U.S. Licensed Distillerys

What the Data Shows for U.S. Distillerys

The federal TTB permittee registry currently lists 2,263 active distillerys operating in the United States. Distilled spirits plants (DSPs) producing whiskey, vodka, rum, gin, and other spirits. Includes craft distilleries and large-scale producers. Every row in the ranking table below reflects a federally licensed facility — not a state-level estimate, not an industry-association count, and not a marketing roll-up. These are DSP (Distilled Spirits Plant) permit holders — the federal license class for any facility that produces, bottles, warehouses, or processes spirits. The craft-distillery category tracked by industry groups is a subset of this total.

Geographic concentration is the single most useful signal in state-level rankings. California leads with 137 active distillerys, followed by Texas (123) and New York (111). Those clusters usually reflect a combination of climate (for wineries), favorable state ABC licensing rules (for breweries and distilleries), and local capital access for facility build-out. A state's ranking here is a lagging indicator of 5–10 years of regulatory and market conditions, not a snapshot of current growth.

Federal distillery counts should be read alongside state-level context. The TTB regulates production, labeling, and federal excise tax; each state's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) authority regulates licensing, retail sale, distribution, and state-level excise. A state with many TTB distillerys but restrictive ABC rules (direct-shipping bans, franchise-distribution laws, taproom caps) can have a crowded producer side and a constrained retail side at the same time. For public-health comparisons, NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) tracks consumption independently — producer counts do not map cleanly to per-capita drinking or alcohol-related harm.