Brown-Forman halts production at a distillery as global whiskey slump continues
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- Brown-Forman has temporarily halted production at its Slane Distillery in County Meath.
- The visitor center will remain open and tours will continue for trade and VIP guests.
- Brown-Forman said it has enough mature stock so Slane whiskey will remain available.
Brown-Forman, the Louisville-based spirits company that recently turned down two potentially lucrative merger offers, has quietly shuttered a much-touted distillery.
According to a report in an industry publication, the company confirmed it has closed its Slane Irish Whiskey Distillery in County Meath, Ireland, because of slumping demand.
“Brown-Forman has implemented a temporary production pause at Slane Distillery. Demand planning and production forecasting are critical parts of our business. It is standard practice to adjust production to align with market conditions, as we’ve done here,” Brown-Forman said in a statement to the Herald-Leader.
The distillery’s visitor center will remain open and tours will continue for trade and VIP guests. The whiskey will continue to be available, the company said, as it has enough mature stock aging already.
Brown-Forman described the shutdown as temporary, but the shutdown could last for years, according to the industry report, which quoted a LinkedIn post by a distillery employee who said the plant would be closing “for the next number of years.”
Brown-Forman is scheduled to report fourth quarter and full year earnings on June 4.
In 2015, the company bought the brand and then built the distillery for $50 million. At the time, Irish whiskey was one of the fastest growing spirits segments. Now, U.S. tariffs have taken a toll, with exports down 5%. Other spirits companies, including Diageo and Pernod, also have paused production at their Irish distilleries in the last year at least briefly.
Earlier this year, Brown-Forman paused production at its Glenglassaugh Distillery in Scotland and shifted operations to a shared production model with Benriach, which also has now been paused, according to a company spokeswoman.
This was the first distillery built outside the U.S. by Brown-Forman, which also owns Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester bourbons, among other spirits brands.
Slane Distillery opened in 2016 at Slane Castle, the home of Henry Conyngham, the eighth Marquess Conyngham, and his son, Alex, the Earl of Mount Charles. The distillery on the castle grounds in the 1,500-acre estate in the heart of the Boyne Valley 30 miles north of Dublin, created new jobs.
The property is home to a massive concert series that has hosted Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, U2, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the years.
