Devin partners with Tim Smith of Climax Moonshine in Discovery Channel’s new show, Moonshiners: Whiskey Business. As the team’s distillery engineer, Devin helps distilleries across the US become profitable.
2018 was an active year in the American Craft Spirts industry! The data from the American Craft Spirits Association is starting to trickle out, and it looks like it was a growth market for American craft distillers.
According to the article in Wine Magazine, who were some of the first to report on it, the number of craft distilleries now operating in the US has eclipsed 1,800 – a growth over 2017 numbers of over 15%. In even better news, the total volume sales for the industry in 2017 had grown almost 24%, topping out at $3.7 Billion in totals sales. Though the craft segment only accounts for about 3% of the total market (in volume), this strong growth trend shows that the marketplace is still demanding more craft choices.
New distillers are trying to fulfill that current demand, but it seems like there is still plenty of room for new brands out there. Are you ready to take that next step? Reach out to us and let’s see if we can make the dream a reality!
And if you want to read up more on the data report, you can download the 2018 Annual Report from ACSA.
Hooray! Just this past week word started to come out from the TTB (US Federal Tax & Trade Bureau) that they might start simplifying the process for label & recipe formulation across all the US alcohol industries. This is great news for the entire ‘Craft Alcohol’ market since historically some of the requirements to package & distribute your products were pretty time-consuming and expensive.
It looks like they’ll be taking public comments on this proposed adjustments until March of next year (2019), but hopefully nothing really de-rails this new direction!
This Chinese ‘white liquor’ is now the most consumed liquor on the planet, and certain market forces are now eyeing the US market as the next place to grow. Coming in normally at 40-65% alcohol, this drink packs a punch – but it also has a unique flavor profile that consumers are starting to discover. With only 1% of the US market drinking Baijiu, there’s some serious room for growth – but how much and how fast is the $1M question.
This article in Yahoo Finance brings to light some of the current players in the US Baijiu market and where they see the industry trying to go. This 1000-year old spirit may be starting to make inroads into markets like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (historically cities with a strong Chinese immigrant population), but you may start seeing Baijiu bars, and even distilleries, starting to pop-up in other regions here in the next few years! Keep an eye out on this interesting market.