Kentucky Owl In Bankruptcy Court

By Richard Thomas

The Thanksgiving weekend was marred for bourbon fans by the announcement on Thursday that Kentucky Owl’s parent company was in bankruptcy court. Stoli Group, best known as the owners of Stoli Vodka but also owners of Kentucky Owl and other brands, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Texas court on Wednesday. They listed over $100 million in assets, but between $50 and $100 million in liabilities.

Chapter 11 is the type of bankruptcy where a company or individual seeks protection from creditors from the courts, granting them breathing room to reorganize, sell off assets or seek new lines of financing/investment. Entities entering Chapter 11 eventually intend to emerge from bankruptcy able to meet some or all of their obligations.

This is the third bankruptcy from a whiskey company in the latter half of this year. In August, the longest running whisky distillery in Sweden, Mackmyra, went into receivership. They were later rescued from bankruptcy in October. Earlier this week, word came from Ireland that Waterford Distillery was apparently in default, having been put into receivership at the behest of its bankers.

The Stoli announcement is different, however, in that Stoli’s portfolio is much larger than Mackmyra and Waterford, both of which were independent whisky-makers. Kentucky Owl is a sourced brand owned by a larger liquor company, and Stoli itself blames its financial predicament not on Kentucky Owl, but on a slump in their wine sales.

The brand was founded in 1879 by Charles Dedman, who built a distillery and introduced The Wiseman Bourbon. The Kentucky Owl and its associated brands went defunct during Prohibition, to be revived in 2014 by Charles Dedman’s descendant, Dixon Dedman. The sourced bourbon brand was purchased by Stoli in 2017; Dedman stayed on as a brand ambassador, but his partner left the company after the acquisition. Dedman followed a few years later, participating in the foundation of the 2 XO bourbon brand. Stoli hired on Maureen Robertson, recently retired from Diageo, as Master Blender in 2023, and announced plans to develop a Nelson County, Kentucky quarry site into a new distillery complex in 2022. Despite repeated announcements that the $150 million project is on track, it is well behind it’s schedule as stated first in 2020 and then again in 2022.