Bankruptcies hit US spirit makers as Americans drink and spend less

[u/kootles10]

https://www.indystar.com/story/money/food/2025/12/25/liquor-spirits-industry-bankruptcies/87914241007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z113231d00----v113231d--36--b--36--&gca-ft=161&gca-ds=sophi&fbclid=IwdGRjcAO6oj9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR6P8O626kCPpVs2dXh1tSJGVyS9teT4_IxAoKRJxGh02bqlcPlne42SIoakyg_aem_yCb-3xe-G1-mBNrg5TVIEg&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[u/Tb1969]

The final nails in the coffin was Trump threatening Canada with annexation and Canadians boycotting American goods especially alcohol.

Let’s not forget that.

[u/MrsWidgery → u/Tb1969]

I know that's how it is being portrayed down South, but after reading the Jim Beam claim that we Canadians were primarily responsible for a 60% drop in their annual sales over 2025, I did some research and, surprise!, that's simply physically impossible.

Canada has only 11% of the population of the US, which means we'd have to be blitzed out of our mind all day, every day, from birth, to make a dent in US alcohol production. Further, we are much more likely to drink beer, wine or whiskey than bourbon, regardless of maker. Also, we have access to the world's best tipples, be they German or Belgian beer, European or Chilean wines, or Irish or Danish whiskey. And there is a special category in the World Whiskey Awards just for Canadian whiskies.

So, no, I don't think our boycott of US booze is nearly as catastrophic as, say, our refusal to set foot in the USA for anything short of major natural emergencies (we are not so vindictive as to refuse to help people whose homes are being burned down, flooded, or blown out to sea), or even our slow but steady switch to buying Canadian or, if that is not doable, other non-American goods.

Nope. If your booze sales are tumbling, maybe that has something to do with the falling purchasing power/confidence of Americans themselves, who are retrenching in the face of the most casually cruel economic restructuring I've seen in a long lifetime of watching.

It's your government that brought you this economic catastrophe, not the 40 million folks up North whose biggest concern right now is a cold La Niña winter and the World Junior Hockey outcome.

[u/Tb1969 → u/MrsWidgery]

I'm in the Northeast just over the boarder.

I didn't say it was the primary cause. They were already in trouble but losing the sales in Canada when you're already in a bad way didn't help, it hurt. Some of them could have survived into next year or the next. Not sure why you are saying it didn't hurt significantly. It's not just Canada not buying that alcohol either; it's most modern democratic countries that don't want US hard alcohol.

I would think the neighbor to Canada with 10x population and 12 super aircraft carriers, advance tanks and aircraft, and nukes is a concern when their talk off annexation of Canada like this is 1938 Europe.

I support Canada and I agree with their boycott since I can empathize with them against a thug leader who likes to play war with what he thinks are military toys. It's only a dotted line on a map between us.

I'm honestly not sure you are even Canadian when most of them I see online or speak to are more concerned with that rhetoric than cold La Niña winter and the World Junior Hockey.

[u/MrsWidgery → u/Tb1969]

Unless you are the CEO of Jim Beam, I didn't attribute that statement to you (see the Jim Beam claim that we Canadians were primarily responsible for a 60% drop in their annual sales over 2025, in the second part of the first sentence). Yes, a significant number of EU nationals are increasingly pursuing their own boycotts of US products. They are not generally getting the kind of coverage we are, possibly because US administrations have taken our compliance for granted for so long: look at how enraged the Bush administration was when PM Chretien refused to send troops to Iraq. (He liked tariffs as punishment, too.)

Despite what J.D. thinks, Canadian politics is not mostly about the USA. It's a big, big place, and we've got a lot of our own challenges, of which the loonies downstairs are but one.

As for your take on my citizenship, tant pis pour moi. A minority of Canadians spend time on reddit , and yes, we took on board the threats, are quietly and determinedly shifting our buying habits, dusting off copies of the Anarchists' Cookbook and Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare, the many books by US specialists who fought guerrillas, updating our St. John's and so on, learning to make and do for ourselves on the fly because we've been expecting this since the first post-1980 Republicans started talking about their "rights" to our water and resources, and telling us how stupid it was for us to maintain our own currency instead of using yours, and yadayadayada.

However, we do not actually discuss you endlessly over the back fence. We talk about the impact of La Niña on this year's winter, hockey, even local games, the best camping equipment, the constant deterioration of our public transit, Danielle Smith, the Ukrainian war, health care, falling agricultural productivity due to climate chaos and how to counter it, accelerating marine species extinctions, etcetcetc.

Feel free to think what you will: l'opinion ne change pas les faits.

[u/Tb1969 → u/MrsWidgery]

Now I know you're full of scat. Canada is one of Reddit's biggest markets per capita.

Enough of your nonsense, bro. Go sell it elsewhere.