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Interesting read from the WSJ:
America’s Bourbon Boom Is Over. Now the Hangover Is Here. @ The Wall Street Journal
The dip seems relatively minor in comparison to the multi-year growth. Boom may be dead in terms of continuing it's rapid growth, but it's got to fall pretty damn far to get back to the bourbon dark ages (1960s-1970s).
Comments
It's behind a paywall unfortunately
I think part of its is that the general public is tired of paying $50-$60 for $30 bourbon. Not a bourbon purist really. I like it, but much prefer Irish Whiskey.
Forthcoming retaliatory tarrifs are not going to help those bourbon outfits that have come to expect a more lucrative global footprint.
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Found a copy that's not paywalled:
America’s Bourbon Boom Is Over. Now the Hangover Is Here. @ msn
I think there will very soon be a repeat of the whiskey loch of the 70's/80's as previously stated. Way too much capacity coming on line. Our entire industry has seemingly taken a hit in the last two years. Lots of folks slowing down, closing, changing their focus. I know we are rethinking our focus and we need to introduce new products.
I also noticed that most new folks are starting distillery/bars, and not focusing on getting into distribution. It's just difficult now. So many places now in the bigger states. I went to what was traditionally our biggest money event last year and it went from 4 distilleries to 12. I'm not even sure we broke even.
We really haven't seen a slowdown, 2024 was our best year, and that's pretty much been the trajectory (with covid being the exception). I think we'll always skew towards the tasting room driving a large portion of sales, and the profitability of serving cocktails is hard to match in distribution. Far easier to make money with the distillery+bar combo, but it should be very obvious that you'll likely hit the max your local market can support relatively quickly, so top-end revenue will always be constrained outside of operating in a year-round tourist location. We did lose distilleries in state in 2024, and suspect we'll see that continue in 2025. Whether or not it'll be as bad as what the brewers are seeing right now is questionable, distilleries didn't nearly see the increase that breweries did.
Friend of ours launched a very niche/boutique spirit brand last year, 1 product. He's using third-party to manufacture, and doing pretty well with it. However, he's a known spirits "influencer", so he's had his own brand to lean on for marketing/awareness. It's very niche, basically its own category, so he really has zero competition.
As somewhat of a joke, we were going to source some ridiculously sized 3.75l bottles, which is the new max standard of fill, and sell dirt cheap vodka by the gallon. Maybe we'd even call it that, "dirt cheap vodka by the gallon". The new anti-alcohol agenda would have a field day with us.