Let Me Tell You A Story…
One of my favorite reviews of my writing had a line something like this in it. “Reading this book isn’t like hearing a lecture about whiskey. It’s like sitting down at a bar with your favorite uncle, who buys a round of whiskeys and just starts talking about whiskey while you’re both drinking.” I like to think my writing’s a bit more structured than that, but the general idea is good.
So sit here with your Uncle Lew, while I tell you how things are going to be in 2026. For me, for the podcast, for the book, for whiskey, with, you know, an unknown level of accuracy. For the first three, here’s what we’ve got planned, roughly; for whiskey in general, well…I’ll give it my best shot.
For me: the big thing this year is that our son’s getting married in August, and I’m the Alcohol Captain for the reception. That’s going to get more and more exciting as it approaches.
I’ll be more focused on my health. I wish that were a decision, but it’s been forced on me. No bad news I’m withholding, just a lot of questionable decisions that have come home to roost. Past time to straighten up.
There will be more travel, with friends, with Cathy, a little by myself. Not sure about where, but maybe New England, maybe Kentucky…maybe Scotland.
Short-horizon: I’m doing the What’s Brewing season finale next week, at Conshohocken Brewing’s Puddler’s Kitchen site, and Cathy’s going to join me for the first time. That should be fun. We’re hosting our Wine Club’s meeting this month, because we’re shifting to whisky for one month, and doing Burns Night! (More recipes!).
For the podcast: We (and by “we”, I do mean myself and Nora, my daughter) will be getting the rest of the website up and running. You’ll be able to play/download new episodes directly from here. There will be a dedicated page for recipes I’ve talked about. I’m thinking about adding a page for our Wine Club.
A big add to the website will be a Media page, where you’ll be able to link to the What’s Brewing episodes I’ve done, to other podcasts I’ve appeared on (not a lot of those, but I hope to expand that this year). I’ll also be linking to the whiskey review videos I did during the pandemic…and I’ll be doing more of those. I just bought a new laptop, and a webcam, and I’ll be setting up in our nifty bar downstairs. We’ll see what I can get up to with that.
Nora is eager to work on getting some merch available. The only branded merchandise I’ve ever done is the stickers we have in the store, and a run of eight fleece vests I made for the family back about 20 years ago, with an embroidered caricature and “Lew Bryson Field Research Team.” No vests are coming, but we’re thinking about “What I’m Drinking Today” glasses, Seen Through A Glass enameled pins, coaster packs, and maybe ball caps. We’ll have to look at costs, and…maybe a new logo. That old one’s kinda dated.
I’d certainly like to expand the listener base. You are great, and supportive, but the number of listeners hasn’t really grown since about two years ago. I’ve been looking into ways to do that, and some of them are repulsive, but some of them make sense. I’ll level with you: I don’t want to expand the number of listeners to monetize the podcast and add advertising. But I would like more people to enjoy it, because I think there’s a lot of good material here. If you have ideas, feel free to share. And remember: tell your friends about the podcast!
Actual podcast stuff, like the podcast, not the website or any kind of podcast marketing? Sure! I feel like I’ve finally figured out how to get the interviews I want, and there’s a backlog. I’m going to be reaching more boldly, and yes, reaching into the areas I’ve only talked about: Harrisburg, Indiana, Wellsboro, Johnstown, Punxsutawney, Sunbury, Dubois, Hershey. When it warms up, and the logging roads melt, I’m going to head out and hit some backwoods places; Dave “Dirt Road” Dreese has me interested in doing an episode on far-flung backwoods bars.
There are going to be more non-central PA episodes as I do more traveling, so be prepared. And as always: if there’s something you’d like me to check into, a food, a drink, a place, let me know!
Book stuff: The book’s been selling well into the holidays, and here on the website: thanks for that! I’ve got the kinks worked out, and I’m getting books out pretty quickly. I actually dropped one off personally a few days ago to someone here in Centre County. Remember: Order through the website, and you get a signed copy delivered where you want it, and I get a lot more of the purchase price than if you buy it somewhere else.
Of course, you can always buy it directly from me at an event, too! We had a good event at Elk Creek Cafe just before Christmas; I was pleasantly surprised to see Joe Holoubek from Brother Monk Ciderworks in Indiana County show up. We’ll have to get out there sometime soon.
And that’s another website page I’d like to see: Events. As in, I’d like to have enough events for that page to be needed. That’s what I’m going to be working on in the next few weeks, setting up a possible New England tour — God bless ‘em, they’ve always liked me in New England — maybe down to Kentucky and Tennessee, down into DC and Virginia and the Carolinas, and maybe Wisconsin and Minnesota, maybe Texas. I also kind of promised a West Coast tour, so…I’m going to dig out the plans from 2020 for a trip that got COVID-canceled. Let’s see what I can do. I bought up a bunch of books back in September, and have sold over half of them, so I’m feeling pretty confident.
Now…Whiskey predictions. You’ve probably seen the stories about Beam shutting down a distillery, the clickbait about ‘another distillery closing!’, and this chunk of crap story from the Daily Mail — DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK! It’s a terrible story; here’s the headline: “Another bourbon distiller files for bankruptcy as sector collapses.” That headline’s over a picture of actress Mila Kunis doing some Beam endorsement while wearing a Jim Beam t-shirt in front of a large Jim Beam sign (in 2018!), which would lead you to think ‘Oh my God, Beam is bankrupt!’
Stop. Look a bit deeper. The distiller in the headline is AM Scott in Ohio. And as I learned when I read this article in the Lexington Herald Leader by the estimable Janet Patton (who I had the distinct pleasure of meeting at the Heaven Hill distillery opening this past fall), AM Scott was a non-distiller producer, didn’t make their own whiskey, and was involved in some somewhat shady dealings. This bankruptcy was much more about mismanagement than any problems in the industry.
Similarly, as my colleague and good friend Chuck Cowdery notes in his recent blog post (definitely do click on this one), yes, Beam has shut down a distillery, but their parent company badly fumbled the announcement, it’s not a disaster, and it’s NOT because of the Canadian tariff response. Well, it is, partly, but there are a number of factors, not least of which is that the distillery is overdue for a rebuild, and this is a good time to do it.
Which brings me to the predictions.
This is not a bubble bursting. Bourbon, and rye, are much better off than they were 25 years ago. When I started writing about whiskey, in 1997, sales were still declining. American rye whiskey sales were under 20,000 cases a year. Now? Rye’s well over a million cases a year, bourbon sales are about four times what they were 20 years ago. It was a reasonable growth period, and things aren’t precipitously deflating. And no brag, just facts: people like Chuck and I, and Fred Minnick, and Robin Robinson, and Clay Risen, and Noah Rothbaum, and Susan Riegler, and Maggie Kimberl, and Mike Veach, and others, have done such a good job spreading the word about good American whiskey that there are a huge number of people that are used to drinking good bourbon every week, if not every day. They’re not all going to start drinking something else overnight. They may not drink as much bourbon, they may be drinking other things, but bourbon will always be part of their choices.
That said, this is going to hurt smaller distillers much more than the big legacy distillers. Frankly, the big distillers already survived this once, and most of them still have people involved who were there in the 90s when things were not great. They know what this looks like, they know what they’ll have to do, they know what to spend money on and what not to spend money on. But the newer, smaller distillers, and the non-distiller producers? They don’t have that experience to fall back on, or the established reputation and base of drinkers, the same base of recognition. People are already starting to fall back on tried-and-true brands as prices tighten; that won’t go away for a while.
Tariff responses — retaliatory tariffs, boycotts — are not going to be the sole factor in distillery bankruptcies, but they will be a factor. So will cannabis, the changes in the hospitality industry, people drinking less, the general economy. There are some serious headwinds for the craft distilling industry right now, more than for the big distillers. Some of them won’t make it. Most of the craft distillers I talk to are pulling back on production, not filling as many barrels of whiskey, not trying new things.
It’s not going to get better this year. It’s going to take longer than that. The last downturn took twenty years to fully downstroke, and then another ten years to solidly return. Companies, people who’ve been in the industry a long time know this, expect this, and have already planned for it. New companies and people don’t really know it in their bones; all they’ve seen is steady growth. It will take time to adapt. Add to that the fact that the hospitality industry and its customers are still figuring out the new model of how things work, and you’ve got some serious unknowns.
Will this mean lower prices? Hard to say, but I’d say it’s more likely than not, if only because someone will inevitably panic and cut prices, starting the spiral. I’ve seen it already in craft beer in the 1990s; it’s going to happen. And then companies will close. Discounting will end, but prices will be reset a bit lower, yes.
More importantly: companies will close, but we are not going to go back to under 50 distilleries. Chances are very good that your local distillery will stay open. Not all of them, and there are no guarantees, but this won’t be a slaughter, just an adjustment. Buckle up, and support them when you can. I mean, if you want to. I won’t be supporting any mediocre makers just because.
That’s all I’ve got. It’s 3 am on the morning of New Year’s Day. Time to get some sleep. You have a good new year. We’ll have some fun.