The Associated Press reports that thirsty customers overseas are driving Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey sales higher:
Combined U.S. revenues for bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey shot up 7.8 percent to $2.9 billion in 2015, up $210 million from the prior year, the Distilled Spirits Council said Tuesday.
Domestic volume rose 5.2 percent last year to 20.4 million cases, the distilled spirits trade group said.
“We’re living the dream,” Chris Morris, master distiller at Brown-Forman Corp., producer of Woodford Reserve and Old Forester bourbons, said in an interview. “We’re hitting our numbers as we had predicted.”
Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey revenues and volumes outpaced the overall distilled spirits sector, the council said in its annual report. Rye whiskey amounts to a sliver of those overall revenue and volume figures, but it’s a fast-growing part of the segment.
Read more at: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/04414f795044483392b83bff43321c52/bourbon-tennessee-whiskey-producers-toast-more-strong-sales. For the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States report, see: http://www.discus.org/distilledspiritsannualbriefing2015/
