Will U.S.-based Stoli Group’s bankruptcy ground Kentucky Owl?

A recent email greeting line from the Mark Brown Newsletter put it this way: “Apologies for breaking into our U.S. readers’ Thanksgiving holiday.”

Had “holiday” been followed by a comma instead of a period, the sentence might have ended with, “but you’ll be interested in this, even if you have to walk away from the turkey.”

The newsletter’s lone item was a Bloomberg.com story headlined thusly: “Stoli Brand Vodka’s U.S. Arm Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.”

If you don’t know, Stoli is the modernized, short name (and thumb in Vladimir Putin’s eye) for Stolichnaya, one of the world’s largest vodka brands. Stoli Group is a state-side holding company for the vodka megabrand, along with mezcal, tequila, rum gin brands—and two whiskey brands, Wiseman and Kentucky Owl. For the whiskey-loving audience reading this, we’ll focus on those two.

It didn’t take long before whiskey industry watchers took to social media to share a predictable lack of surprise. For some time now, people equipped with eyes, ears and a proper dose of skepticism have known that things weren’t moving forward at Kentucky Owl’s proposed distillery and that its whiskey releases—practically anything made after the sale by partners in the resurrected brand—have been lackluster.

To the obvious clue: The 420-acre rock quarry site in Bardstown, Ky., where Stoli pledged to build a distillery and visitor experience for Kentucky Owl, looks little changed since its 2017 press announcement. Artist renderings (click here to see them) of the experience included scenic ponds, walking paths and pyramids. Yes, pyramids.

In a DistilleryTrail.com story from back then, SPI Group owner Yuri Schefler said this about the new experience: “We are looking forward to Kentucky Owl Park being the next masterpiece from Shigeru Ban Architects, who bring an unparalleled background of more than 100 innovative and environmentally sustainable projects completed to-date. I am energized by Kentucky Owl’s early success in the category and am committed to building a fitting home for this brand along with expanding our presence in whiskies overall.”

Committed? Hardly. In 2018, when I was visiting Bardstown frequently for a book I was writing, there were no signs of progress on Shigeru Ban Architects’ Egyptian sci-fi movie set cum whiskey plant, and locals were beginning to wonder whether it would happen. When the global pandemic took hold in 2019-2021, people wondered if that could be blamed for construction delays while a growing number of others weren't buying it. As time wore on, it became the butt of press tour jokes as our shared buses rode past the unchanged site.

Some additional perspective: In the seven years since Stoli's announcement of the distillery, Heaven Hill Distilleries announced and is weeks from completing phase one of a massive new distillery and deep visitor experience. That one company was getting things done quickly while the other hadn't voiced a peep about what wasn’t happening at its site supplied another clue that it was never going to happen.

Recent releases of Kentucky Owl and Wiseman whiskies haven't built brand confidence either. What made the Kentucky Owl bourbon created by founder Dixon Dedman and partners Mark and Sherri Carter so fantastic were deep stocks of rare, old and high-quality sourced barrels that were expertly blended.

Fast forward to the 2017 sale to Stoli Group … . It took only about two years before Kentucky Owl got less exciting. Pricey Owl releases like St. Patrick’s, Maighstir and Takumi editions came out, yet none flew off the shelves. If the 2014-2017 KO house style was deep, dark, rich and oaky bourbon, those clearly were off target. None was bad, but none was as delicious as their predecessors. Wiseman, which was intro’d as a value brand, also was OK. But OK sure seems pricey at $50.

Not surprisingly, the bankruptcy filing revealed that Stoli owes money to two bourbon entities. Bardstown Bourbon Co. claims the old Owl owes it $5.5 million (for what likely is contract distilling and aging), and barrel brokerage Brindiamo Group says it’s currently out about $45,000. Those funds may be a long time in coming.

Where social media comments on the bankruptcy have become interesting is within the debate of whether this is a sign of a greater sales problem within American whiskey, or just failures at Stoli Group. Since Kentucky Owl and Wiseman are such small brands, I side with the latter group. If those brands disappear, the ripple effects won’t spread all that widely.

And the brand’s small size also highlights the absurdity of ever building a glam-distillery experience. At the very least it points to Stoli Group being way over its ski tips years ago.

A third social media take—that the industry is due for a brand culling, and this is but one of more to come—seems more convincing. Since it's just industry people's hunches, I won’t share the names of predicted casualties murmured over cocktails in recent months. But what’s consistent among those brands is size. All are small, and most are NDPs. Kentucky Owl is both, and now it’s broke.