The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) announced on Dec. 6 that it was granted $1,121,789 through its partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Market Access Program (MAP) to promote American spirits exports in 2022, a nearly 100 percent increase over 2021 funding levels. “DISCUS’ export promotion program continues to drive big results for U.S. distillers and has been incredibly beneficial for small craft distillers looking to expand into foreign markets,” said Charles McEntee, Director of Export Promotion, DISCUS. McEntee said that total exports resulting directly from DISCUS export promotion activities increased from $625,000 between July 2019 to June 2020 to $1,224,000 between July 2020 to June 2021. DISCUS began participating in the program in 2006 and has conducted spirits promotions in cooperation with USDA in 20 foreign markets. Since that time, total U.S. spirits exports increased by nearly 66%, from $831 million in 2006 to $1.4 billion in 2020. In addition to MAP, DISCUS still has funding available from the $1,215,000 grant it received in 2019 under USDA’s Agriculture Trade Program (ATP), which was set up specifically to assist those agricultural groups that are being adversely impacted by retaliatory tariffs. The ATP program expires in 2024, and the remainder of the funding will be used to supplement DISCUS’ MAP allocation.