In 2024, the expansion of private label American whiskey brands continues. However, with the slowdown at retail long underway, the logjam of cases clogging up distribution warehouses across the country, and barrel brokers already aware that prices are about to take a huge dive, I’ve been asking myself lately: what in the hell are these people thinking?!

This morning, the Scotch Whisky Association announced that exports of Scotch whisky are down 18% year over year so far. In that report, the SWA blames taxes, the lingering effect of COVID, and Trump’s U.S. tariffs for the downturn. Yet, there’s no mention of the ridiculous price increases that came long after the tariffs were removed and consumption was at an all-time high during the pandemic.

Large cities, like the brands we know and love, evolve over time. You can say you’ve been there, cross them off the checklist, and move on to the next adventure, but it doesn’t mean you’re up to date on what’s happened since your last visit. Buildings are torn down. Restaurants open and close. Things change. In the case of Kilchoman’s Loch Gorm expression, it's an entirely different whisky than it was a decade ago.

The appreciation of wine and spirits has taken a sharp left turn over the last decade for the sake of brevity and clicks. Most reviews that I read nowadays are focused on flavor, depth, and character, but provide little context other than personal opinion. Yet, there are many motivators beyond flavor for drinkers today. Where do these factors come into play when writing a review and does the average reviewer understand what’s motivating the average end consumer before coming to a conclusion?

If you’re a brand owner in the current market, the dilemma is quite clear. Your distributors can’t afford to buy more product until they can move their current inventory, yet the retailers can’t help move that inventory until their customers return to normal purchasing habits. With all these middlemen controlling the relationships between the brand and the end consumer, eating away at the remaining profits while generating their own leads, a direct line to the customer wouldn’t simply be a lifesaver, it would be an absolute game changer.

In 2024, the cracks in the NDP (non-distiller producer) whiskey facade are beginning to show. Do a search for cask strength 8+ year old Bourbons online and you’ll find a plethora of independently-bottled options between the $75-$100 mark that aren’t moving as fast as retailers would hope. Snoop around social media and you’ll find public conversations between Bourbon investors, each trying to unload their inventory before the bulk market dips any further. Don’t look now, but the momentum is starting to shift once again.

Historically, the price of gas has been the national barometer of a successful economy. The higher the price of petrol, the angrier Americans become. That being said, we may soon find Tesla-driving, remote-working, upper-middle class citizens replacing that gauge with a bottle of their favorite Bourbon, nostalgic for a time when life seemed more affordable, despite any gains they may have made over the years.

The wine industry has been in a panic for the last few years over a declining interest from younger drinkers. Bulk wine isn’t selling. Boomers are aging out. Young people aren’t drinking wine, they say. Sales are going down. Older collectors are dying out. People are starting to freak out. What are we going to do?!

Based on everything I’ve seen, read, and heard throughout the first nine months of 2023, here’s my advice on how to tackle OND and prepare your brand for the market reality check that is imminent in 2024.

As those of us who’ve spent the last decade in retail fully understand, fewer and fewer customers are buying any particular whiskey more than once these days. The most effective call-to-action for consumers at the moment is the opportunity to try something new and post about it on social media. Once it’s checked off the list, a whiskey’s modern utility has been used up.

In 2017, Anchor Steam was sold to Sapporo, a Japanese company located thousands of miles away. I have to imagine that—at the time—the thought of an $85 million dollar payout was more pertinent than the long-term success of an iconic local Bay Area beer in the hands of a foreign conglomerate. Six years later, we can see what went wrong.

After a ten year hiatus, I’m jumping back into the podcast game. I can’t promise you it will be technologically savvy or consistent in its audio quality, but I can promise you it will cover subjects in-depth that no one is talking about anywhere else on the web.

By marketing Canadian whisky through a Bourbon-filtered lens, American brands like Whistlepig Rye have gained traction with American drinkers, but have completely separated themselves from the Canadian genre in the process. Canadian distillers make corn, wheat, and barley whiskies much like American distillers, but few of those whiskies have captured the imagination of American drinkers like rye has, especially when blended and transparently marketed as Canadian in origin. 

While many consumers value consistency in their Bourbon and Scotch, no whiskey ever remains exactly the same. From year to year, even batch to batch, no matter how consistent it is, no matter how great the master blender’s talent, every batch of whiskey is a one-off. It’s never exactly the same as the one before it. Ever.

In the new age of marketing, information is a wormhole bridging entities that have historically been separated by barriers. For the booze business, product information and digital content have become a direct conduit between the producer and the end consumer, decreasing the demand for sales intermediaries that have long controlled the industry.

Talk to any distribution sales rep in the industry today and they’ll tell you the same thing: getting the product placement is the easy part. Enticing the consumer to purchase (or pull-through) is the challenge, and that’s partially because wine and spirits retailers no longer have the influence they once did.

For much of the second half of the 20th century, an undergraduate interest in the humanities was taken for granted for American universities. The wine industry has a similar problem.

The Sisyphean game of marketing Whac-A-Mole that has developed due to high turnover in the retail and hospitality sectors has many brand owners rethinking their strategy. Whereas winning over key retail stakeholders and heralded beverage directors was once a guaranteed path to increased sales and credibility, today that strategy isn’t nearly as sound.

For whisky aficionados and collectors who appreciate transparency on the label, cask strength proof, and the other informational accoutrements that often come with single barrel whiskies, finding bottles that scratch that itch is going to become harder and more expensive. Yet, for drinkers who appreciate both high-quality value and the treasure hunt that the retailer private label game offers, it’s a golden era for practicality.

Meet Todd Leopold, co-owner and distiller of Leopold Bros distillery in Denver, Colorado. You may think you know him and his products, but I assure you: you do not. While you may be aware of his family's many achievements and the incredible portfolio of spirits they've produced over the last two decades, I can promise you this: you have yet to really experience and appreciate just what Todd Leopold can do.