Jim Beam, the country’s largest maker of bourbon, has announced a one-year pause in production at its flagship facility in Clermont, Ky., a stunning move that underlines the immense challenges facing the American whiskey industry after more than two decades of rapid growth. The decision is the latest in a series of production cuts, layoffs and financial crises across the wine, beer and spirits sector, which has seen sales drop by about 5 percent over the past year.
The situation will likely get worse as 2025 draws to a close: At the end of October MGP Ingredients, which distills whiskey on contract for other brands, reported a 19 percent drop in sales for the third quarter. In September, the global drinks company Diageo paused distillation at its Cascade Hollow facility in Tullahoma, Tenn., which produces George Dickel Tennessee whiskey. In January, Brown-Forman, the maker of whiskeys like Jack Daniel’s and Old Forester, announced it was laying off about 650 employees, or 12 percent of its work force, in the face of declining demand. And over the last year several large whiskey companies have gone into receivership.
The sudden, steep decline in bourbon sales comes after more than 20 years of expansion in American whiskey, which proved especially popular during the pandemic. Much, but not all, of that whiskey came from big legacy producers like Jim Beam. But it also came from a relatively new category of distilleries that produce on contract for customers and investors, who saw the quick growth in whiskey as an easy and fun way to make money.
Analysts cite recent economic challenges related to President Trump’s tariffs. A backlash from Canadian consumers and provinces, which control alcohol sales, has virtually stopped the sale of American whiskey in what was once among the industry’s biggest export markets. Overall, exports of American whiskey are down about 9 percent from 2024. At the same time, the president’s unpredictable approach to tariff policy has made it difficult to expand into new markets, especially South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, three regions that major American whiskey distillers had once hoped to turn into reliable destinations for millions of bottles a year.
Given the continued economic and cultural headwinds, the pause at Jim Beam is both a sign of how bad things have gotten for the industry and a harbinger of more shutdowns to come.
“It’s a sad day for bourbon, to be honest with you,” Mr. Minnick said. “For this to happen is a real punch in the gut.”

The Trump administration on Monday said it would pause leases for five wind farms under construction off the East Coast, essentially gutting the country’s nascent offshore wind industry in a sharp escalation of President Trump’s crusade against the renewable energy source. The decision injected uncertainty into $25 billion worth of projects that were collectively expected to power more than 2.5 million homes and businesses across the Eastern United States, according to Turn Forward, an offshore wind advocacy group. The five wind farms were projected together to create about 10,000 jobs.
It left intact just two operational wind farms in U.S. coastal waters — one small project off Rhode Island that has been complete since 2016 and a larger project off New York that has been fully operational since 2023.
The five wind farms targeted on Monday had all obtained leases from the Biden administration. But citing unspecified national security concerns, the Trump administration said it would freeze those leases, effectively blocking construction or operations and jeopardizing billions of dollars that have already been invested. One of the projects, Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, is already partially running, with about half of the project’s 62 turbines sending power to the electric grid.
But in announcing the pause, Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, said in a statement that “the prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people.” He said the decision “addresses emerging national security risks as well as “vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our East Coast population centers.”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly called offshore wind turbines ugly, costly and inefficient. He has disparaged the clean energy source ever since he failed 14 years ago to stop an offshore wind farm visible from of one of his golf courses in Scotland.
In addition to Vineyard Wind 1, the other projects affected by the pause are Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind off New York, and Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Jeremy Slayton, a spokesman for Dominion Energy, called the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project “essential for American national security and meeting Virginia’s dramatically growing energy needs.” The company argued that stopping the project for any length of time would threaten grid reliability “for some of the nation’s most important war fighting, A.I. and civilian assets.”
Mr. Slayton also dismissed the administration’s unspecified national security concerns, saying the wind farm was developed “in close coordination with the military.” He also noted that the project’s two pilot turbines have been operating for five years without causing any impacts to national security.
The Interior Department’s description of its decision "said the Pentagon had produced classified reports" that found the wind farms posed national security risks and that an unclassified report from the Energy Department had found that wind farms could interfere with radar systems.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a statement, “Trump’s obsession with killing offshore wind projects is unhinged, irrational, and unjustified.” He said New York would “keep fighting” the administration’s stop-work orders on Empire and other offshore wind projects.
The financial consequences for the developers of the five offshore wind farms could be dire. When work on Empire Wind was initially paused in April, Equinor said it was losing $50 million a week because of idled equipment and workers. Delays to Revolution Wind were estimated to cost its developer, Orsted, approximately $15 million per week. In October, Orsted said it would cut about 2,000 jobs, or around 25 percent of its work force, over the next two years, a decision fueled by the Trump administration’s actions as well as tariffs, high inflation and interest rates.
On the first day of his second presidential term, Mr. Trump issued a sweeping executive order halting all leasing of federal lands and waters for new wind farms. His administration has since gone after wind farms that had received permits from the Biden administration and were either under construction or about to start. The administration’s approach has suffered some legal setbacks. A federal judge this month struck down the halt on leasing mandated by the January order, saying it was “arbitrary and capricious,” violating federal law.
Attorney General William Tong of Connecticut, a Democrat, said in a statement that the new order to pause Revolution Wind is “even more lawless and erratic” than the first. “We went to court over this before,” Mr. Tong said, noting that a court order is in place blocking the administration’s previous attempt to stop the wind farm. “Every day this project is stalled is another day of lost work, another day of unaffordable energy costs, and other day burning fossil fuels when American-made clean energy is within reach,” he said.
Retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold disputed the Trump administration’s claim that offshore wind projects threaten national security. He noted all five projects halted on Monday had undergone rigorous reviews, including by the Defense Department. “Ironically, these projects will actually benefit our national security by diversifying America’s energy supplies, providing much-needed reliable power for the grid and helping our economy,” Mr. Lippold said.

Quantifying how diversified is a universe of assets is an open problem in quantitative finance, partly because there is no definite formula for diversification1.
Let’s make the (reasonable) assumption that the way assets are moving together within a universe is important for its diversification.
This in turn makes asset correlations within a universe important in determining how diversified it is.
...Results
The results obtained are remarkably consistent with those of Fleming and Kroeske(8):
The effective rank varies a lot through time(14), as illustrated on Figure 3
Evolution of the effective rank
Figure 3. Evolution of the effective rank
The proportion of total variance explained is both very high and very stable through time(15), as illustrated on Figure 4.
Figure 4. Proportion of the total variance explained
Another possible usage of the matrix effective rank, hinted in Fleming and Kroeske(8), is to use it as an indicator of systemic risk.
Indeed, it appears that the matrix effective rank bottoms around market crashes (financial crisis of 2007–2008, Corona crisis of 2020…).
Maybe a subject for another time…

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