Welcome in, today is Wednesday, July twenty-ninth, and we begin with Forbes reporting new detail on the terms behind Sazerac's fifteen-billion-dollar approach to Brown-Forman. Following our report yesterday on Brown-Forman rejecting that renewed approach, Forbes has new detail on what the proposal actually contained, sourced to a person close to the matter. Per that account, Sazerac's May first letter offered thirty-two dollars a share in cash to Class A and Class B holders alike, with the option for Class A holders to roll into the combined company on a tax-efficient basis. The same reporting puts Sazerac's net sales for the twelve months to March at six point six billion dollars, and estimated combined twenty twenty-six revenue above twelve billion. The post-merger plan is the part that reads through to anyone selling into those books. Per that reporting, Sazerac proposes a United States margin architecture reset, shifting Brown-Forman's premium portfolio onto Sazerac's domestic route to market, then running Sazerac brands out through Brown-Forman's international network, going deep rather than broad, with the UK, India and Australia named as priorities. The Courier-Journal, citing a letter it obtained, reports Sazerac intends to keep pursuing a deal and stands ready to improve its terms if the board engages, and that there have been no substantive discussions in the two months since the offer. Industry reaction leans toward reading the situation as a governance question more than a price contest. Also today, a development on the Republic National Distributing Chapter Eleven filing. Following our reporting yesterday, BevNET and Brewbound report that suppliers who have gone months without payment now sit at the back of the line to collect. That puts what began as a route-to-market problem onto the receivables line of brand P and Ls, against product already shipped. Trade reaction leans toward the view that the filing confirmed warning signs already visible in day-to-day dealings. Some describe suppliers demanding payment upfront before shipping, invoices unpaid for long stretches, and warehouses holding years of stock. A recurring concern is that supplier defections leave little of value in the remaining markets still being shopped to buyers. Separately, Forbes takes up the question of when the fifty percent duty on Canadian whisky reaches the shelf, following our earlier reporting on the proclamation. That analysis sets it against Scotch, which became eligible to enter the United States tariff-free on July twenty-fourth, so two brown spirits now cross the same border on opposite terms. The argument starts at customs. The duty is assessed on the importer's landed value, and because distributors and retailers apply percentage margins on top, each tier compounds the increase. A bottle with a twenty-dollar customs value picks up ten dollars in duty before anyone marks it up. That read cites Federal Reserve research finding the twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen tariffs passed into consumer prices fully, and generally within two months. The same piece puts the sharpest pressure on the middle of the market, where substitution is easiest, and notes producers cannot engineer around it, since Canadian whisky, like Scotch, is defined in regulation as a product of its country. Spirits Canada, quoted there, says roughly ninety-three percent of Canadian spirits exports went to the United States last year. Now to the numbers on the beer shelf. Craft beer dollars fell three point seven percent in the latest four weeks, but showed signs of improvement, according to Circana's monthly report, as reported by Brewbound. That account describes a mixed summer across beer segments, with some capitalizing on the year's big occasions, America two fifty and the FIFA World Cup, and others getting lost in the crowd. Craft landed somewhere in the middle. For anyone building autumn resets, a narrowing decline is still a decline, but it changes the slope being planned against. Some industry commentary reframes those numbers as selectivity rather than outright decline, arguing the squeeze falls hardest on middle-of-the-market brands while premium and non-alcoholic options hold up. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. LVMH expects moderate growth from its wine-and-spirits arm in the second half of twenty twenty-six, per Just Drinks, after spirits sales rose three percent in the first half on Hennessy's continued recovery in China, The Spirits Business reports. The Spirits Business asks whether depremiumisation is the future, arguing that an industry which spent years trading drinkers up now finds itself pushing more affordable options. Just Drinks examines how tequila brands hope to recharge sales growth in the United States as the category slows. Italy's wine producers continue to struggle in export markets, with sales down again in the first four months of the year, also per Just Drinks. And finally, Champagne house Louis Roederer has acquired Domaine Pierre Damoy, its first move into Burgundy, bringing sought-after Côte de Nuits grand cru vineyards into the Roederer Collection, according to The Drinks Business, Harpers and Just Drinks.