Recently, Colby Frey and the entire Frey Ranch team sent me some of their 2026 predictions, and I wanted to share them with readers here. You should already know that I’m a fan of their whiskies for the article on my website, where I was very impressed with the team as well as the whisky, and another article I did on the appeal of brown spirits in the wintertime alongside some holiday-themed cocktail recipes for City Lifestyle Magazine. So, I was very interested in reading their thoughts. Here you go:
2026 Predictions
The American craft whiskey industry will continue to contract, while the big players see an ongoing downturn in sales. Brand authenticity & a finely tuned narrative will be paramount to both trade and consumer traction.
- Because of this downturn in consumption both domestically and globally, pricing will also contract – especially with the more established whiskey brands looking to grow volume.
- Finely tuned storytelling & hands-on brand experiences will become more important for bartenders and trade to generate share of voice and secure on-and off-premise recommendations to consumers.
American whiskey brands will aim to find new revenue streams.
- Whether that’s selling used barrels to the highest bidder or repurposing spent grains, new revenue streams will be important for the health of the industry as it weathers this storm.
- Farmers are inherently efficient, economical, and resourceful. As an example of this efficiency, Frey Ranch sells its spent grains to the neighboring dairy farm as cattle feed. The dairy farm then gifts Frey Ranch Distillery the cow manure to fertilize its grain fields, creating an environmentally-friendly ecosystem that benefits both parties.
More American whiskey brands will explore estate distilling.
- We saw a notable rise in the “estate distilling” movement with the creation of the Estate Whiskey Alliance.
- Whiskey fans are starting to understand and look at ingredients in the same way that wine drinkers do. If you care about the grapes, where they came from and how they were grown and harvested, why shouldn’t it be the same with whiskey? How the grains are grown, the variety of grains, the soil type, the climate, and the geographical location all factor into the quality of the whiskey.
- Many American whiskey brands source their grains from Germany, Canada or elsewhere across the U.S. To “tariff proof” their inputs and find cost savings, more American whiskey brands will explore “estate distilling” – or look to source their grains as locally as possible – to “tariff proof” their production inputs (i.e. grains), which cuts back significantly on shipping and trucking costs of overseas grains. Increased age statements will be more prevalent as whiskey companies & barrel investors have older stocks to sell off.
- The new product pipeline across the whiskey board will see a spike of 10+ year age statements and blends, which may have an impact on overall pricing – especially for high-value LTOs that lean specifically into older whiskey as a point of differentiation.
The instability of commodity pricing for export crops will continue to wreak havoc across the agricultural industry.
- At Frey Ranch, we grow alfalfa as a rotation crop to keep our soil healthy and replenished with much-needed nutrients. Our alfalfa is typically exported overseas as animal feed. However, we’ve noticed a huge dip in pricing on commodity grains in the past few years, which is having an impact on Nevada farmers and the agricultural industry at large.
Instagram: @FreyRanchDistillery
Eve Bushman has a Level Two Intermediate Certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a “certification in the first globally-recognized course” as an American Wine Specialist ® from the North American Sommelier Association (NASA), Level 1 Sake Award from WSET, was the subject of a 60-minute Wine Immersion video (over 16k views), authored “Wine Etiquette for Everyone” and has served as a judge for the Proof Awards, Cellarmasters, LA Wine Competition, Long Beach Grand Cru and the Global Wine Awards. You can email Eve@EveWine101.com to ask a question about wine or spirits. Follow on Instagram and Facebook.
