Match Craft Spirits

07/10/2025

Bar Convent Berlin 2025 with Jason Flowers and Jon Lax.

29/08/2025

I've been meaning to post here for quite some time, giving an update as to where I stand but for the past couple years, the environment has been much more variable than in the past in addition to being hostile, especially with regards to my home country, making exporting an exceptionally difficult challenge and an investment of extreme risk.

But one constant I can see through the haze of tariffs and countertariffs as well as consolidation is the spirit of independent distillers who just want to make a good product and sell it to people who are interested.

In that light and having viewed through years of experience, my main premise is that in order to export your products and build a business and relationship, you should try to find like minded distillers in the countries you want to export to. Make a partner and stick with them. Build and grow with them.

03/11/2021

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/2021/10/30/american-whiskey-will-flow-back-into-the-eu-free-of-hefty-tariffs/?sh=2c036b0f4784

I think this article is misleading especially with the title stating “whiskey will flow back into the EU.”

The counter-tariffs of 25% will end 1 Jan 2022 but the impediment now is actually getting the product to consumers in the EU and not the added 25%.

Trickle might be a better word.

The cost of shipping a 20’ container from the US to Europe has at least quadrupled from what was a steady $2000 over the past ten years to close to $10000; and that’s if you can find the ship chandlers to deliver the goods!

Additionally, what used to take about six weeks for delivery from port to port? Think three months minimum!

It’s not like opening a valve and the business is going to start flowing again. I think it will take another two years before we can have any semblance of any of the small craft distillers being able to export; that means creating the local demand, recreating the supply chains, and finding the distillers looking to export.

With President Biden reportedly poised to scale back the trade war over steel and aluminum, producers, importers and retailers are already celebrating the supposed end to a 25% tariff on certain US spirits

30/10/2021

With Counter-tariffs on American whiskey to the European Union still scheduled to rise on 1 December 2021 from 25% to 50%, this does not forebold well for any future US exports to Europe.

Complicating matters is how the global supply chain’s weakness in situations as a global pandemic have raised the costs of shipping a 20’ container from the US to Europe at least fourfold from a steady average of $2000 over the past fifteen years to over $8000. Additionally the time of delivery has escalated from roughly six weeks to over four months, if you can even find the container to ship!

Personally, I have used this time to tend to family matters and I have been primary care giver to my mother these past two years.

I don’t figure any significant return to the past for at least another two years and what comes back will hardly be any resemblance to the business that we had in the past. The challenge will be, to figure out the new components of what future business will be like, and how we can apply business learnings and market changes from the pandemic.

***UPDATE***Interestingly, within an hour of this post comes word that there has been an easing of US tariffs on EU steel and aluminum products and that the doubling of EU tariffs on American whiskey from 25 to 50% has been rescinded; but it is entirely unclear from present news reports if the counter tariffs against bourbon have been eliminated in their entirety.

Still, it will take a couple years before any craft whisky from the US can be economically supported just due to shipping issues and the related costs.

11/10/2019

Lisa Laird Dunn launches Laird’s Applejack in the Czech Republic in Brno through Fenix Drinks.