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The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, Inc.(DISCUS) is a trade organization formed in 1973 from three other trade groups. The organization has three main goals. First, it fosters the position of the distilled spirits industry through education. Secondly, it is a lobbying group to respond to tax regulations. And lastly, it promotes American spirits in the international markets.

The Bourbon Institute was formed in 1958 through the efforts of Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley. Its purpose was to promote Bourbon as a distinctive American beverage. They focused upon promoting Bourbon in domestic and international markets. In 1964, they achieved their goal of having Bourbon declared a distinctive American whiskey and that no foreign made whiskey could be sold as “Bourbon” in the United States. The Distilled Spirits Institute was formed in 1933 as a trade organization to cooperate with the government authorities to create new regulations, maintain ethical standards and to promote the distilling industry in the United States. Formed at the end of Prohibition, the organization encouraged the industry to comply with the new regulations being written. It also acted as an educational agency, formulating statistical, legal and general information about the alcoholic beverage industry. Owsley Brown of Brown-Forman was instrumental in the forming of the Institute and served as its first president. 

The Licensed Beverage Industries was the third group that merged together to form DISCUS. This group was formed in 1946 in New York with Munson Shaw as chairman and Thomas McCarthy as president. It was a merger of the Allied Beverage Industries and Allied Liquor Industry, groups that represented companies such as Austin, Nichols and Company, who were selling distilled spirits, but did not own distilleries. Their purpose was to distribute information on taxation, social problems, liquor use, alcohol education and the economic importance of distilled spirits.

In 1973, these three groups merged to form DISCUS. DISCUS today has the purpose of monitoring laws, both federal and state, concerning alcohol, spreading information on the distilled spirits industry, and encouraging studies to curb alcohol abuse. They have an office in Washington D.C. They have been instrumental in getting the deregulation of the alcohol industry in 1984, which ended many of the harsher regulations form by the government in the aftermath of Prohibition. They were also a main force in getting the George Washington Distillery at Mount Vernon built, having paid for the archeological study that found the distillery at Mount Vernon and organizing the distillers that came and made the first batch of whiskey there in 2000. They continue their important goals today.

Photos Courtesy of Maggie Kimberl