Liquid assets
Jack Daniel’s distillery getting $100M expansion
A second production building is planned to increase capacity at the historic Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn.
Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Brown-Forman Corp. will flex more muscle in the growing whiskey market by spending $100 million to expand the Jack Daniel’s distillery in south-central Tennessee.
The investment amounts to the largest single production expansion in the brand’s long history. It will add stills and barrel warehouses at the Jack Daniel’s operations in Lynchburg, Tenn., Brown-Forman disclosed Thursday.
“It’s a good time in the whiskey industry, and our future prospects look really good,” said Jeff Arnett, master distiller at the distillery. “We don’t want to find ourselves without any additional throttle, if we need it.”
A second production building will go up on the same grounds as the current distillery site, which traces to 1866.
Work will begin this fall and is expected to wrap up within two years. The expansion will add about 90 full-time jobs by 2018, the company said.
The investment comes as the Kentucky bourbon industry ramps up its largest expansion since Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
The Lynchburg distillery, which currently employs about 435 workers, faces capacity pressures that will be relieved by the second plant, which will rely on the same cave spring water as the existing distillery, Arnett said.
Jack Daniel’s global sales have increased 9 percent in the last year. Since 2004, global sales have risen from about 7.7 million cases to nearly 11 million cases last year.
“This will basically secure that we’ve got the ability to give Jack Daniel’s to all of those who want Jack Daniel’s for years to come,” Arnett said.
Overseas markets now represent slightly more than half of overall sales. Brown-Forman’s largest international markets include the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, where the brand’s premixed cocktails are popular. Emerging markets such as Russia, China, Turkey and Brazil have become key contributors to global sales.
In the past two years, Kentucky’s bourbon makers have invested nearly $300 million in new and expanded production facilities, warehouses, visitors’ centers, bottling lines and more. Kentucky produces 95 percent of the world’s bourbon, and the 4.9 million barrels of aging bourbon in Kentucky outnumber the state’s 4.3 million people.
Jack Daniel’s is the flagship brand for Brown-Forman, whose other brands include Southern Comfort, Finlandia, Korbel and el Jimador.