Welcome in, today is Monday, October nineteenth, and we begin with Pernod Ricard's first quarter, as reported by Shanken News Daily. Pernod Ricard's fiscal first quarter organic net sales fell nine tenths of one percent, to two point two three four billion euros, about two and a half billion dollars. That is per Shanken News Daily. The same reporting has the company calling the quarter sequential improvement, with the United States down ten percent and China down twenty-five percent, declines Pernod attributes to expected inventory adjustments. Guidance holds organic net sales broadly stable this year, and low single digit growth through fiscal twenty-nine. Asia and the rest of the world rose nine percent, on gains of nearly twenty percent in India. Strategic international brands slipped one percent, with Martell and Absolut still challenged. For distributors setting holiday inventory and pricing, that split is the whole question. Industry reaction leans skeptical, with some in the trade arguing restocking flattered the quarter while underlying offtake still points down, and reading India's strength as partly a shipment effect. Also today, Bloomberg reports a toxic spill from a Diageo distillery in Speyside. Caustic soda from a Johnnie Walker distillery has killed thousands of fish and other wildlife in a critical tributary of the River Spey, per that reporting. We have not seen that account matched elsewhere. The same reporting describes the Spey as one of the world's most pristine rivers, one hundred and seven miles long and thick with salmon and trout. That account does not establish cause, scale or remediation. The catchment in question is the provenance Scotch sells on, which puts a regulatory problem and a category asset on the same ground. Separately, the Colorado distributor termination fight has reached argument. Brewbound reports the dispute between Coors Distributing Company and Constellation Brands began playing out earlier this week in the district court for the city and county of Denver, following our earlier report that the Molson Coors-owned wholesaler had sued to halt terminations from two of its largest suppliers. Per that reporting, Coors Distributing argues the Constellation termination presents a substantial threat to its business, while Constellation counters that this is a classic money damages case. The remedy is now as contested as the termination. Whichever framing the Denver court accepts signals to suppliers and wholesalers how much leverage Colorado's distributor protections carry when a brand walks. Oregon is harvesting into a correction. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports state wine grape production fell twenty-five percent last year while sales dropped sixteen percent, and that one hundred and ten vineyards and wineries closed. Grower contracts and bulk pricing in the premium pinot tier absorb that directly. The same reporting attributes the slump to unrelated pressures landing together: Canadian liquor boards pulling U.S. wines over tariffs, which cut Oregon exports to Canada by eighty-three percent, lighter drinking among younger consumers, cannabis, GLP-one drugs, and a grape oversupply built on a vineyard count that has more than doubled since two thousand. Growers in that account are trimming yields and testing unfermented products and new export markets. Industry reaction leans to the view that the correction has not bottomed, with a recurring argument reframing it as a route-to-market failure rather than weak brands. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. The Portman Group has upheld a complaint against AB InBev's BeatBox in the UK, Just Drinks reports, on the view the drinks could appeal to children. GV Wire reports a run of California craft closures, from Prohibition Brewing in Vista to Stone's Escondido flagship, with that account finding brewers split on whether this is a maturing market or a warning. Brewbound reports Summit Brewing's loans have been acquired by a new lender, which the St. Paul brewery says opens a path to recapitalization. Carbliss is taking its zero-sugar pitch into high-ABV, per Brewbound and BevNET, with a twelve percent cocktail collection launching in November. And finally, IWSR's latest Bevtrac survey puts past-six-month drinking participation at seventy-six percent in South Korea against fifty-three percent in Japan, where Gen Z sits at forty percent.