9 min read
Here is a question that comes up every time the market softens, usually from someone smart looking at the category from the outside. New-fill barrels are going for a fraction of what they cost a few years ago. Shelf prices on the finished bottles...
4 min read
Ask a whiskey operator to name the risks to their brand and you will get a predictable list. The liquid might not be good enough. The price might be wrong. The story might not land. Demand might soften. Every one of those is real, and every one of...
6 min read
Most people choosing how to make their whiskey are answering the wrong question. They ask which path is most legitimate, or which one a serious brand would take. Neither question has a useful answer, because every one of these paths has built real...
9 min read
Every whiskey brand claims a story. Few of them are the same kind of story.
5 min read
The bourbon glut story has gone fully mainstream. It is in the Wall Street Journal. It is in hospitality industry newsletters. It is moving through LinkedIn feeds alongside Airbnb travel data and restaurant color trends. The headline writes itself:...
3 min read
For most of the last decade, whiskey brands were rewarded for moving quickly. If you had good liquid, a credible story, and enough capital to get to shelf, the market usually absorbed the rest. Demand covered timing mistakes. Distribution smoothed...
7 min read
The announcements came in close succession. Jim Beam paused production at its main Clermont campus for all of 2026. MGP followed, idling Lux Row Distillers in Bardstown and Limestone Branch in Lebanon starting May 1, for up to twelve months. Diageo...
4 min read
American whiskey exports fell 19% in 2025, a decline of $250 million, according to the DISCUS 2025 American Spirits Exports Report. The headline number is striking. The detail underneath it is more useful for operators trying to make decisions.
5 min read
There is a number that does not get talked about enough in whiskey circles: the monthly count of new label approvals coming out of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). It is not a glamorous data point. But tracked over time, it works...
3 min read
Bourbon’s popularity has surged in recent years, drawing in brands, distilleries, investors, and collectors from around the world. At the center of that growth sits the barrel market. But despite its importance, the role of the bourbon barrel broker...
