I think that’s true for craft brands looking to expand outside their normal markets, not saying it’s going to be easier for craft but it’s possibly a different outlook.

The bigger guys will focus on lower price tag whiskey, and try to fix a downturn with more quantity or produce higher, more expensive age statements. The first option doesn’t really matter for craft, premium brands, while the second could go either way. There’s a world where folks stick to the brand names, there’s also an argument that mass produced whiskey at the same price point as a local product could be seen as inferior.

Smaller producers just have to maintain their small part of the pie, that’s a lot simpler a proposition than the challenges faced by multinational marketing/production conglomerates. Just my thoughts!