Jim Beam, one of the largest bourbon producers, is owned by Suntory Global Spirits. In addition to selling hand sanitizer, they’ve released plans to suspend production at their primary distilling facility in Clermont, Kentucky starting January 1. This strategic move is all the more important as the company looks to continue pouring capital investment onto the property while working to overcome a tough competitive market environment.
The flagship distillery, on the James B. Beam distilling campus, will stop distillation on the property so production can be rerouted during renovations. Bottling and warehousing operations will remain in place at the Clermont site. Jim Beam operates a craft distillery, the Fred B. Noe craft distillery, in the region. Along with their main distillery in Nelson County, they operate a second facility in Boston, Kentucky — the Booker Noe distillery.
The shift to temporarily stop production dovetails with current bourbon stockpiling behaviors. The Kentucky Distillers’ Association announced a record $75 million in aging barrel taxes paid by distillers this year. This is an incredible 27% over 2024. Kentucky is proud to have a whopping 16.1 million aging barrels of bourbon in its rickhouses. The jump is no surprise, considering the historic boom in bourbon-making.
Yet despite this plentiful supply, Jim Beam’s prospects are threatened by ongoing trade wars between the United States and our neighbors to the north. In March, Canadian officials placed restrictions on American spirits in retail. Unfortunately, this limitation remains in place in many of those nine provinces. This trade fallout has hit the Jim Beam and other whiskey producers in Kentucky and around the country hard.
Jim Beam officials are committed to maintaining dialogue with employees represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union as they assess the potential effects of the production pause on their workforce. In the company’s statement, it reasserted an ongoing commitment to continually assess production levels in coordination with consumer demand.
“We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026,” – Jim Beam company statement.
Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, underscored the wider impact indeterminate trade issues are already having on the bourbon sector. He stated, “Long-term planning for a product that won’t be ready for years is already tough enough. We need the certainty of tariff-free trade for America’s only native spirit to flourish.”
