Brown Forman Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
September 2, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Innovation supported first-quarter performance, with New Mix, the broader ready-to-drink portfolio, and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Blackberry driving growth. U.S. RTDs contributed approximately one percentage point of value growth, while Blackberry contributed more than two points based on Nielsen trends.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Brown-Forman reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 outlook, including approximately flat organic net sales and a 3%–5% decline in organic operating income, while expressing greater confidence that profit will trend toward the favorable end of that range.
  • Negative Sentiment: Significant headwinds remain, including a more than 60% decline in used-barrel sales, low-teens declines in the full-strength tequila portfolio, and soft consumer demand in developed markets, particularly across Europe.
  • Positive Sentiment: Gross margin expanded 40 basis points to 60.2%, earnings per share rose 6% to $0.38, and operating cash flow increased to $173 million. Free cash flow grew to $161 million, supported by lower capital spending and efforts to reduce inventory.
  • Neutral Sentiment: CEO Lawson Whiting plans to retire after nearly 30 years with the company once a successor is named. Brown-Forman’s board is conducting an internal and external search without providing a specific timeline, with Whiting expected to assist with the transition.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Brown Forman Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Brown-Forman Corporation First Quarter Fiscal Year 2027 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sue Perram, Vice President, Director, Investor Relations. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Sue Perram
Sue Perram
VP and Director of Investor Relations at Brown-Forman

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I would like to thank each of you for joining us today for Brown-Forman's first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call. Joining me today are Lawson Whiting, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Peters, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning's conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. Numerous risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected in these statements. Many of the factors that will determine future results are beyond the company's ability to control or predict. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, and except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update any of these statements, whether due to new information, future events, or otherwise.

Sue Perram
Sue Perram
VP and Director of Investor Relations at Brown-Forman

This morning, we issued a press release containing our results for the first quarter fiscal year 2027, in addition to posting presentation materials that Lawson and Jim will walk through momentarily. Both the release and the presentation can be found on our website under the section titled Investors, Events and Presentations. In the press release, we have listed a number of the risk factors you should consider in conjunction with our forward-looking statements. Other significant risk factors are described in our 2026 Form 10-K and from time to time in our Form 10-Q reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Sue Perram
Sue Perram
VP and Director of Investor Relations at Brown-Forman

These measures, a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, and the reasons management believes they provide useful information to investors regarding the company's financial condition and results of operations are contained in the press release and investor presentation. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Lawson.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Thank you, Sue, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of fiscal 2027 unfolded largely as expected and underscored an important point. Innovation is creating meaningful growth opportunities across our portfolio. Strong momentum from New Mix, our RTD portfolio, and Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry helped offset several headwinds. This led to first quarter performance that was largely in line with our expectations and supports our full year outlook. More specifically, that momentum helped offset expected pressure in areas including used barrel sales, parts of our tequila portfolio, and softer consumer demand across several of our larger developed markets. Challenging industry conditions persist and consumers remain selective with discretionary spending, particularly in developed markets. Still, we're encouraged by what we're seeing from our innovation pipeline, the strength of our RTD portfolio, and the opportunities we continue to create for our brands around the world.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Across our portfolio, we're focused on meeting consumers where they are with products that offer relevance, convenience, value, and differentiated experiences. That strategy is working, and we're reaffirming our full year outlook this morning. Before discussing our growth drivers, I'd like to briefly highlight Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey. Organic net sales for Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey were essentially flat in the quarter. While we remain focused on strengthening performance over the long term, the brand provided an important source of stability in the quarter and continues to serve as the foundation of our portfolio. As we discuss the rest of the quarter, I'll note that results were influenced by several timing related factors, including ordering patterns driven by our U.S. distributor changes in the summer of 2025 and the launch of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry. You will hear those dynamics referenced throughout the call.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Now, moving on to our growth drivers for the quarter. Our RTD portfolio continues to perform exceptionally well and remains one of our most important growth platforms. New Mix delivered strong double-digit growth in Mexico and continues to benefit from consumers' interest in flavor, convenience, and affordability. In the United States, demand has exceeded our expectations since the launch. To capitalize on this momentum and consumer appeal, we're expanding into additional markets and introducing new flavors and pack options to support future growth. We also continue to see encouraging results from el Jimador Spritz, which had a strong start in the United States. Taken together, based on recent Nielsen data, our RTD portfolio contributed approximately one point of value growth to our overall U.S. performance. Beyond RTDs, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry continues to be one of the most successful innovations in our portfolio.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

The brand is now available in more than 30 international markets, with particularly strong growth in countries including Brazil, France, and the United Arab Emirates. In the United States, Blackberry contributed more than two points of value growth based on Nielsen takeaway trends. Importantly, we're sustaining this momentum by continuing to invest in the brand, broadening distribution, and introducing new pack sizes that meet a range of needs and occasions. Together, these efforts are driving incremental growth and attracting new consumers to the franchise. We're also extending the trademark through products such as Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry and Lemonade in an RTD format. Consumers were already mixing Tennessee Blackberry and lemonade. We simply made it easier. Of course, those gains were partially offset by several areas of our business that remain under pressure.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Organic net sales for our non-branded and bulk business, namely our used barrel sales, declined more than 60%. Over the past two years, our sales have declined from more than $100 million to approximately $30 million. Demand for barrels from Scotch and Irish whiskey producers remains well below the unusually high levels we experienced a couple of years ago. The decline in the first quarter was driven by the comparison to the prior year period, which benefited from higher demand and pricing before declining throughout the remainder of the fiscal year. Our full-strength tequila portfolio, which includes Herradura and el Jimador, declined in the low teens. While performance remains well below where we want it to be, we are focused on improving results through stronger consumer marketing, clearer brand positioning, and disciplined commercial execution.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

While it is still early, we are beginning to see encouraging signs, particularly with el Jimador in the U.S., where Nielsen takeaway trends have improved meaningfully. It is also important to acknowledge a few other brands where there were some unique circumstances impacting first quarter results. Organic net sales for Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey declined largely due to the challenging operating environment in the U.S., as well as the supply chain disruptions in Chile during the year ago period, which negatively affected the year-over-year trends. The decrease in Gentleman Jack stemmed mainly from shipment timing differences, which were related to the distributor transitions in the U.S. last year. Turning to geographies, our results were generally consistent with the trends we anticipated entering the year. Emerging international markets delivered 9% organic net sales growth, led by Mexico and the UAE.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

New Mix continued to drive strong growth in Mexico, while the results in the United Arab Emirates benefited from the timing of shipments. These gains more than offset a challenging comparison in Brazil caused by supply chain disruptions in the year ago period. While the country's trends are recovering following the methanol crisis, performance remains below last year. In the developed international markets, organic net sales declined 8%. Australia continued to perform well, growing organic net sales 4%, despite a challenging market environment. Growth was led by Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey, which benefited from the timing of ordering patterns and was supported by RTD innovation, including Jack Daniel's Tennessee Serve, a 12% ABV whiskey and cola RTD created exclusively for the Australian market and launched earlier this calendar year. Across much of Europe, consumer demand remained soft, resulting in ongoing pressure on the broader spirits category.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Germany, France, and the U.K. were all very weak as conditions in those markets are particularly challenging. Even in this environment, our whiskey category share remains stable or is increasing in five of our eight largest European markets, and we remain focused on optimizing our route to consumer and driving innovation. In Canada, U.S.-produced spirits remain off the shelves in most of the provinces, although we are now lapping a similar comparison period. We continue to assume these restrictions will remain in place for the balance of the fiscal year. The travel retail channel declined 1% during the quarter. Passenger traffic in several key travel corridors remains below historical levels, particularly in parts of the Middle East. Turning to the United States, our performance remains ahead of our largest competitors, with organic net sales flat despite a decline in the overall spirits market.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Growth from Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey, our RTD portfolio, and premium innovations such as Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Heritage Barrel helped offset broader market pressures. Importantly, shipments trailed depletion trends by approximately 4 points as we lapsed the distributor transitions and the launch of Tennessee Blackberry in the prior year period, both of which benefited shipment timing. Broadly speaking, the operating environment remains consistent both with our expectations and prior year performance, and our geographic performance reflects that. Before I close, I want to recognize our people. The dedication of our employees continues to be one of Brown-Forman's greatest strengths. Despite a challenging operating environment, our teams remain focused on execution, supporting one another, and advancing our strategic priorities around the world. In summary, our first quarter unfolded largely as expected. Innovation remains one of our most important growth drivers.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

From New Mix and our RTD portfolio to Tennessee Blackberry and pack size innovation, we're creating new occasions for consumers to engage with our brands and generating growth opportunities across the portfolio. While pressures remain across parts of the industry, we're focused on the brands, markets, and consumer occasions where we see greatest long-term potential. That focus, combined with the strength of our people and portfolio, gives us confidence in our ability to deliver against our fiscal 2027 outlook. Before turning the call over to Jim, I'd like to briefly comment on my upcoming retirement. As we announced in July, after nearly 30 years with Brown-Forman, I have decided to retire once my successor is named.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

It's been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as the CEO of Brown-Forman, and I'm grateful for the support of our team around the world, the Brown family, and our board of directors over my career, and particularly during my time in this role. While I'm looking forward to my next chapter, until a successor is named, I remain squarely focused on leading the business, executing our strategy, and supporting our teams. The board's Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee is leading a comprehensive search process, considering both internal and external candidates. As we have said previously, this is a thoughtful and deliberate effort to identify the right leader for Brown-Forman's next chapter, and we're not providing a specific timeline.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Announcing my retirement before a successor is selected was an intentional decision that gives the board the time and flexibility to conduct that process thoroughly while ensuring continuity in the leadership of the business. Following the appointment of my successor, I also expect to support a smooth transition in an advisory capacity. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Thank you, Lawson, and good morning, everyone. As Lawson discussed, our first quarter results were largely in line with our expectations. Innovation continued to support top-line performance, our teams remained disciplined in managing costs and investments, and we delivered growth in both earnings and cash flow while reaffirming our fiscal 2027 outlook. Let me spend a few minutes discussing these results. Starting with profitability, gross margin expanded 40 basis points to 60.2% during the quarter. The improvement was primarily driven by lower costs, largely driven by timing and favorable portfolio changes, partially offset by foreign exchange and product mix. Foreign exchange, particularly the stronger Mexican peso, remained a headwind. We also saw some expected mix pressure from the continued strong growth of New Mix and our broader RTD portfolio.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

While RTDs carry a different margin profile than much of the rest of our portfolio, their growth continues to support our broader strategy of meeting consumers where they are, creating new occasions, and building important future growth platforms for the business. We also remain disciplined in our approach to investment. Organic advertising expense declined 4%, primarily due to timing. Our philosophy remains unchanged. We align brand investment with depletion trends and continue to believe we are investing at healthy levels behind our portfolio. Organic SG&A increased 5%, driven largely by costs associated with organizational changes intended to reduce complexity and support faster decision-making across the business. Taken together, these factors resulted in reported operating income declining 3%, while organic operating income increased 4%.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

The combination of improved organic operating performance, lower non-operating post-retirement expense, and the benefit of prior year share repurchases drove earnings per share growth of 6% to $0.38. We also delivered strong cash flow performance during the quarter. Cash flow from operations increased $13 million to $173 million, while free cash flow increased $32 million to $161 million. The improvement reflected solid operating cash generation and lower capital spending requirements. Due to our strong financial position, we repaid EUR 300 million principal amount of the 1.2% senior notes on the July 7th, 2026 maturity date. Turning to our outlook, the key message is straightforward. Our first quarter performed largely as expected, and we are reaffirming our fiscal 2027 guidance. The operating environment remains consistent with the assumptions we outlined at the beginning of the year.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Consumer demand remains pressured across many developed markets, while emerging international markets continue to provide important growth opportunities. Innovation continues to perform well, particularly New Mix, our broader RTD portfolio, and the ongoing global rollout of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry. While shipments have benefited from that momentum, particularly for Tennessee Blackberry, we continue to expect the gap between shipments and depletions to narrow as the year progresses, with depletions exceeding shipments for the full fiscal year. In addition, we expect continued pressure on used barrel sales, but we expect the impact to moderate through the remainder of the year, and the year-over-year dollar impact on net sales will be significantly less. Overall, based on currently known factors, we continue to expect organic net sales to be approximately flat for fiscal 2027. From a profitability standpoint, we remain focused on carefully managing costs while continuing to invest behind our brands.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

As we move through the year, higher-cost whiskey inventory will become a larger factor in our results. These inventories were produced during a period of unusually high inflation and elevated input costs for barrels, grain, energy, and other key inputs. While actions we have taken to optimize our supply chain will benefit us over time, the aging requirements of many of our products mean those benefits will take time to fully materialize. We also continue to expect higher input costs during fiscal 2027, driven primarily by inflationary pressures and lower production volumes. To help offset these pressures, we remain focused on identifying efficiencies, simplifying work, and improving productivity across the organization. As we execute our long-term pricing strategy and continue to benefit from revenue growth management initiatives and strategic innovation, we also expect the continued growth of our RTD portfolio to influence product mix.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

While RTDs create some pressure on margin mix, they remain an important source of growth, consumer recruitment, and future opportunity for the business. Our outlook for operating expenses continues to reflect investment behind our brands in line with our long-term philosophy. At the same time, we expect SG&A to decline as we lap the elevated investment levels of fiscal 2026 and begin to realize benefits from actions we have taken to simplify the organization. Taking all of these factors into account, we continue to expect organic operating income to decline between 3% and 5%. Based on our first quarter performance and the trends we are seeing across the business, we have increased confidence that results will trend toward the more favorable end of the range. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $60 million to $70 million, significantly lower than recent years.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

In addition, we remain focused on reducing finished goods inventory and improving working capital efficiency, which should further support cash generation. Finally, we continue to expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 20%-22% for fiscal 2027.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

In summary, the first quarter unfolded largely as we expected. Innovation continues to create growth opportunities across our portfolio, our teams remain disciplined in how we manage costs and investments, and our cash flow performance remains strong. While the operating environment remains challenging, our results reinforce our confidence in the plans we outlined at the beginning of the year and in our team's ability to deliver against our fiscal 2027 outlook. With that, this concludes our prepared remarks. Let's open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. In fairness to all, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. One moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question is going to come from the line of Drew Levine with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Drew Levine
Drew Levine
Analyst at JPMorgan

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our question. Lawson, firstly, congratulations on your upcoming retirement.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Thanks.

Drew Levine
Drew Levine
Analyst at JPMorgan

Was hoping to get some-Of course. Hoping to get some more color on the underlying performance in the U.S. It was up 4%. I think even against the easy comparison, probably a little bit better than expected. On a 2-year stack, down around 2%, likely better than what we have seen from a consumer takeaway perspective. Maybe you could just help disaggregate the underlying performance in the U.S. I know you mentioned the RTDs have been performing well. Obviously, you have had Blackberry and some of the premium expressions, but just sort of help frame up that gap that we have seen over the past 2 years relative to consumer takeaway and how we should think about that going forward. Thank you.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Okay. Let me just start off by saying I think the U.S. business in aggregate is improving. Slowly. I think it bottomed out, I think we would say, around Christmas or January, and then you are starting to see improvement both in the NABCA takeaway and in Nielsen. There is that undercurrent for the whole thing. Know that, and we are going to say this probably 10 times here on this Q&A here, that it is a noisy quarter, largely driven by last year distributor transitions that all happened August 1, and then Blackberry launch, which was also August 1. It just caused a lot of noise. I need to step back from that one for a second, too. Just to sort of level set with everyone. When we did the distributor change, as I said, most of the country was August 1.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

What happened was there was a large amount of shipments that went through in July of last year to get the new distributors ready and fill up their warehouses, and then they depleted those cases in August. Then we are comping against that period now. Shipments were really strong last year, and so it muted, what did we say, 4 points of growth compared from shipments to underlying. I think that is an important factor. When you are talking about Nielsen takeaway trends versus depletions, which I think was your sort of base question, it is really 2 things. About half of the difference is distributor margins. We are able to capture that value now in our sales into these distributors. That was about 3 points of it right there. The other part of it, which was significant also, is just the timing of our innovation.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

There is a lot. As you heard on the prepared remarks, we have a lot of innovation right now. A lot of it has gone out in the first quarter, and I imagine the Nielsen figures will pick that up in the upcoming months. Right now, that actually had a couple point influence, too.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Peter Grom with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Peter Grom
Peter Grom
Analyst at UBS

Great. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and Lawson, congratulations and thank you for all the help over the years.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Thanks, Peter.

Peter Grom
Peter Grom
Analyst at UBS

Throughout the prepared remarks, you mentioned several times that, one, the first quarter performance was largely in line with your expectations, but you also highlighted that you now have greater confidence in delivering towards the more favorable point of the guidance range. Obviously, it's a pretty dynamic environment. Curious what's driving that increased level of confidence at this point of the year?

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. Peter, this is Jim, and I will start off with that because I think, one, as we kind of saw, and Lawson talked a little bit about our expectations for the top line for the quarter. We knew we had some tough things to comp from last year, but it came in, when we look at it, relatively strong, and if you really look at with the decline of 1%, you take the barrel sales out of there, and honestly, we are at about flat. What we are seeing is a good and very close to where we expected on the top line. Then as we look at things throughout gross margin and other areas, we say, "Okay, we started off in a more positive place," and we definitely think a lot of that is timing.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

I could go much deeper into that and talk about how that timing works and how we see that coming out. What we are also seeing is we are taking significant actions to offset many of these costs. What we are seeing is that a lot of our actions are actually delivering probably at the higher end of the range of what we expect, and we are seeing some of those results come sooner. So while we do expect our gross margins to feel pressure throughout the year due to the timing of how some of the whiskey flows out and all that, we still are actually seeing what I would say is based on our own actions, some more favorable things within the overall cost of goods environment. Now, there are some other pressures that we see within there.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Things such as diesel fuel costs and aluminum costs are all coming up. But as we step back and we look at it from a perspective of, like I said, what we can offset, what we can take pricing to offset, and we look at all of those things. We also look at that our SG&A was higher in the first quarter than we expected it to be because we did take

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

some smaller, what I will call more surgical actions to make adjustments within our workforce. Those benefits are going to flow throughout the year. All of those things kind of added together really give us increased confidence that we could be to the high end of our range from an operating profit perspective and in line with our sales guidance.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

I will add two points. One I just said a minute ago. If the TDS in the U.S. continues to improve bit by bit, and it has. It has been pretty steady over the last 6, 8 months, something like that now. I think that helps the confidence. The other one Jim said, but I actually think it is worth expanding upon a little bit, is the barrel sale. As I said, fiscal 2024, so call it 2 years ago, we peaked out over $100 million a year in barrel sales, which has an extremely high gross margin because the barrels are depreciated over the time that they are aging. When we actually sell them, it has always been a great margin business. It ended last year around $30 million, and we expect a pretty significant drop again this year.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

You are talking 80-plus million dollars in less profitability from barrel sales in 2 years. I just do not think that is necessarily part of the story of Brown-Forman. We really have not expanded upon it, but it has been a huge headwind for us. Having said all that, it cannot get any lower. There is just not that much farther to go. It will be less of a headwind going forward, which is starting to give us a little more confidence, too, in the outlook.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Nadine Sarwat with Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Nadine Sarwat
Nadine Sarwat
Analyst at Bernstein

Great. Thank you. Lawson, congrats on the upcoming retirement. It has been a real pleasure working with you over all these years. I promised you I would keep asking about gross margins until you retire. I guess here is me keeping my promise. Two questions from me. First, you saw 60 basis points of expansion this quarter. I think you guys called out that being driven by lower costs. However, as I think Jim just mentioned, more costly barreled whiskey will continue to be a headwind. Could you give me a sense of what exactly happened with those two factors balancing out in Q1 and how we should expect that over the next coming 3 quarters of the year? My second question is a longer-term, bigger picture question.

Nadine Sarwat
Nadine Sarwat
Analyst at Bernstein

Now that the discussions with Pernod Ricard regarding that potential combination have ended, I appreciate you won't comment on deal specifics or discussions. With a few months of hindsight, what are your reflections coming out of those discussions for Brown-Forman as a standalone entity? Has it led to any refreshed or different thinking about how you want to manage the long-term strategy for Brown-Forman and where some of the opportunities might lie?

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Yeah, Nadine, this is Jim, and I'll start with your question on gross margin. If you look at where we finished at 60.2%, the one thing I'd point out, too, that is below last year's average for the full year of gross margin of 60.5%. So we are already seeing it, and we had some tailwinds in the fourth quarter that kind of helped us there a little bit, and I'll say that. But we do expect this probably to be more of what I'll say is the high point of our gross margin for the year. As you mentioned, we do expect to begin to see some of the more expensive barreled whiskey that we have come out, and that will come out ratably throughout the year and increase as we get later in the year.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

The other thing, as I mentioned, some of the other cost increases that we're seeing right now, such as diesel and aluminum, there's just a lot of volatility around many of the commodities out there. So our ability to necessarily predict exactly where those are going to be, and I'd say, right now, we're assuming that just stays in throughout the whole year and could even, to a certain extent, possibly increase a little bit. But we're keeping a very close eye on that. I think the other thing that I didn't mention before is, in order to get our inventories in line with where our sales are, we've obviously had to adjust our production and distilling. A big part of that we've done in a way that's being done ratably throughout the year to do it in the most efficient way.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

But I think you'll see more of the cost of some of that lower production coming through throughout the full year. So that's another thing that's not necessarily reflected in the first quarter, but I think will put pressure on us for the rest of the year. But the positive on that is that, again, as we've said, we really are bringing our inventories into what we believe is the right place, and it's helping us from a free cash flow perspective. So, it's the right thing to do, but we're trying to make sure we do it in the most efficient way and not just shutting down distilleries for extended periods of time. I think the plan that we have is going to work very well.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Nadine, to the second question that you had. A few things. One, I think you all know that we regularly explore strategic opportunities in the normal course of business. We do evaluate lots of different opportunities against the standard of long-term shareholder value creation. Just in the particular case with Pernod Ricard, we were unable to reach a mutually agreeable term. I know everyone's probably asking or thinking, what is the case with Sazerac? It really comes down to the board and our advisors concluding that the proposal's just not actionable, taking into consideration the view of Wolf Pen Branch, our majority shareholder.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

In terms of reflecting back on that, look, our ultimate goal is to create long-term value for all of our shareholders, and we're going to do that by focusing on our own strategic and operational priorities, and that's back to the expanding upon our geographic footprint, building brands that resonate with consumers, enhancing operational efficiencies wherever we can, and then continuing to explore additional opportunities to create value for our shareholders. Look, it gives us the opportunity now, and produces back to the reflecting. We've got a really strong balance sheet. We've got healthy free cash flows. We're going to stick to our long-term capital allocation philosophy of really investing in the business, paying increasing regular dividends, pursuing strategic opportunities when they're there, and then returning cash to shareholders. That's been our sort of four core capital allocation priorities for a long time.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Look, we feel good about our business. We feel more confident about our business today, and we're going to continue to grow and do it on our own and create the most value that we can. We're moving on.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Nik Modi with RBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Nik Modi
Nik Modi
Analyst at RBC

Yeah, thank you. Lawson, best of luck in your retirement. I wanted to just press on the industry dynamic because some of the feedback that we've received in the trade would suggest August actually got weaker, not stabilized, I think was some of the comments you were making, or maybe you were just referring to the past 6-8 months. Maybe it's the re-inflation of gas prices. I'm just curious, if you had any thoughts on kind of what the dynamic has been over the last few weeks, because it looks like there has been somewhat of a change. Then if I could just ask about Woodford. I believe there were some price actions that were during the quarter and then maybe scaled back, and I just was curious if you can provide some more color around kind of the strategy for Woodford going forward. Thank you.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

All right. I'll be honest, I don't know about anything in August. That is an awfully short-term question. It sounds like you've got some distributor contacts that maybe, I don't know if they had a weak month or what, but, I don't know, so I'm not even going to comment on that. Woodford, the strategy, there is definitely not a strategy to take price down on Woodford. That would be wrong. In fact, the Nielsen numbers I think have it at pretty much flat right now. But the strategy around Woodford is not really changing. It continues to be a very strong brand. If you look at that top 25 in the U.S., which I don't have in front of me, but it's been one of the strongest brands now over the last several years in an environment where hardly anyone is showing any growth.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

At least Woodford does continue to grow, and look, it's one of the strongest brands we have in our entire portfolio, and we are huge supporters of it. We have global aspirations for the brand where we think we've got real opportunities outside of the United States, too. So of all the brands in our portfolio, it is not one that I worry a whole lot about. We would love it to grow a little faster than it is right now, but it's still a very healthy brand and doing well.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

I think we see further opportunities for distribution within the U.S. on it, and obviously it has got. Then as Lawson mentioned, internationally, it has grown very little internationally, and that is where we see significant opportunities go forward with the Woodford. To expand upon and build upon what we have done with Jack on a global basis, we see Woodford as the next big opportunity.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Lauren Lieberman
Lauren Lieberman
Analyst at Barclays

Great. Thanks so much. I just wanted to follow up a little bit more on the pricing environment in the U.S. I know Nik just mentioned Woodford, but I was also curious about tequila. Just looking at what you reported for the organic sales for the brands, the tequila brands versus volume. It looks like pricing was a pretty big headwind. Just thoughts on pricing environment specific tequila, if it is signs of improvement or stabilization, and also just more broadly across the balance of the portfolio. Thanks.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Okay. Lauren, let me try to talk this, make sure everybody gets this, because I know it looks really strange on Schedule B. It is very, quite honestly, misleading. This is kind of a long answer, but I will give you a few points on the category and then how we are doing within that. If you take the tequila category, and if you just take 750, so do not lock down on one size across. The category pricing-wise is down between 1% and 2%. A lot of that, what is happening within the tequila world is you are seeing trade down. If you look at the different price points within tequila, over 30 is tough. That is where Herradura is and a lot of the other big brands that you all know. If you look at that 20 to 30 or even 15 to 30, it is actually still growing.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

El Jimador is benefiting from that. Interestingly, something I did not know, El Jimador within that price point, that $15-$30 price point or 20-30, this time last year, it was the number 9 brand in that price point. Today, it is number 4. So we have seen significant improvement in that. Using some Nielsen volume numbers, tequila as a category in aggregate this time last year was running at +5%. Today, it is -4%. So there has been a 9-point swing in tequila, which has hurt a whole lot of brands, as I am sure you can see in the data. El Jimador this time last year was -8%. Now it is -5%. It does not sound great, but last year we had a 13-point gap to the category and losing massive share. Today, it is down to 1.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

We have made real improvements in the el Jimador brand, and I think we have got a new package, we have got new communications, we have got all kinds of new things around it, all that are helping to improve the trend. Herradura, as I said, stuck in a higher price point. It is difficult. We are about to unveil a whole lot of new things for that brand, too. So we do expect that it will improve from here, but it has been tough for quite a while now. Speaking to what you see in the earnings release versus what you expected to see, I guess, there is one big oddity in there. As you know, we changed distributor margins last year, really across our portfolio, and for the most part, in aggregate, they benefited us quite significantly.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

The tequilas, in a sort of an unusual way, I do not know if it is the one, but overall distributor margins went up for tequila. So we wanted to make sure that the distributors were incented to sell that product. There were not many brands where we did that, but it was one of them. So, it makes the numbers in there and the organic figures look funny. That is not sort of a true number, in terms of what is underlying actually happening in there. The other one that is a little bit smaller, but I do not know if it is smaller, it is still material. California el Jimador is flying, and it is obviously a massive tequila market, but it is the lowest, I think the lowest price market in the U.S. So we get a little bit of negative mix there, too.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

There is some higher discounting happening in the category. I think everybody expected that, but it is not a runaway situation at all. As I said, if you compare size, year-over-year, 750 is down 1% or 2% with the change in the cost profile. When I say I think we would have expected it would have been even worse, and it has just not happened. Same thing with whiskey, which I assume we are going to get to that in one of these questions here, but the pricing environment has remained pretty rational in the U.S. right now. Obviously, that is a good thing.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Bill Kirk with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Bill Kirk
Bill Kirk
Analyst at Roth Capital Partners

Good morning, everybody. Lawson, you mentioned pack sizes. I think the comment was related specifically to Blackberry. Maybe more broadly, what is the opportunity for the portfolio in the U.S. or internationally to expand pack size offerings?

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Okay. Well, as I think we've been talking about, I'm not sure when this trend really started, but it is a couple of years ago now where smaller sizes started growing much faster than big sizes. We've always cited as, that's an economic thing where a consumer, if they've got a $20 bill in their pocket, and they want to go and they love their Jack Daniel's, they would rather buy a smaller size bottle than have to go to a cheaper brand or whatever else they might do. So that's been kind of a macro thing now for years. I think that's interesting. You asked about leaving the United States. Well, one thing is, you are much more limited outside of the United States in terms of the number of pack sizes you're allowed to actually bring.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

As an example, there's very few large formatted bottles outside of the U.S. Like the 175 in the U.S. is a big volume generator, and it's just not even available. It's not legal in many, many other markets around there. So back to what is the opportunity there? I do think the small, we're not talking 50 mLs, but the little bit smaller bottles, the 375 or the 200s are a very good play in the emerging markets where, honestly, our products are expensive in a lot of emerging markets. So from the consumer perspective, a full bottle of Jack Daniel's, depending on where you are, can be $50 or even more in some places. So, that's where the opportunity for smaller sizes tends to show up, and we continue to pursue that.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Seamus Cassidy with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Seamus Cassidy
Seamus Cassidy
Analyst at TD Cowen

Hi, good morning, everyone, and congrats, Lawson. Innovation has been a big contributor to growth, but core Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey was flat this quarter, which is an improvement from what we've seen over the past few quarters. I was hoping you could provide some context on what drove that stabilization and how much of it reflects improving consumer demand versus, I guess, your own commercial and execution initiatives. Thanks.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. I think you heard us say the 4-point difference between organic and depletions in the U.S. had a lot to do with. That was a major league factor in the organic numbers for Tennessee Whiskey. Look, it is still a difficult challenge we are having with Tennessee Whiskey in some of our larger markets. It is the U.S., it is Germany, it is France, Spain. Those are all big Black Label markets. We continue to push in the United States, and particularly, we have got a lot of consumer communications going on right now. I think we remain pretty excited about the different things that we are doing to promote the brand. I think it has gotten much better, in my opinion, in the last couple of years compared to we were for a while. A lot of those things are improving.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

The takeaway in the U.S. has really not improved, and it has not improved for many, many of the largest brands in the U.S. You look across that top 25 sort of list, and there is a lot of struggles in there. It is just a difficult market right now, and it is a difficult market for these largest brands that have difficulty getting away from really the TDS trends that are out there. I do think it is worth saying or going off a little bit on how healthy is the U.S. whiskey category? If you look at Nielsen, and you do the category breakdown, of which they, I do not know, have 20 categories in there. First of all, every single one of them is declining. The only thing that is growing is RTDs. Literally, there is not one growing category. But the single strongest category is U.S. whiskey.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Tequila has now fallen several points behind U.S. whiskey. It is down a half a point. I say all this because a lot of folks, some sell-side folks and a lot of trade people, have sort of written the category, not that you have written it off, but that they are just less enthusiastic about the category. Look, there are cost challenges, and everyone is dealing with that, and everyone has got some inventory challenges, but consumer demand is still there. I think that, I do not know, I think the demise of the category has been a bit exaggerated. I look at our own brands, and I look at things like the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and visitor counts and the types of folks that are coming into our distilleries and the premium.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

A lot of what we do now is sort of super, ultra-premium tastings, things that you pay a lot more for. That is still in huge demand. The interest in the category remains very high. I think the category is healthier than maybe the general feeling is around the category. I think it is also worth saying, in Jack Daniel's in the U.S., as difficult as the consumer takeaway trends have been, our pricing is up. Pricing in the U.S. whiskey category, make sure I get this right, down 0.6%. Relatively, that is pretty rational. I think we were all nervous it could have gotten worse. Whereas a full category only down 0.2%, Jack Daniel's is up 1%. Congratulations to that team and for us maintaining that low but slow price increase strategy that we have had for a long time.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

In this market, we will take 1% price increases on Jack Daniel's Black Label.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Eric Serotta with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Eric Serotta
Eric Serotta
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great. Thanks, and congratulations, Lawson. It has been a pleasure working with you over the years. Hoping to come back to whiskey on the supply side. Certainly agree with you that the market seems to be pretty rational in terms of pricing, in terms of what we have seen in the marketplace. Can you give us some perspective as to where you think the industry is in working down some of the excess supply of the past few years? I know you guys have throttled back production thoughtfully. Others have taken entire distilleries down for a year. How much of a dent do you guys think that that has made in aging stocks and mature whiskey to date?

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. Okay. A few things here. Obviously, I do not know, this started probably a year ago, where I know a lot of folks and trade people, and on the sell side, were trying to get at this inventory number, using a lot of the KDA statistics as support. Those numbers come out once a year, and I think it is sort of January. It is a calendar report. So the data that we have now is pretty old. So, I do not have a lot of real updated information. I never, quite honestly, understood some of the conclusions that some had that said we were, I do not know, the industry was 9 or 10 years long or whatever it was, because we were never there. I can tell you one of the benefits of Jack Daniel's, and now I am talking in terms of inventory.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Compared to pretty much every other U.S. whiskey brand, in terms of exporting, we are by far the largest brand. The international markets have been healthier than the U.S., and so if you are a U.S.-only brand, it has been tough. Lots and lots of companies overproduced during the boom years, and that is why you are seeing so many closures and different things right now. So part of it is the international market. So those have been stronger, as I said. So that is helping to continue to move inventories. We also have an obviously very large RTD business and a very large Jack flavors business, all of which have been pretty healthy, and much of which is outside of the United States, too. So we are simply not extended anywhere near 9 or 10 years, which, as I said. Now, what do we see is happening right now?

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

In calendar 2025, there is a term called new fills, which is basically, I guess it is what it sounds like. It is filling up a new barrel. It was down 30% in calendar 2025. We do not know what the number is, but I can almost guarantee you it is going to be at least 30% this year. I just cannot imagine, because I just do not think people. They are not increasing their production levels right now. So if you have a 30 and then a 32 years in a row, you are taking out a fair amount of inventory in a pretty fast way. So that is one. We have been saying this for at least a year. Basically, the big suppliers that control most of the inventory out there are acting rational, and they are all bringing down their inventories.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

And as you said, some are closing, some are just slowing shifts or doing whatever it is, but it is definitely coming down. I would also comment on the number of craft brands. It has been brutal on those folks. The American Craft Spirits Association, which is the one that provides the data on this, while there were 3,000 craft distilleries in 2024, and I think it was closer to a year before that, peaked up somewhat closer to 4,000, went down to 2,000 in 2025. I do not know where it is going to come after this fiscal year is over. But you are talking there close to a 75% reduction in the number of craft brands that even sell in the U.S., which is almost hard to believe in some ways. But there has been a massive amount of challenge for those folks.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

But the reality is it is taking supply off the market.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. I think you highlighted, and we feel we have done a good job of really managing through this. As I mentioned earlier, doing it in the most efficient sort of a way. As Lawson alluded to, we do not feel that we are at the inventory levels of many of our competitors out there, and that has allowed us to do it. When he talked about the international markets, I think the other thing to call out is it has allowed us to do is to do some different expressions like Jack Daniel's Heritage Barrel, which honestly has been a huge hit. That was something as we looked at the whiskey we had and what the opportunities were, and created that and put it into the marketplace. We have seen significant momentum with it.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

So, we have also taken advantage of this to go out and put some things into the market that we found that consumers really, really like.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. I didn't think to say that. The Jack Super Premiums have been really successful, and I think it just goes to show, I said this at the shareholder meeting, the brand has massively wide shoulders. We can do Jack Daniel's Blackberry and a Heritage Barrel, which is $60 a bottle, by the way, and sell out both of them basically, and do very, very well. So the brand can play in a lot of different spaces within the whiskey world and can do it very successfully.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Chris Pitcher with Rothschild and Co Redburn. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Chris Pitcher
Analyst at Rothschild and Co Redburn

Thank you very much. Lawson, can I echo everyone else's best wishes? Thank you for your patience over the many years. A couple of questions. Firstly, on Ready to Drink. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on the New Mix expansion. Can you give us a bit of color on where the growth is coming from within the U.S.? Is it specifically biased by certain states? Then more broadly, how is the Jack and Cola Ready to Drink strategy going, not just in the United States, but internationally? Then perhaps a follow-up question, forgive me slightly. You mentioned that you've given the trade better margins for tequila to incentivize them, but it doesn't look like you're getting the return on that. Do you think you need more salespeople actually getting out there into the market for tequila?

Chris Pitcher
Analyst at Rothschild and Co Redburn

Is there a slightly different coverage versus whiskey that we need to think about? I just want to understand how you're reviewing that incentive and whether you think you're getting a return on it. Thanks.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Okay. That was a bunch.

Chris Pitcher
Analyst at Rothschild and Co Redburn

Sorry.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

That's all right. I'm not even sure what the question was around New Mix. Which part of the country is it doing?

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. We've just started rolling it out in the U.S. in a limited number of locations and focused on some more larger cities, with also significant Mexican American type of populations because it's been so successful growing in Mexico. And again, we see the continued growth of that in Mexico. And we've expanded that distribution throughout the U.S., and we intend to continue to do that throughout this year. So you'll see that coming continuously. el Jimador Spritz, our el Jimador Tequila Spritz, we're also bringing that into the marketplace. And then you've also got the Jack Daniel's Blackberry Lemonade RTD that is hitting the markets right now. And again, those are just some examples. New Mix has been the biggest for us, but we do have other areas where we're seeing significant growth with the RTDs.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Yeah. If you just take a step back for a second on the RTD category as a whole, which is continuing to grow and get to be a bigger and bigger piece of, really, the U.S. spirits market. If you look at TDS in either NABCA or Nielsen, it's down sort of between a half and 1 point, I think I said earlier. But if you pull RTDs out of that number, it's more like mid-single digits down. So, it is a real contributor. And we're big in this business and want to be bigger. I can tell you the New Mix, interestingly, it's only in 9 states right now. And as Jim said, it tends to be in states where there's heavy concentrations of Mexican American consumers, but it's already the eighth-largest contributor to the RTD category in Nielsen. And that's fast.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

We feel pretty good about that. The Jack and Cola or Jack and Coke RTD, overall, it declined 4% last year, so not lighting the world's on fire, but we continue to plow forward. We continue to now, and I think 40 countries around the world. We have a really good relationship. We continue to refine it with The Coca-Cola Company, as it is something very new for them. It is going, but the reality is, and we know this now, that consumer preference, the vast majority of the volumes in the RTD category are light and refreshing. Obviously, Cola, although it can be light and refreshing, is generally not considered that. We are going to continue to focus on RTDs that do upon what the consumers are looking for in a bigger and bigger way.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

We feel pretty good that we are off to a good start. What was the third one?

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Trade margin on tequila.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Oh, okay.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

and it's driving the benefits.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Would we like more salespeople on tequila? Sure. But I don't think that's necessarily the answer to our challenges. Relative to whiskey or whatever it might be, I don't think that's the driving factor that's going to turn around the direction of either of those brands. As I sort of read earlier, el Jimador's already making nice improvements. I think we've done the right things there. We just got to continue to get it and to grow. Herradura is a bit of a different situation given where its price point is. But over a long period of time, like over a 10-year CAGR, both of those brands have held up pretty well. It's only been the last couple of years where that it's declined. The issue was, if you go over a 10-year period, the category was booming, and we were not exactly booming.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

But we still had mid-single digit growth for a long time. So it gets maligned a little bit too much, I think.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Gregory Porter with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Gregory Porter
Gregory Porter
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Hey, everyone. Thank you for the time. Just a quick question on the Blackberry opportunity outside the U.S. Clearly, it is doing a really great job in the U.S. market. Outside the U.S., if you could just talk a little bit more about the timing and what you guys see for the opportunity. I know you flagged markets like Brazil and Mexico that should help results later on this year. Just kind of thinking about the sizing there and then which other markets you are looking to roll out the brand. Thank you.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

Well, look, it is off to a great start, and I know some folks are worried about the lapping of the launches and all that kind of thing. Let me back up for a second because I think we said this upon the launch, but it was always sort of a two-year plan. We are just entering, or we are in the second year now. First year was largely U.S., and it had a heavy concentration in the 750 size, and that was very successful about that. Somewhere, I am not sure when they actually, cannot remember when they started, springtime or late winter, about six months ago, we started to bring it to the international markets. That has happened now. In the U.S., we are back to now we are really into the size, pack sizes, and bringing different ones out now, and that has happened really over the summer.

Lawson Whiting
Lawson Whiting
President and CEO at Brown-Forman

The plan has always been to make this a two-year launch, and I think we feel pretty good about it. As far as where else we may see decent volumes, I think it is going to be the markets where our flavors have been successful. That would range anywhere from the U.K., Czech, Australia, Brazil. Those markets all are big flavor markets, and I do not know, it is hard for me to sit here and say we think it is going to be 1 million cases. You look at Apple, and its international business is big, so it is Honey. We have got a long way to go before we fully develop that brand, and feel pretty confident that we are going to be able to do that.

Jim Peters
Jim Peters
EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman

Yeah, and I think adding what I said earlier is that as we bring out the Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry & Lemonade RTD, it is just another example of how we can take a brand or a product like a flavored whiskey and then move it into the RTD space. You are just using that as an example of innovation of not only can we take it into different sizes, into different markets, we are also looking at different formats. How do we use it in things like RTDs? That then just opens up even more opportunities. We believe that will be successful, and then it creates us other opportunities with some of our flavors down the line.

Operator

Thank you. We have now reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Sue Perram for closing remarks.

Sue Perram
Sue Perram
VP and Director of Investor Relations at Brown-Forman

Thank you. Thank you, Lawson and Jim, and to everyone for joining us today for Brown-Forman's first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call. If you have any additional questions, please contact us. We look forward to participating in the Barclays Global Consumer Conference next week and hope to see many of you there. For those of you unable to attend, our fireside chat on Wednesday will be made available as a webcast accessible via the Brown-Forman corporate website under the section titled Investors Events and Presentations. Today, it's actually a truly special day. We are honoring the birthday of our founder, George Garvin Brown, born on September 2, 1846. Alongside celebrating his 180th birthday today, there are barrel-filling operations underway at the Old Forester Distillery as we are preparing for George's 200th birthday celebration. So happy birthday, George. With that, this concludes our call.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Analysts
    • Sue Perram
      VP and Director of Investor Relations at Brown-Forman
    • Lawson Whiting
      President and CEO at Brown-Forman
    • Jim Peters
      EVP and CFO at Brown-Forman
    • Drew Levine
      Analyst at JPMorgan
    • Peter Grom
      Analyst at UBS
    • Nadine Sarwat
      Analyst at Bernstein
    • Nik Modi
      Analyst at RBC
    • Lauren Lieberman
      Analyst at Barclays
    • Bill Kirk
      Analyst at Roth Capital Partners
    • Seamus Cassidy
      Analyst at TD Cowen
    • Eric Serotta
      Analyst at Morgan Stanley
    • Chris Pitcher
      Analyst at Rothschild and Co Redburn
    • Gregory Porter
      Analyst at Evercore ISI
Powered by Quartr