To date, 2025 has been a tough yr for the whiskey trade, and, whereas distillers of all sizes have actually grappled with headwinds, situations have been notably brutal within the craft scene. As we reported only a few months in the past, many producers have scaled again their manufacturing, with some, like Owensboro, Kentucky’s Inexperienced River Distilling sacking a good portion of their workforces. Different craft gamers have fallen on more durable instances, shutting down their distilleries or submitting for chapter, with notable examples together with Westward, Kentucky Owl, Boston Harbor Distillery, Luca Mariano, and Garrard County. Simply weeks in the past, Pennsylvania craft distillery Manatawny Nonetheless Works abruptly closed its areas after 11 years of operation. The newest distillery to hitch that listing is Rochester, New York-based Black Button Distilling, which introduced this month that it will be closing its doorways.
Black Button’s Rise and Fall
Black Button Distilling was based in 2012 and hung its hat on a grain-centric method to creating bourbon and rye. It wasn’t a grain-to-glass distillery within the conventional sense—Black Button was positioned in an city space not removed from the College of Rochester—but it surely labored intently with native farmers and sourced most of its grain from inside 50 miles of town. In 2015, Black Button doubled down on its dedication to native grain by partnering with 5 different distilleries to create the Empire Rye Whiskey Affiliation: A gaggle that aimed to create a brand new commonplace of id for Empire rye, a method that’s distilled in New York utilizing no less than 75% grains that had been grown in-state.
Two years in the past, Black Button undertook its first main enlargement, relocating from its cramped 5,000 square-foot facility to a brand new location throughout city. The house, which was about six instances bigger than the unique, allowed the distillery to quadruple its annual manufacturing capability to round 4,500 barrels, with longer-term plans to additional enhance that quantity by including further fermenters over time. The brand new location additionally had a 4,500 square-foot tasting room, store, and occasion house.
The enlargement was meant to be a seminal level for Black Button, however the enthusiasm can be short-lived. Final yr, the distillery brokered a take care of JetBlue that noticed its bourbon cream liqueur offered on all of the airline’s flights, however issues remained comparatively quiet on the whiskey entrance. Earlier this month, founder Jason Barrett introduced that the distillery can be closing its doorways, citing monetary difficulties and a downturn within the alcohol market. “Bringing spirit manufacturing again to Rochester has been the journey of a lifetime,” mentioned Barrett in an announcement. “Thanks for believing in native spirits, in us, and in what Black Button got down to create. You’ve made all of it price it.”
Barrett hasn’t disclosed precisely what monetary difficulties Black Button was going through, however a attainable clarification is an absence of outdoor funding. In 2019, Constellation Manufacturers—proprietor of Excessive West Distillery—acquired a minority share in Black Button for an undisclosed sum. The bigger whiskey trade was in development mode again then, and Constellation aimed to capitalize on it by making a number of investments within the craft scene, with its portfolio together with Catoctin Creek, Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier, Copper & Kings, and Black Button, amongst others. However in more moderen years, because the market has slowed, Constellation has shifted its focus to bigger manufacturers like Excessive West, whereas scaling again its investments in smaller gamers: Parting methods with Catoctin Creek, offloading the Belle Meade model, and chopping again manufacturing at Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier.
Black Button has already offered off most of its bottles, however the query of its barrel stock is up within the air. It’s an attention-grabbing quandary, contemplating that the very first whiskeys made in the course of the preliminary manufacturing runs on the new location have turned 2 years previous this yr. (Black Button sometimes bottles its bourbon at a minimal of two years previous, however its rye is barely older at 3 years previous.) There’s additionally the query of Black Button’s older stock, which was distilled at its prior location. The distillery hasn’t but disclosed what number of of those barrels are nonetheless ageing, or what Barrett’s plans are for them. Nonetheless, if prior craft manufacturing cuts and closures are something to go by, it’s attainable that these barrels may find yourself within the arms of an impartial bottler or mixing home.
