With craft now firmly entrenched within the American distilling tradition—making up 4.7 percent of spirits sales by volume and 7.1 percent by value, totaling $6.7 billion, in 2020, according to the Craft Spirits Data Project—it can be easy to forget how young the industry is.

Spirits brands are ones that create cultural conversation, get endorsed by the A-list and tap into our inherent desires with the twist of a cap, pop of a cork or psssssssch of a tab.

Opici President Linda Opici said, “We are delighted to embark on this venture with RNDC and we believe it will mutually enhance our future growth and success."

Growing customer demand is fueling a push to allow the sale of spirits in grocery stores across Oklahoma, according to an Oklahoma City political consultant working for Walmart.

Walmart says consumers want liquor in its Oklahoma stores, and though Norman package shops say they’re highly concerned about market share, they remain hopeful that their industry knowledge and specialty spirit selection would keep them afloat if the retailer got its way.

Walmart has voluntarily withdrawn a lawsuit it filed last summer in Austin challenging a section of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code that prohibits publicly traded retailers from owning liquor stores.

As part of the celebration, Virginia ABC is hosting Virginia Spirits Sale-A-Bration. This means throughout September, customers can save 20% on Virginia-made products at the Liquor store.

Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace Distillery just announced that it has increased its production by 50 percent as the result of a $1.2 billion dollar expansion that began almost a decade ago.

As the summer sun bore down across the northern hemisphere, M&A in the drinks industry showed similar heat.

Two major spirits companies recently announced large-scale funding efforts toward climate funds.