure wash and clean the outside of it frequently to fight the build-up of whiskey fungus.
Read more: Kotaku
