Popular whiskey, liquor brand shares Chapter 11 bankruptcy news

The award-winning liquor company has been around for decades, but its future has been in doubt.

Apr 27, 2025 - 18:12

Winning awards and even being really good at what you do does not always equal success.

Many Philadelphia 76ers fans would, for example, gladly trade Joel Embid’s most valuable player trophy for some playoff success. The same can often be true in areas like movies.

How many best-picture Oscars never actually connected at the box office? The makers of those films are most certainly proud of what they have accomplished, but they probably would rather have a whole bunch of money.

There can often be a disconnect between what critics like or what the people who hand out awards like and what actually sells. That’s why the People’s Choice Awards often honor musicians and actors who never even get nominated for more serious awards.

The same thing happens in the food and beverage world. Just because a restaurant gains a Michelin star does not mean the public actually wants to eat there.

In fact, sometimes winning an award like that can actually raise expectations, leading to disappointed customers.

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When you look at wine and liquor, there appear to be all sorts of ratings and awards. None of them mean that much however, when it comes to actual sales.

People might see a movie because it won an Oscar. They probably don’t buy a whiskey because it won an award they have never heard of.

People tend to order the best-promoted brands, which are not always the best brands of liquor.
Image source: Pixabay

Popular whiskey brand at a crossroads

Celebrity liquors — that is, alcohol brands created by and/or endorsed by a famous person — have become very popular. It’s not that gin tastes better when Ryan Reynolds owns the brand, but the public trusts the Deadpool actor, and that has made his brand a wild success.

In reality, most liquor brands become successful because of marketing. Actually being a good product and winning awards might help, but having George Clooney say he likes drinking it seems to work a lot better.

Westward Whiskey has the well-made part down and it has also won lots of awards. The company shared its four-step process on its website:

We begin by brewing an artisanal American Ale from scratch using locally malted barley, ale yeast, and a low temperature fermentation.
We distill twice in custom low-reflux pot stills designed to create a robust spirit, transforming our fresh, flavorful ale into whiskey.
We mature to perfection in new, heavily toasted and lightly charred American Oak barrels selected to accentuate the bold characteristics of our whiskey.

The company shared that its final step is what pulls everything together.

"To best showcase the full spectrum of our complex earthy, fruity, and spicy flavors, we mingle our barrels in small batches to achieve Westward’s signature flavor profile — balanced and bold," it added.

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That bold process has helped the company's whiskeys win multiple gold medals across many years in San Francisco’s World Spirits Competition, along with many other awards.

Those awards did not stop the company from having to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Westward Whiskry enters Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

Westward Whiskey's parent brand, House Spirits Distillery LLC, filed its Chapter 11 Subchapter V petition on April 6 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, listing $1 million to $10 million in assets and debts.

"The debtor's largest unsecured creditors include Wine Co., owed $101,000; Travelers Insurance, owed over $43,000; and U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, owed over $34,000," TheStreet's Kirk O'Neil reported at the time.

House Spirits Distillery reported a $9.8 million loss on $3.44 million in sales in 2024.

It was a bleak situation where the brand's future was very much in doubt. Yet Thomas Mooney, CEO of Westward Whiskey, now thinks his company will emerge stronger than ever.

“All of a sudden, we found ourselves looking at an entirely different future. What is the right structure for our company? What's the right way to run our business, to be an independent distiller moving forward, and to do that in 2025 conditions and beyond?...We realized that this was the best process for us to restructure and become a company that can compete and win as an independent moving forward,” he told Breaking Bourbon.

Mooney believes that his company over-expanded before the overall liquor market contracted and that Chapter 11 filing will allow it to right-size its business.

“Our intention through this restructuring process is for everything to be business as usual. One of the things that is interesting about Westward is [that] every drop that we've ever put in a bottle we made from scratch, and we've never sold anything to anybody else,” Mooney said.