BRISTOL, Pa. (Reuters) - When Europe’s tariffs on U.S. whiskey hit in June 2018, craft distillery Mountain Laurel Spirits LLC lost 10% of its sales overnight as its European distributor simply stopped buying its award-winning Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey.
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“We went from a marginally profitable business to breaking even,” Mountain Laurel’s owner and chemical engineer-turned-distiller, Herman Mihalich, said while testing his latest batch of rye whiskey in the sleepy hamlet of Bristol in southeast Pennsylvania.
U.S. whiskey exporters are struggling to recoup lost sales after shipments to Europe plummeted 21% between June 2018 and 2019, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council, a U.S. industry group.
In the 12 months before the tariffs hit, the United States exported $757 million of rye and bourbon. From July 2018 to June 2019 exports were $597 million. Exports are a sizeable chunk of sales the U.S. whiskey industry, which generated $3.6 billion in revenue in 2018.
The Distilled Spirits Council said that 63% of U.S. whiskey exports have faced retaliatory tariffs from the European Union, China, Turkey, Canada and Mexico. The EU currently levies 25% tariffs on U.S. whiskey.
