An Ohio Whiskey Distillery Files for Bankruptcy Amid Struggling Market

If you’re not from the Buckeye State, you might not have ever heard of A.M. Scott Distillery before, a small distillery located in the town of Troy, Ohio, that makes an award-winning lineup of bourbon, rye, and gin. Or rather, it made these spirits, because on December 22 the distillery filed for bankruptcy, the latest victim of what, by all signs, is a very unstable marketplace for spirits.

There might be more to the story in this particular instance, however. According to the local Troy news website Miami Valley Today, A.M. Scott founder Anthony Michael Scott was arrested and indicted on two felony charges last spring—one count of theft by deception and one count of passing bad checks. Scott pleaded not guilty to both charges. It’s not clear if the distillery’s bankruptcy filing is related to his legal troubles or the current state of the whiskey market, or both, but this is just the latest news about a distillery pausing production, posting dismal sales figures, or filing for Chapter 11—and sometimes all these things.

There has been a lot of back and forth over what is driving the spirits industry’s troubles over the past year. Some point to the fact that, despite its reported woes, bourbon consumption is still very high compared to what it was 20 years ago, and perhaps the recent declines are more of a course correction following the bubble created during the height of the pandemic when people were forced to stay home and had more disposable income to spend. That being said, the numbers are indisputable. A report issued by the Distilled Spirits Council in October said: “Following a banner year for U.S. distilled spirits exports in 2024, exports of American spirits fell 9 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, driven by ongoing trade tensions.” President Chris Swonger went on to note the specific adverse effects on U.S. spirits created by Trump’s tariffs. “There’s a growing concern that our international consumers are increasingly opting for domestically produced spirits or imports from countries other than the U.S.,” he said, “signaling a shift away from our great American spirits brands.”

Several Canadian provinces even banned the sale of U.S. spirits outright, which Swonger said has resulted in an 85 percent drop in exports to Canada, a major market for the U.S., in 2025. Brown-Forman, the company behind major brands like Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve, pointed to this as being the driving factor behind its report of a second-quarter net sales decrease of 5 percent. As we’ve reported previously, Indiana distillery MGP has scaled back production, Jim Beam is closing one of its main distilleries for all of 2026, and Diageo has paused production at its American distilleries Balcones in Texas and Cascade Hollow in Tennessee, where George Dickel whiskey is made. I visited Dickel earlier this month, and according to an employee, the company line is that the shutdown was planned and is meant to facilitate safety and warehouse improvements. But it also started much earlier than news outlets reported, and come January, whiskey will not have been made there for about a year.

It’s not just the big operations either. This past fall, Black Button Distilling in upstate New York closed its taproom and started selling off furniture to try to make some cash, according to a report from WXXI. The distillery was acquired by liquor firm Blackstar, run by an ex-Buffalo Trace employee, only to see its entire staff laid off and all of its assets being liquidated. Over the summer, Luca Mariano in Kentucky, JJ Pfister Distilling Co. in Sacramento, and Devils River in San Antonio all filed for Chapter 11—all names you may not have heard of, but harbingers of the times nonetheless. A bigger name, Westward Whiskey in Portland, Ore., filed for bankruptcy last spring, but it has since been acquired by a group of private investors, as we reported in October.

So far, it doesn’t appear that 2026 is poised to reverse course and show an upturn for the struggling spirits industry, but that could change as the new year progresses. It’s possible that, even though whiskey production is at a new low and there is indeed a glut, prices will drop, consumers will begin to buy more, and distilleries are in fact doing the right thing by keeping a conservative outlook for the future. We will keep you posted on any news as it develops.