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A Trade War Poured Neat: How the U.S.-Canada Alcohol Standoff Is Reshaping the Spirits Industry The trade relationship between the United States and Canada has weathered plenty of storms over the decades, but few fights have landed as personally — or as commercially — as the one now playing out acro

A Ban That Reaches Well Beyond the Border A U.S. ban on Canadian spirits and wine has now taken effect, and the people who feel it first may not be the ones in the middle of the political fight. Restaurants, bars, liquor stores and everyday customers are the ones getting pulled deeper into a trade

Last Call for Canadian Whisky: How Trump's Import Ban Reshapes What's on America's Shelves For decades, the relationship between American drinkers and Canadian spirits has been one of quiet, comfortable familiarity. Crown Royal in its distinctive purple bag has occupied prime real estate in home b

Crown Royal's Narrow Escape: How North America's Best-Selling Canadian Whisky Is Sidestepping Trump's Import Ban The escalating trade war between Washington and Ottawa has finally reached the point that many in the spirits industry feared but few believed would actually arrive: a full, executive-o

President Trump has moved to block certain Canadian alcoholic beverages from entering the United States, escalating a fight over liquor sales that has dragged on for more than eighteen months. The action, signed in September 2026, targets Canada over what the White House calls continued discriminat

A New Round Of Tariff Relief Lands In Ireland President Trump has announced plans to lift tariffs on Irish whiskey while visiting Ireland, marking the latest move in what has become a broader rollback of trade barriers affecting the spirits industry. The announcement did not come out of nowhere. I

India's Spirits Crackdown: How Diageo Fought — and Ultimately Bent — to the FSSAI It started with a laboratory test and ended with one of the world's largest spirits companies agreeing to reformulate some of its most iconic Indian brands. The saga involving Diageo's Indian subsidiary United Spirit

The Counterintuitive Economics of Tariffs: How a 2018 Trade War Put Cheaper Whiskey on Most American Shelves — But Not in Kentucky or Tennessee When the Trump administration lit the fuse on a global trade war in 2018, the conventional wisdom inside the spirits industry was that everyone would lose

Diageo's India Reckoning: How a Flavoring Crackdown Forced the World's Biggest Spirits Company to the Reformulation Table India's alcohol industry does not often make headlines the way Kentucky's bourbon country or Scotland's whisky distilleries do, but what has unfolded over the past several week

Something has been building along the northern border for a year and a half now, and it finally came to a head. The U.S. government has slapped a 50% tariff on Canadian spirits, and the man running the country's biggest liquor trade group says it's about time. Chris Swonger, who serves as Presi