Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
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American Made www.beveragedynamics.com September/October 2016• Beverage Dynamics 29 nheim, and the two ryes, Pikesville and Rittenhouse, are all allocated. "We need to be able to produce all those styles," Wahl says. "If we were only doing Bourbon maybe we wouldn't need that capacity, but hav- ing them made it much more import- ant to expand and have that capacity to do different things." Heaven Hill's Evan Williams brand has been selling well in recent years, leading the company's growth, outpac- ing the category and exceeding expecta- tions. In addition, Evan Williams' line of fl avors - Honey, Cherry, and Fire - were earlier this year joined by Peach, and although Wahl admits the category is seeing some softening, Evan Wil- liams Honey and Peach are both growing robustly. In addition to being at the forefront of the return of rye with Rittenhouse, and more recently a reformulation and reintroduc- tion of Pikesville, Heaven Hill has benefi ted from the resurgence in interest in bottled in bond whiskey (By law, bottled in bond must be the product of one distillation season, one distiller and one distillery, aged in a federally bonded warehouse for at least four years and bottled at 100 proof ). "Bottled in bond has been huge for us," Hafer says, noting that even their Mellow Corn bears a bonded statement, along with Rittenhouse, an Evan Williams iteration and Henry McK- enna 10 year old. "We've seen a lot of competitors return to the space and that's great and has lifted all boats, harkening back to the background of what these whiskeys were at one time. You know that when brands that you don't focus on are seeing robust organic growth, there is something going on." At Campari America's Wild Turkey, expansion over the last few years still hasn't caught up to demand, especially among the super-premium Russell's Reserve line. "We're seeing some explosive growth at the super-pre- mium end last year - we added 50 percent to the amount of Russell's and don't see any signs of that brand slowing," says Maggie McDonnell, who manages Campari's American whiskey portfolio. A major expansion was completed at the Wild Turkey fa- cility a few years ago, but it may not be enough. "Every year we're at the point with the numbers we are posting that we have to think about how many warehouses we might have to build. Our new visitor's center head counts are up 20 percent this year already and we've sort of outgrown the facility," Mc- Donnell says. New things are coming as well; following a package redesign for the Russell's line last year, super-premium Kentucky Spirit single barrel and cask strength Rare Breed will be spruced up early next year, which she an- ticipates might push them into allocation as well. Other brands are almost designed to be allocated - The eighth Orphan Barrel re- lease from Diageo is Rhetoric 22-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The third iteration in the progressively aged whiskey series, it is slightly more mature and carries a high proof but is available in quite limited quantities. THE MOONSHINE CORRIDOR Moonshine's growth seems to have stabilized. Leading brand Midnight Moon has nearly 40 percent of the category's share, according to Nielsen 52-week fi gures through June of this year. Joe Michalek, founder of Piedmont Distilling, says the retail and wholesale consumer fl urry around un-aged white whiskey that took off in about 2012 had a couple of good years, bolstered by enormous media coverage. But that spike has come down in the last 18 months, after 70 or more brands came into the space, leaving retailers with the task of fi guring out which have legs. "It took a while for them to fi nd out that some products are selling better than others and now we're seeing a shaking out going on, with areas of growth again." He expects his brand, Midnight Moon and its numerous fruit fl avored iterations, to keep entering new markets and expand its more than 35 percent share of the market (according to Nielsen data). "More moonshine companies are making their way into the market, which tells us that there is a big interest in the category," says Ole Smoky president of wholesale Michael Bender. "We have also seen that some of the established moonshine brands are increasing their marketing spend. This tells us that the cate- gory is growing, not only with the increased number of compet- itors, but the increase in everyone's marketing efforts." With 14 fl avors, the brand targets mostly males between the ages of 21-34 living in the Midwest and southern states, focusing its business strategically on top-performing markets, which they call the "Moonshine Corridor" in the South, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions of the country. All sorts of whiskey seem to be seeing their markets and op- tions expanding, part of what makes this the golden era of Amer- ican whiskey, according to many producers. How far it can go will only be tested as supply continues to grow. BD JACK ROBERTIELLO is the former editor of Cheers magazine and writes about beer, wine, spirits and all things liquid for numerous pub- lications. More of his work can be found at www.jackrobertiello.com. Heaven Hill's Evan Williams brand has been on fire in recent years, leading the company's growth, outpacing the category and exceeding expectations.