With RNDC reeling, Jose Cuervo says "adios"

Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will be updated periodically with new information. If you have tips about what’s going on at RNDC, please get in touch by emailing me ([email protected]) or texting me on Signal (dinfontay.11). Anonymity available.—Dave.

Less than a year after major suppliers began abandoning Republic National Distributing Company in California en masse in advance of an unprecedented collapse in that state, Jose Cuervo’s parent company will pull its volume off the firm’s trucks in nearly all of its markets nationwide, Fingers has learned. The exit of Proximo Spirits, one of the largest spirits suppliers in the country and RNDC’s largest remaining liquor client, was detailed in a memo marked “confidential” and sent to RNDC employees Thursday morning.

“California played a significant role in how Proximo structured its national distribution,” reads a portion of the memo obtained by Fingers from a current RNDC worker. “Following RNDC's decision to close the California business, Proximo reassessed its overall approach and determined a different structure was warranted.”

RNDC did not immediately respond to request for comment. Several hours after this report was published, Proximo Spirits issued a statement to Fingers confirming its plans to move its business from RNDC.

“Proximo has re-aligned its route-to-market strategy across the United States following a national review of distributor and brokerage performance,” said Proximo vice-president of media and communications Jennie Webb in an emailed statement. “[T]he company will move its distribution and brokerage business away from [RNDC] in all current territories, except for Georgia and New Mexico.”

This differs slightly from RNDC’s own internal memo, which claimed Proximo’s move applied to “all markets.” But regardless, the departure represents another massive body blow to RNDC after a brutal 2025 that featured a disastrous retreat the country’s biggest liquor market, as well as the untimely death of its interim chief executive, a company veteran called back to the c-suite this past February in hopes of steadying the wobbling wholesaler. A one-time rival of Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, the country’s largest beverage-alcohol distributor, RNDC has been losing key suppliers since early 2023, when The Sazerac Company pulled its entire portfolio (Fireball, Southern Comfort, Buffalo Trace…) off RNDC trucks. That exit would set in motion turmoil at the firm that eventually triggered an exodus in early 2025, when Tito’s Handmade Vodka—the country’s top full-bottle liquor brand—bailed from RNDC’s California book. A flood of high-volume, name-brand suppliers followed, including Gallo’s High Noon (the #1 RTD in the country), Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Cutwater (in CA, plus Hawaii and a dozen control states), and Brown-Forman Company’s entire portfolio (CA + 10 other markets nationally.)

On June 3rd, 2025 RNDC confirmed my scoop that it would exit itself from California, leaving every supplier in its 100-page book to line up an alternative route to market in an unheard-of two-month summer scramble, and leaving thousands of workers out of a job.

It’s not clear whether Proximo’s just-announced exit from RNDC will trigger more employee cuts at the reeling distributor, but the portion of the company’s memo that I obtained leaves that door open:

A current employee I spoke with on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from RNDC leadership expressed skepticism at the company’s insistence that Proximo’s departure was unavoidable and not due to performance.

“It sounds like a ‘it’s not you it’s me’ kind of thing,” they told Fingers in a text exchange Thursday morning. “They don’t want the company morale to suffer more than already has. It’s been a hard year for a lot of suppliers.”

This exit puts fresh blood in the water, and RNDC’s rivals—many of whom enjoyed a feeding frenzy last year in California as the firm’s brands jumped ship there—are circling. Rumors have swirled for months on social media about major wine and spirits brands about to part ways with the distributor, in an uncanny redux of the 2025 California diaspora. The stakes are especially high for smaller wine and spirits brands that have fewer resources than a firm like Proximo, and less leverage to negotiate decent contracts with new wholesalers.

“Huge crisis coming, especially for wineries but small- to medium-sized distillers as well,” said a distillery owner in the Pacific Northwest who shifted the rest of their company’s volume from RNDC to another wholesaler after getting entangled in its California exit last year via text Thursday morning. (I have granted them anonymity so they can speak without endangering important middle-tier relationships at a delicate moment for their business.) “If [we] hadn’t switched […] we could’ve been out of business right now.”

This story was updated at 3:25pm ET on 1/8 to include a statement from Proximo Spirits.

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