The Birrification of the US Spirits Distribution

RNDC offloads 6 state operations + DC to Reyes

The United States beverage alcohol industry is currently witnessing a structural realignment of historical magnitude, catalysed by the financial destabilisation of Republic National Distributing Company and the concurrent, aggressive market expansion of Reyes Beverage Group. In early January 2026, reports confirmed that RNDC had entered advanced negotiations to divest its distribution operations in seven critical markets—Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, DC—to Reyes Beverage Group. This transaction, validated by internal executive communiqués from RNDC President and CEO Marc Sachs, represents not merely an asset sale but a fundamental dismantling of the “national footprint” strategy that has defined the second-largest wine and spirits wholesaler in the United States for the past decade.

The catalyst for this drastic divestiture is a convergence of unsustainable leverage stemming from the aggressive 2022 acquisition of Young’s Market Company, a catastrophic operational collapse in California in late 2025, and a subsequent exodus of “blue-chip” suppliers, including Sazerac Company, Brown-Forman, and Proximo Spirits. These departures stripped the distributor of essential volume leverage, exposing a fixed-cost base that could no longer be supported by the remaining portfolio. The liquidity crisis precipitated by these events has forced RNDC to liquidate its most valuable Eastern and Midwestern assets to stabilise its remaining core operations in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana.