Welcome in, today is Thursday, October first, and we begin with Shanken's Impact Databank, where U.S. spirits volume is set to rise for a thirty-first straight year. Spirits volume in the United States is on track to rise for a thirty-first consecutive year, reaching three hundred thirteen point four million nine-liter cases. That comes from Shanken News Daily, citing the current edition of The U.S. Spirits Market, Shanken's Impact Databank Review and Forecast. The outlet carries it as an exclusive, and we have not seen it matched elsewhere. The same reporting frames that growth as uneven, with ready-to-drinks still adding volume while core spirits soften under what it describes as persistent economic pressure. The shape of that is a mix question rather than a demand question. Total cases keep climbing, and the formats doing the climbing carry different margins, different route-to-market economics and different shelf sets than the bottles behind them. For anyone setting next year's volume and pricing plans, a thirty-first straight increase is the easy part. The composition underneath it is what the plan has to absorb. Scotch distillers are slowing production. Supply Chain Brain, relaying The Guardian, reports pauses across Scotland as global demand slumps and stock builds into what the trade calls a whisky loch. That account puts economic pressure and falling consumption in Scotch's wealthiest markets behind the slump, after a fifteen-year boom, and says dozens of Scotland's one hundred fifty-six active distilleries are rumoured to be up for sale. Because the liquid has to age for years, a pause now is a bet on demand well past this cycle, surplus pricing for buyers today and a possible mature-stock gap later. The strain shows elsewhere. Per The Spirits Business, the community-owned GlenWyvis distillery appointed administrators on September twenty-third after failing to secure funding. The same supply chain report has Diageo workers at Cameronbridge striking last week over the company's plans to cut hundreds of jobs in Scotland. Industry reaction treats cask and rare-bottle investment pitches as the glut's soft spot. To distribution, where RNDC's exit from Kentucky is now under contract. Shanken News Daily reports Keg 1 River City and K1 Management Services have signed an agreement to acquire RNDC's Kentucky assets, following the letter of intent the two signed in August. Terms are not disclosed in that account. For suppliers and retailers in the state, that sets up a distributor handoff, with brand transitions and account coverage to be worked out if and when the deal closes. Some in the trade read the sale as one piece of a piecemeal wind-down rather than a turnaround, and a recurring point is the sequencing: a larger prospective buyer stepping back from its own letter of intent before a smaller regional operator stepped in, which some treat as a sign that appetite for distressed distribution assets is selective, market by market. Beer's softness is still concentrated at the top of the vendor list. Per Circana's latest monthly report, via Brewbound, gains among the largest beer vendors were again outweighed by top-heavy losses through August and into early September, up to Labor Day, with New Belgium and Sazerac among those running against the trend. That account carries no figures beyond the direction of travel. It follows our earlier report on declines persisting across most segments while convenience showed potential, and it moves the question from how deep the softness runs to who is absorbing it, with share appearing to move down the vendor ranks rather than out of the category. Reaction leans toward dispersion rather than a uniform slide, with some practitioners framing assortment and limited shelf slots as the operative constraint. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. BevNET has Breakthru Beverage's chief commercial officer accounting for August's walk-away from RNDC's Kentucky and Indiana operations, and setting out a cautious path on priority categories. Just Drinks argues Diageo's mid-strength trio, following our earlier report on that launch, could give the sub-category momentum and hand wine another challenge, with that read expecting both consumer confusion and cannibalisation. Molson Coors has settled where Sharp's is made. Per Cornwall Live and Just Drinks, the Cornwall brewery closes in December with forty jobs lost, Camerons takes cask brands including Doom Bar, and keg and packaged production shifts to Burton and Tadcaster. And finally, Mint, citing Economic Times, reports Scotch prices in India down ten to fifteen percent since the UK trade pact took effect, the first shelf-level read on whether Diageo and Pernod Ricard pass the duty cut through.