Jim Beam's Main Distillery Is Going Silent for 2026

What does it mean for the state of bourbon when a major distillery announces that its main facility will cease production for all of 2026? That’s the situation whiskey aficionados find themselves in with the news that Jim Beam’s primary distillery, located in Clermont, Kentucky, will not produce any new whiskey for the whole of 2026. That does not mean that Jim Beam (AKA the James B. Beam Distilling Co.) is ceasing all production for the year — more on that later — but it remains a dramatic decision by parent company Suntory Global Spirits.

As Janet Patton and Karla Ward reported for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Jim Beam’s Happy Hollow facility will not produce any whiskey for the entirety of 2026, though the visitor center located on the premises will remain open, as well as bottling and warehousing operations. According to a statement shared with the Herald-Leader, Jim Beam will take the opportunity to make renovations to the dormant distillery.

“We’ve shared with our teams that while we will continue to distill at our (Freddie Booker Noe) craft distillery in Clermont and at our larger Booker Noe distillery in Boston [Kentucky], we plan to pause distillation at our main distillery on the James B. Beam campus for 2026 while we take the opportunity to invest in site enhancements,” the company announced.

There’s one reason that this may not be as serious as it sounds: the Herald-Leader reports that Jim Beam has yet to announce any layoffs for the facility.

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As the BBC’s Osmond Chia pointed out, this decision did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it comes as exports of bourbon have taken hits as a result of the current administration’s tariff policies. This has been deeply felt in Canada, where most of the country’s provinces have removed American spirits from shops, with many declaring that they have no plans to replenish American whiskey until things change. The spirits market is increasingly global; this Jim Beam announcement may demonstrate the challenges of that approach.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…