Japan Takes Big Steps in the Liquor World

This is a pretty big story for liquor drinkers:

Japanese family-owned drinks firm Suntory is to buy the US beverage group Beam Inc, the company behind the Jim Bean bourbon brand.

Under the deal, worth $16bn (£9.7bn) in all, Suntory will pay $13.6bn in cash and take on Beam’s debt.

It will make Suntory the world’s third largest maker of distilled drinks.

The two companies have a previous partnership whereby they distribute each other’s brands in different markets.

Beam’s brands also include Maker’s Mark bourbon, Sauza tequila, and Courvoisier cognac.

Have a look at the extent of the Beam Inc ownership of liquor, some damn good bourbons there, as well as a few suprises, like my old rot-gut drink, Gilbey’s Gin. I quit drinking the stuff when it just started giving me horrible hangovers, and I was at a point when I could afford better gin for my cocktails.

I think it’ll be in good hands as Japan is fanatical about burbon! Still this is a HUGE changing of hands for spirits!

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6 Responses to Japan Takes Big Steps in the Liquor World

  1. tommy says:

    For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.
    😀

  2. guffaw1952 says:

    I LOVE Maker’s Mark…
    But I rarely drink it…

    I wonder if this will make a difference?

    gfa

  3. Borepatch says:

    Even without Beam, Japan sports some really good native whiskeys.

  4. Cargosquid says:

    My first emotional response is:
    Oh well, I guess I won’t be drinking any more Beam brands. There is just something that irks me when a national brand that brands itself as “American” sells itself to a foreign country.

    I understand why they did it and it will increase their business. But…as I said, its an emotional reaction.

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Still another thing to look at is where the jobs are. Now it turns out that Beam was and still is headquartered in Illinois, but all the bourbon by law needs to come from Bourbon county Kentucky. Same with the Sauza tequila, that stuff is 100% made in Mexico. These things legally CAN’T change, what does change is where the management lives.

      Also I’ll add that Booker’s is too good a bourbon to stop drinking just because of a benign business decision. (That might be different if say Bookers or Maker’s Mark or even Gilbey’s Gin becomes an official sponsor of the Violence Policy Center, or becomes the go-to drink if you love “Traditional Marriage”, or Beam/Suntory starts pushing against the decriminalization/ legalization of recreational drugs because they feel that people doing other drugs will cut into their business…those I see as sinister)

      But a nation that drinks a lot of bourbon, and from what I read the Japanese see it as a status symbol, much like Americans drinking single-malt Scotch, so they bought a company that makes a LOT of high-end bourbon. Seems reasonable.

      Just as reasonable as S&W owning huge stakes in Walther Firearms. Its a German gun maker, and they still make guns in Germany, but an American company decided to own a piece of them so Americans can better enjoy their products.

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