Today’s biggest move in American whiskey landed in a North Carolina courtroom. A Wake County grand jury indicted four lobbyists over a 2024 Kentucky Bourbon Trail trip they organized for Republican state lawmakers, charging that funding the trip through a political nonprofit called Greater Carolina still counts as an indirect gift under North Carolina’s lobbying-gift…
Three banks just placed bets on Brown-Forman. Tuesday morning at 10:15, Garvin Brown IV — great-great-grandson of the founder — issued the first family statement on the Sazerac-Pernod bids and flagged 156 years of family stewardship as something that counts alongside the per-share number. The board formed a three-director Strategic Review Committee and retained Skadden…
Brown-Forman didn’t crash. It opened up fourteen. The stock that makes Jack Daniel’s, Woodford Reserve, and Old Forester closed Friday at $41.02 and opened Monday at $46.85 — a 14.2% jump on more than four times normal volume. Pernod Ricard issued its first formal statement Monday morning confirming preliminary merger talks. Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley,…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify Sazerac, the Louisiana-based owner of Buffalo Trace and Pappy Van Winkle, formally offered $15 billion in all-cash for Brown-Forman on April 15, 2026 — the largest American whiskey deal since Beam Inc.’s 2014 sale. The bid disrupts existing merger-of-equals talks between Brown-Forman and Pernod Ricard. Reuters and Bloomberg…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify Tonight in Boston, two hundred pours. Whiskey Riot Boston 2026 Spring opens at six o’clock tonight at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston, and runs through Sunday afternoon. Roughly 240 American whiskey labels pouring across the floor — bourbons, ryes, single malts, craft regionals, the…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify You’ve been told premiumization. They’re cutting volume. Brown-Forman published full Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings Friday morning, and three numbers tell the whole story — $215 million expanding the Jack Daniel’s Lynchburg distillery through 2028, a 12 percent right-size of Louisville bottling capacity against the 2024 baseline, and fiscal…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify More bottles than entrants. Bardstown Bourbon Company opened the Discovery Series 11 distillery lottery Thursday morning, and the math is the headline — 7,800 bottles available against 6,200 first-day entrants. That’s a 1.26 ratio, meaning roughly four in five entrants will win an allocation if the pool holds…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify Master’s Keep just got smaller. Wild Turkey published the 2026 Master’s Keep specs Tuesday morning, and the volume is the headline — 11,400 bottles, the smallest Master’s Keep release since the 2018 Revival edition. Every release since 2018 has been larger. The 2026 edition reverses that trend. The…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify Three regional rye flagships landed at retail the same Tuesday — Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Bottled-in-Bond at $59.99, Kings County Empire Rye 2026 at $79.99, and Sagamore Spirit Reserve Cask Strength at $74.99. Three different states, three different mashbill traditions, three accessible price points. Dad’s Hat carries the…
▶ Listen to this episode on Spotify Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year hammered at $2,750 on Sunday’s April 12 online auction cycle — the bottle’s lowest multiple over MSRP at auction since 2019, about 8.3 times the $329.99 retail price, 47 percent off the 2022 peak of $5,200. That’s the spring’s first defensible Q2 reference…