The message showed up on Facebook like a sucker punch nobody was bracing for. On February 11th, Kingfly Spirits — a Pittsburgh fixture known for its vodka, whiskey, and a tasting bar that had become a gathering spot in the city's Strip District — told the world it was done. No drawn-out goodbye tour. No final weekend blowout. Just a post, and then locked doors.
"After seven years of many ups, downs and alllll arounds, the team at Kingfly toasts you for the last time," the company wrote on its Facebook page that same day. "As of today, we are moving on to the next chapter of life and could not be more grateful for your friendship, patronage, support and celebration of what we did together."
That was it. Bottle sales, drink sales, public access to the building — all of it ceased immediately. Regulars who had planned to stop by found out the hard way that there was nothing left to stop by for.
What made the whole thing stranger was the timing. Roughly a week before the shutdown, Kingfly had posted a note on its website telling visitors, "We are making some structural repairs in February." People read that and assumed the place would reopen. They assumed wrong. Whatever changed between that message and the February 11th farewell, the distillery's leadership apparently decided that repairs weren't the path forward. Closing was.
Kingfly opened its doors back in February 2019, setting up shop in a historic building in the Strip District, a neighborhood with deep roots in Pittsburgh's industrial and commercial past. The operation wasn't just a distillery. It combined spirit production with a tasting bar and an event space, the kind of place where people could sample what was being made on-site, book a private party, or just spend an evening. Over seven years, it carved out a loyal following — folks who appreciated locally made vodka and whiskey and the atmosphere that came with drinking it where it was produced.
But loyalty doesn't always pay the bills, and the broader picture of American spirits in 2025 helps explain why a place like Kingfly might have found itself in an impossible spot.
According to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., spirits supplier sales across the country fell 2.2 percent last year, landing at $36.4 billion. That might still sound like a mountain of money, and it is, but the direction matters. When the tide goes out across an entire industry, smaller operations feel it first and feel it worst.
The categories Kingfly built its reputation on took particularly hard hits. Vodka supplier sales dropped 3 percent to $7 billion. Whiskey slipped 0.9 percent to $5.1 billion. Tequila and mezcal, which had been riding a hot streak for years, fell 4.1 percent to $6.4 billion. Across the board, the traditional pillars of the American liquor cabinet were losing ground.
Chris Swonger, CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council, tried to frame things optimistically when the numbers came out. "While total U.S. spirits sales edged down 2.2% in 2025, the spirits industry remains resilient, driven by innovative products that continue to spark consumer interest," Swonger said, as reported by The Spirits Business.
He pointed to what he described as a shifting landscape of consumer taste. "Against a challenging backdrop of weakening consumer confidence and persistent economic pressures, American adults continue to choose distilled spirits, with ready-to-drink cocktails standing out as a clear favorite," Swonger said.
And the numbers back that up, at least in one specific corner of the market. Ready-to-drink cocktails — those pre-mixed, grab-and-go canned or bottled drinks that have been flooding shelves at liquor stores and gas stations alike — posted a 16.4 percent sales increase in 2025, climbing to $3.8 billion. It was the only segment showing growth in an otherwise retreating industry.
That growth tells a story about where American drinking habits are heading. Convenience is winning. A guy who might have once poured himself two fingers of bourbon at home or ordered a craft cocktail at a bar is now just as likely to crack open a canned Old Fashioned on his back porch. The appeal is obvious — no mixing, no measuring, no bartender needed, and the quality of these products has improved dramatically over the past few years.
For a distillery like Kingfly, which didn't have much of a footprint in the ready-to-drink space, that shift represented a problem with no easy solution. Building a brand around handcrafted spirits made in small batches is one thing. Competing with the convenience economy is something else entirely.
The economic pressures Swonger referenced aren't abstract concepts for small distillery owners. They show up in the cost of grain, the price of glass bottles, rising rents, insurance, labor, and the thousand other expenses that eat into already thin margins. When consumer confidence weakens — when people start thinking twice about spending forty or fifty dollars on a bottle of craft whiskey — businesses operating without a massive financial cushion feel it immediately.
Pittsburgh's craft spirits scene had been growing steadily for years, part of a broader national trend that saw small distilleries pop up in cities and towns across the country. The romance of the idea was always part of the sell — local makers using local ingredients, producing something with character and a story behind it. Kingfly leaned into that narrative, and for a while, it worked.
But the craft spirits boom always carried risks that were easy to overlook during the good times. The market got crowded. Shelf space at liquor stores became harder to secure. Competing against massive corporate brands with enormous marketing budgets and distribution networks was a daily grind. And then the economic headwinds of 2024 and 2025 started blowing harder.
Kingfly's Facebook post made clear that the closure was final. The business "will not be conducting future bottle sales, drink sales, or granting public access to the building starting today," it stated. No ambiguity, no hint of a possible return under new ownership or a different name. The chapter was closed.
For the regulars, the people who had spent evenings at the tasting bar or hosted celebrations in the event space, the loss is personal. A place like Kingfly wasn't just a business. It was a piece of the neighborhood, a spot with character in a city that values that kind of thing. Losing it stings in a way that's hard to quantify with industry sales data.
The question now is whether Kingfly's closure is an isolated story or a preview of what's coming for other small distilleries around the country. The math isn't encouraging. If the big categories — vodka, whiskey, tequila — keep sliding, and if ready-to-drink cocktails keep cannibalizing traditional spirit sales, the squeeze on craft producers will only tighten.
Some will adapt. Some will find ways into the ready-to-drink market or pivot toward experiences and tourism to supplement bottle sales. Others will do what Kingfly did — post a message, lock the doors, and move on.
Seven years is a decent run for any small business, and the spirits game is harder than most people realize. But there's something about the way Kingfly went out — suddenly, with a Facebook post and same-day closure — that sits heavy. It feels less like a planned exit and more like a band-aid getting ripped off, the kind of decision that gets made when the numbers stop making sense and there's no point in dragging it out.
The Strip District will keep humming along. Pittsburgh will keep drinking. But there's one less place to do it now, and the bottle that came from the building on the corner won't be getting refilled.
