America's Craft Spirits Industry Grows Up

 

Denver's Leopold Bros is an example of a
successful, independent craft distillery.

Many new non-distiller producers want to become distillers, or at least say they do. Some eventually build or buy a distillery, but many don't. The term “non-distiller producer” (NDP) is not intended as a pejorative. It was coined merely to distinguish producers who distill from producers who don’t. There is nothing wrong with sourcing. It only becomes a problem when a sourcing producer pretends its products are something they are not.

For consumers, the ‘maker or faker’ question remains unresolved. You can’t reliably tell who distilled something just by reading the label. While some store clerks and bartenders can help, most can’t. Usually the answer can be found, but it takes at least a little work.

As more craft-distilled and craft-adjacent products came on the market, an infrastructure began to develop. Bill Owens was first with the ADI. In 2010, liquor industry veterans Dave Schmier and Marty Duffy launched the Independent Spirits Expo, a tasting event to bring small producers of all kinds glass-to-mouth with consumers and hospitality professionals. All small, independent producers were welcome. It was up to them to communicate what they meant by ‘produced,’ but transparency was encouraged. Begun in Chicago, it spread to New York.

Gradually, the existing whiskey expositions and tastings such as those produced by Whisky Magazine and Whisky Advocate Magazine began to include more small producers. Templeton, Whistle Pig, and Stranahan’s got some of their first national exposure exhibiting at those events. 

Today, drinks festivals of all kinds routinely combine products from large and small producers. The adage holds true. Consumers don’t care about producers; they care about brands.

In 2013, the American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) was launched as a trade association for craft distillers. Existing trade groups, such as the Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) and Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA), created membership categories for small producers. Craft distillers in New York, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and other states formed state associations or guilds of their own. 

In 2016, ACSA and its research partners released their first report on the size and economic impact of the craft spirits industry. The annual reports of the Craft Spirits Data Project (CSDP) draw a clear connection between craft spirits and job development, agricultural growth, and increased tourism. Its data is routinely cited in national business and trade journals. 

According to the most recent CSDP report, the number of active craft distillers in the U.S. grew by 11.5% over the previous year to reach a total of 3,069.

The ACSA defines “active craft distillers” as licensed U.S. distilled spirits producers who remove 750,000 proof gallons (or 394,317 9L cases) or less from bond. They market themselves as craft, are not openly controlled by a large supplier, and “have no proven violation of the ACSA Code of Ethics.”

As for sales, recent years have been challenging for the entire distilled spirits industry, including crafts. The most recent report is 2023 data. In that year, the U.S. craft spirits industry moved more than 13.5 million 9L cases, a decline of 3.6 percent compared to 2022. In dollar terms, the category reached $7.8 billion in sales, a 1.1 percent decline. Craft spirits also lost market share versus “legacy” producers, declining from 4.9 percent to 4.6 percent in volume, and from 7.7 percent to 7.5 percent in value.

One metric that increased in 2023 was employment. Craft distilleries in the U.S. had about 30,000 full-time employees in 2023, up seven percent from 2022.

Exports of U.S. craft spirits increased, reaching 179,000 9L cases, about a five percent increase. 

The declines, though small, hit hard because they are the first such declines since the CSDP began with 2015. Long range comparisons are perhaps more telling. Volume, which for 2023 was 13.5 million cases, was 4.9 million in 2015. Value was $7.84 billion in 2023, compared to $2.4 billion in 2015. That’s a 175 percent increase in volume over eight years, and a 267 percent increase in value.

ACSA puts the cut-off for ‘craft’ at 750,000 proof gallons per year. Within the craft segment, only a handful of producers release between 100,000 and 750,000 proof gallons each year, but they represent nearly 60 percent of the craft segment’s volume as measured by ACSA. 

Today, instead of a handful of giants, the distilled spirits industry has producers at every point on the size continuum. While the vast majority are small, the largest of the new producers are having a meaningful impact on overall industry capacity. Today, something like 15 companies make 90 percent of America’s whiskey at about 30 distilleries. A decade ago, it was 8 companies at 13 distilleries.

Once they became savvy lobbyists, craft distillers went after the law that had so infuriated their 18th century forbearers, the FET. In so doing, they undid a fundamental underpinning of U.S. tax policy for the last 232 years, the deliberate disadvantaging of small distillers.

In 2018, the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (CMBTRA) lowered the FET from $13.50 to $2.70 per proof gallon for the first 100,000 proof gallons produced per year. Only a handful of U.S. distilleries produce more than 100,000 proof gallons per year. 

Due to expire on December 31, 2019, the rate was extended for one year, then made permanent in 2020. 

Although the CMBTRA represents a modest tax break for big producers, it levels the playing field for small producers.

Today you can regard the American distilled spirits industry as a small number of legacy producers still at the top (Brown-Forman, Sazerac, Suntory, Heaven Hill). Those giants still make most of the whiskey and other spirits sold. Below them are a growing number of smaller companies that did not exist 20 years ago.

We’ll end this review here. In some ways, “what is craft?” has become moot. Or, rather, it’s recognized as a subjective term having more to do with the way individual products are made, rather than the size of the producer. In some ways we have returned to the late 19th century, when there were thousands of producers, large and small, all over the United States. Consumers have many more choices, which is never a bad thing.

NOTE: This is part three of three. Part one is here. Part two is here.

The Rise of Craft Distilling and “Craft-Washing"

 

The former Seagram's Distillery in Lawrenceburg,
Indiana was the source of many "craft" whiskeys.

Craft distilling grew through the 80s and 90s, but slowly. It took off as the 20th century transitioned into the 21st. 

Other related phenomena were also occurring. Existing producers, now called ‘legacy,’ long moribund, finally saw exports grow in the late 1980s-early 1990s. By 2000, domestic whiskey sales were improving too. This was driven in part by growing interest in cocktails, especially pre-Prohibition and Prohibition-era cocktails that called for whiskey, often rye whiskey, a style that was nearly extinct. 

Consumers, especially young ones, were changing too, becoming more interested in locally- and artisan-produced products of all kinds, looking for variety and authenticity. Craft brews and brewpubs are everywhere now. Craft distilleries scratch the same itch.

When whiskey sales collapsed 50 years ago, it was in part because whiskey was viewed as an “old person’s drink.” It was a victim of the generation gap. By 2000, young adults didn’t know they weren’t supposed to like whiskey. They also didn't think "whiskey" automatically means "scotch."

America was ready for craft distilling.

In 2003, Bill Owens founded the American Distilling Institute (ADI) to encourage and support small distillers. Owens, from Northern California, came to distilling from craft brewing. He founded and ran one of the first brew pubs and eventually became a writer and publisher of brewing books and journals. 

Before he became involved in the beverage alcohol business, Owens was a well-known and highly regarded photojournalist/fine art photographer. In his most celebrated work, Suburbia (1972), he showed us the world most of us were living in as if we were seeing it for the first time. 

ADI was Owens’ post-retirement career. As with craft beer, he dabbled in the craft itself but mainly became a publisher and promoter, staging conferences, expositions, and hands-on workshops. Many craft distillery origin stories begin with attendance at an ADI event. 

With ADI, Owens had a new tool at his disposal that had not been available when craft beer was young, the internet. ADI hosted lively virtual discussions and information exchanges, welcoming participants from all over the world. A frequent topic: “what is craft?”

Owens approached craft brewing and, subsequently, craft distilling the same way he did his photography, with an evangelical zeal to share his often-unique personal vision. One of his first acts after launching ADI was to get in his car and drive to every new distillery he could find, taking pictures, talking to founders, and spreading the craft distilling gospel according to Bill. As time went on the industry would develop additional infrastructure, but ADI was first.

Back in the 17th century, the first American distillers made fruit spirits, then rum, and finally whiskey. The craft movement followed a similar trajectory. In addition to brandy, vodka opened doors for many but also caused problems, since it is so much easier and more profitable to just buy grain neutral spirit (GNS) rather than make it from scratch. Vodka is one spirit a factory can make better than an artisan.

At Greenbar in Los Angeles, Melkon Khosrovian and Litty Mathew showed that the best way to make ‘craft’ vodka is to buy GNS and put the ‘craft’ into natural and original flavor infusions. Others got to the same destination by making craft gin, similarly with sourced GNS but natural, often ‘estate grown’ botanicals.

Others glommed onto the fascination some people have with outlaw distilling, as dramatized on the “Moonshiner” TV shows. Legal moonshine, an oxymoron, found a market. The spirit itself is usually vodka, corn whiskey, cane spirits, or a blend thereof, often flavored and sweetened.

Inevitably, most distillers want to make whiskey. Some of the first craft whiskeys to catch the attention of enthusiasts were Old Potrero (Anchor) in California, Stranahan's in Colorado, Balcones in Texas, Hudson (Tuthilltown) in New York, and Woodstone Creek in Ohio.

Craft distilling’s sudden rise spawned a dark side known as ‘craft-washing.’ James Rodewald defined it in his 2014 book, American Spirit, as “labels designed to fool consumers into thinking that industrial products are coming from small, family-owned businesses.” 

As craft-washing spread, transparency became an issue every craft producer had to consider. “Are you a maker or a faker?” Savvy drinkers wanted to know.

When Templeton Rye debuted in 2005 with a mature rye whiskey, it was obvious they had not made it themselves, even though their packaging and marketing made it look like they did. They had a distilling license, but it is easy to look that sort of thing up and their license was brand new. The picture on their web site labeled ‘our still’ was clipped from a German still-maker’s catalog. Templeton’s President, Scott Bush, refused to admit he didn’t make the whiskey, nor would he reveal who did. 

Their story was that Templeton was the recreation of a famous rye whiskey made surreptitiously throughout that tiny western Iowa town during Prohibition and distributed all over the country by the criminal underworld. It was catnip for journalists. They even had a great-niece of Al Capone claim it was Uncle Al’s favorite.

The story never stood up to serious scrutiny, but the whiskey was terrific, a well-aged rye comparable at the time to Heaven Hill or Wild Turkey’s best. The origin myth might have been palatable if they had told it with a wink and a nudge, but they were always dead serious about it and engaged a whole town in their deception.

Eventually the Lawrenceburg, Indiana distillery now known as Ross & Squibb was revealed as the source. The whiskey, with an unusual mash bill of 95 percent rye and five percent barley malt, was created by Seagram’s as a blending whiskey. When the Templeton scam was exposed, Templeton settled several class action lawsuits for $2.5 million.

There is nothing wrong with bringing a product to market by sourcing whiskey. That has always been a way for entrepreneurs to create new products and brands. Just don't misrepresent it, especially to a customer who craves authenticity. We’ll talk about that more next time, as this looks like it will be at least a three-parter. If you missed it, part one is here.