KENTUCKY BOURBON FEST 2025 contract distillers across 100,000 barrels.
Contract distillers receive QR codes that let them track all the data about their barrels as they’ re filled and stored. Customers can make decisions offsite throughout the production process and visit their barrels via a virtual rickhouse. This is part of an initial, $ 10−million investment in the facility’ s state-of-the-art digital infrastructure.
An onsite bottling center is scheduled for 2027. Three rickhouses are already up, with plans for 18 total onsite. Currently the facility can fill 112,000 barrels annually, with plans in place to double, if necessary.
But what about the industry downturn?
“ We all know Covid caused disruptions in the market, with an artificial 40 % growth,” Mandell said.“ We all put too much product into the market, into retail and distro.”
“ Now the market is resetting to the growth period pre- Covid,” he added.“ It’ s a challenging time. The economy now is tricky. Gen Z is not drinking as much but they’ re drinking better. What is the impact of that? What is the impact of cannabis? What is the impact of GLP−1 drugs? We don’ t know yet. But what we do know is that 100 years of drinking culture in this country is not going away in two years.”
“ We’ re building for the future,” he continued.“ We’ ve just got to get through this period.”•
Q & A: Lofted Spirits CEO Mark Erwin on Whiskey in 2025
Among larger distilleries launched this century, there is no bigger success than Bardstown Bourbon Company. Founded in 2014 and producing commercially since 2016, Bardstown has revolutionized contract distilling while simultaneously creating and growing their own popular brands of whiskey.
Investors noticed. Constellation Brands acquired a minority stake in 2016, before Pritzker Private Capital bought the entirety of Bardstown in 2022. Today, the distillery operates under its parent company, Lofted Spirits, an umbrella establishment that also incorporates Green River Distilling Co., which Bardstown purchased in 2022.
Sales continue to climb, despite current industry headwinds. We recently caught up with Lofted Spirits CEO Mark Erwin to talk about the growth of the company, the state of American whiskey in 2025, and what’ s next for the market.
BEVERAGE DYNAMICS: HOW HAS BARDSTOWN PERFORMED DURING THIS DIFFICULT ECONOMIC MOMENT? MARK ERWIN: Like many, we’ ve had to moderate production. But we’ re also seeing our investments pay off, because we have two of the fastest-growing whiskey brands in the U. S. [ Bardstown Bourbon and Green River ]. We’ re going to have success.
Bardstown Bourbon is up 70 % right now, while the market is down a couple percentage points. Green River is still a young brand, three years behind Bardstown, so growing more slowly but still far outpacing the category.
BD: SPEAKING OF YOUR BRANDS, BARDSTOWN MUST BALANCE ITS HOUSE PORTFOLIO WITH THE MANY BRANDS THAT CONTRACT WITH YOU. HOW DO YOU BALANCE THAT? ME: The name we’ ve made for ourselves is the quality of the products that we produce. It’ s cool for us to see not just our own brands winning awards but also the brands that source from us. These brands brag about how they make whiskey at Bardstown Bourbon Company. That’ s because of the incredible work and skill of our whole distilling team.
BD: BARDSTOWN WAS ALREADY A MASSIVE FACILITY BEFORE YOU EXPANDED IN 2024. TELL US ABOUT THAT PROJECT. ME: That was part of our presentation when we went out to market [ before the Pritzker purchase ]. We had a ready-made plan for our next investment. We basically created a whole new distillery onsite. The only shared aspect is the grains. We also increased our capacity by 50 %. That gave us the capacity to meet the customer demand that we saw at that time.
A week after the Pritzker deal, we went into the Green River purchase. Between the distilleries now, we have gone from being able to produce 115,000 barrels per year to 290,000. That was to meet the massive customer demand at the time. Now we have had to adjust and slow down a little bit.
We had been outsourcing our bottling. Now, we’ ve started our own bottling program and it’ s been a homerun for us and the industry. There is a need in the market and other companies are coming to us for their bottling and it’ s turned into a nice win for us. It also makes us the only truly grain to glass distillery in the market. It’ s been great for our business. www. beveragedynamics. com Winter 2025 • Beverage Dynamics 23