Welcome back, today is Wednesday, October seventh, and we begin with Constellation Brands beating second-quarter estimates, per EconoTimes. Net sales rose six percent to two point six three billion dollars in the quarter ended August thirty-first, ahead of an average analyst estimate of two point five four billion. That is EconoTimes, citing LSEG data. Adjusted earnings came in at three dollars and seventy-four cents a share, against three fifty-six expected. Beer sales rose five percent, and wine and spirits net sales climbed seventeen percent, per that same account. This is the trade's first substantial read on fiscal-year demand, and the resilience it describes sits against spirits and craft numbers moving the other way. Alongside the results, the company is buying SpikedAde, a vodka-based ready-to-drink maker, for at least seventy-five million dollars at close, with as much as two hundred seventy-eight million more over five years tied to performance. That reporting also has Constellation reaffirming its fiscal twenty twenty-seven adjusted earnings range of eleven dollars twenty to eleven ninety, while trimming its annual operating margin outlook to thirty-one to thirty-two percent. Shares fell about four and a half percent in extended trading. Industry reaction points to a quieter thread beneath the quarter, with some in the trade framing consolidating wholesaler networks as a risk that rarely makes headlines. Craft distillery volumes fell eight percent, and closures outpaced openings for the first time. That is the twenty twenty-six Craft Spirits Data Project, released today by the American Craft Spirits Association and Park Street, reported by Brewbound and BevNET. For craft operators and their vendors, it puts a documented benchmark under a contraction that had been argued mostly from anecdote. A recurring view in the trade is that tasting-room footfall has stopped compounding, and that the phase ahead rewards operators who convert a first visit into a repeat habit. Some reactions also flag a regional craft-malt supplier winding down, which a few read as the squeeze reaching ingredient suppliers rather than stopping with distillers. Separately, spirits sales in the control states fell more than five percent in August. Just Drinks reports those newly released NABCA figures, and that account carries nothing beyond the direction and the scale of the drop. Control-state data is the earliest monthly depletion signal suppliers have, so a decline of that size becomes the number volumes get planned against for the rest of the year. A recurring tension in trade commentary is reassurance about long-run fundamentals set against where the pain is actually concentrating, in imported and aged brown categories. Also today, beer losses deepened and ready-to-drink cocktail sales slowed, and together they drove accelerated third-quarter declines in off-premise scans. That is Circana's latest weekly off-premise report, via Brewbound, which carries no figures beyond the direction of travel. It follows our earlier report that craft beer's declines accelerated through August and into early September. What is new is the ready-to-drink read: the segment distributors and retailers have been leaning on for growth is cooling as well, which narrows the off-premise volume levers available for fourth-quarter planning. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Scotch distiller GlenWyvis has appointed administrators. The National reports three jobs lost and distilling halted, with administrators from Interpath citing a prolonged period of financial pressure. Anora has finalised an agreement to become the exclusive distributor of Bacardi's portfolio across Sweden and Norway, according to Just Drinks. Hard sports drinks cannot make health claims or even call themselves sports drinks, McDermott, Will and Schulte partner Alva Mather told a recent webinar, per Brewbound. Tesco is among the bidders in the auction of Majestic Wine Group, Harpers reports, citing Sky News. And finally, John Distilleries lifted revenue fifteen percent to ten thousand eight hundred twenty crore rupees in fiscal twenty twenty-six, with net profit of eleven point six crore, as Sazerac moved to a sixty-six percent stake, per the Economic Times.