Miami-based Avalon Spirits Corp., a newly formed distilled spirits marketing and sales company, has announced the acquisition of TSS Brands, the owners of Whiskey Row Bourbon.

The goal of Avalon is to acquire and build an elite portfolio of super premium spirits brands both fully owned and with appropriate partners. It was started by John Glover, a spirits industry veteran, who most recently served as chief operating officer of Castle Brands until it was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2019. Under Glover’s leadership, Castle developed Jefferson’s Bourbon, a super-premium award-winning bourbon. 

Avalon’s first brand is Whiskey Row, the brainchild of Steve Thompson, a legendary whiskey executive and member of the Bourbon Hall of Fame.

Whiskey Row is named after the section of Main Street in Louisville, Ky., where the modern bourbon business was born. Distillers and Blenders on Whiskey Row brought in whiskey shipped up and down the Ohio River to Louisville and aged and bottled it and shipped it to cities across the United States, the company says. Whiskey Row is a tribute to the pioneering spirit of those early entrepreneurs, it adds.

“The acquisition of Whiskey Row will allow Avalon to start operations with a super-premium brand conceived and developed by one of the foremost experts in the bourbon industry,” Glover said in a statement. “The brand pays tribute to the iconic district in Louisville, Ky., where the modern bourbon business began. Our vision is to offer unique, delicious expressions of bourbon and other whiskey by bringing together the best of craft distillation, careful maturation and selective blending of complementary distillates."

Richard Lampen, former CEO of Castle Brands and current director of Avalon, added: “We strongly believe that the time is ripe for a company like Avalon. We have assembled an outstanding group of investors with both the expertise and resources to establish and build a world class company. In addition, John Glover and the rest of our management team have proven skills in partnering with outstanding brand owners and successfully creating attractive, profitable products that will stand the test of time.”

Whiskey Row now is available in select markets in the United States and will be progressively rolled out in the United States and to major whiskey markets in Europe and the rest of the world.