US craft distillery numbers drop 25%
The number of US craft distilleries plunged by a quarter in the 12 months to August 2025, with California suffering the biggest drop.
The American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) released its 2025 Craft Spirits Data Project, an annual report on the state of the US craft distilling sector in partnership with Park Street.
The latest edition of the report revealed stark figures for the industry with the number of active craft distillers falling by 25.6% to 2,282 as of August 2025, compared with 3,069 in the same month last year.
The biggest state for the sector by far is California, but the number of distillers plummeted by 45% to 207 between August 2024 (379) and August this year.
After California, New York is the second-biggest state for craft distillers with 159 as of August 2025, followed by Pennsylvania (149), Texas (126) and Washington (108). All four states recorded a decrease in the number of craft distilleries.
The top five states represent more than 32.8% of craft distillers.
Wisconsin entered the top 10 states with the most craft distillers this year at number six, followed by Colorado, Florida, Oregon and Kentucky. Michigan (previously eighth-largest) and North Carolina (formerly in the 10th spot) fell out of the top 10 with Oregon moving into the ranks.
In 2024, the US craft spirits category declined for the second year in a row in line with the wider spirits market, falling by both volume and value. The sector reached 12.7 million cases last year (versus 13.5m in 2023) and US$7.58 billion in sales – a volume decrease of 6.1% and a value drop of 3.3%.
Exports of US craft spirits slumped by 20.7% in 2024 to a total of 142,000 nine-litre cases, compared with 179,000 in 2023.
In 2024, craft spirits maintained their value share of total US spirits sales compared with last year – a 7.5% share in value.
The ACSA highlighted that the sector’s value share was slightly higher than 2019 levels when it reported a 6.9% share.
However, the category’s volume share of total US spirits dipped slightly from 4.6% in 2023 to a 4.5% share last year.
Craft spirits sales remained nearly evenly split between the home state (48.5%) and other states (51.5%) in 2024.
Despite economic headwinds, the report noted craft producers continue to reinvest in their businesses, but this occurred at a slower rate in 2024. The average amount invested by a craft producer was US$288,900 in 2024, down from US$310,400 the previous year.
The total investment by all craft producers fell for the first time, dropping to US$811m last year, down from US$885m in 2023.
The report also noted that the number of full-time workers in the US craft spirits sector fell from 29,373 in 2023 to 28,628 in 2024. It marked the first decline in employee numbers since the pandemic.
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