Posted on 08/06/2025 3:03:09 AM PDT by dennisw
A wave of American whiskey distilleries are collapsing under the weight of mounting debt, falling demand, and rising global tensions — signaling a crisis for the once-booming industry.
The latest to fall the owner of the Luca Mariano Distillery in Danville, Kentucky, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month with an estimated $25 million in debt.
Owner Francesco Viola said he hopes the business can 'emerge successfully, ideally with the support of its employees, customers, community and creditors.'
Luca Mariano follows the high-profile collapse of Garrard County Distilling, a $250 million independent Kentucky distillery that was placed into receivership and shut down in April after defaulting on debt.
And in late 2023, the iconic Kentucky Owl, founded in 1879, also filed for bankruptcy — citing slumping sales and a crippling cyberattack that halted operations.
Sales are drying up as price-sensitive and health-conscious American consumers pull back on spirits.
Campari-owned Wild Turkey saw an 8 percent decline in US sales during the first half of 2025, while Jack Daniel’s dropped 6 percent year-over-year.
In January, Jack Daniel's parent company Brown-Forman announced layoffs affecting 12 percent of its workforce and the closure of a major barrel-making facility in Louisville.
Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey also fell 6 percent year-over-year, its latest report revealed.
'This has been an extremely difficult time for distillers across the country who are dealing with increased production costs, a slowdown in spirits sales in the U.S. marketplace, and a significant disruption to spirits exports due to threat of tariffs and retaliation related to ongoing trade disputes,
Another major hurdle for this industry is that Canada, the US spirits second largest export market, is keeping whisky off its store shelves in protest at Trump's punitive trade policies against the nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“Yep, the high prices is more of the reason for the slowdown.”
Yep, but I now see the fast food industry has hit the wall and decided it would be wise to start coming back down. That is a start... Hopefully it will trend...
The point of quantitative easing is to do what?
Provide liquidity to the banking system.
And what is the purpose of liquidity in the banking system? Where does the liquidity go? How does the banking system use the liquidity [to make money for the banking system since that is how the banking system gets paid to do whatever it is you want the banking system to do.]?
When you go to your bank to withdraw your money and they don't have any, that's a liquidity issue.
Where does the liquidity go?
It allows businesses and people to borrow.
Yep - I'm old enough to remember when wings were the cheap part of the chicken.
I quit drinking four years ago, but I loved that stuff so much that I would donate money to them to keep them open.
Especially whiskey and bourbon and brandy.
But I won’t be drinking it.
I can’t stand marijuana smoke, am allergic to mushrooms, and my GI system rebels at the yeast and gluten in beer. That makes good Irish whiskey my intoxicant of choice and sentimental about the Mad Men generation.
Marijuana smoke is very public now in the “urban” areas of blue states that legalized this drek. Downtown NYC for sure.
The dreadful effects of widespread marijuana use now include Chinese triads running massive marijuana grow houses in the US. In states that have legalized marijuana, the rates of single car accidents and mental illness associated with marijuana use are on the rise.
I have been anti-marijuana for ages. What I never figured was that legalizing marijuana would lead to larger illegal marijuana markets. That lines between legal and illegal would get so blurred and confused. You would think that states so greedy for marijuana taxes, would be able to take action against the illegal marijuana operations.
Take a legal marijuana farm in California. It is supposed to sell only to legal marijuana shops/ My bet is they sell into the illgal markets when they need fast cash.
Dems are good for the Hard Liquor business.
News: in Washington the Democrat Majority Leadwr did ....
American: Oh no, the country is going to hell. I need a drink ....
Instead here is what we have.
News: in Washington the Trump administration did ....
American; its about time .... [and nothing to drink]
Marijuana legalization is a foolish choice. Just about every developed nation that tries it eventually gives up and goes back to making the stuff illegal.
Marijuana is a third world drug for third world people. If you want to develop a third world brain, then consume lots of it. It is not suitable for white people because it not a native plant of Europe. I admit it will grow great in Southern Europe, but it was never traditionally consumed there.
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